Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
NL Daily Devotion for Wednesday, January 25, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Sometimes Jesus was truly forward-thinking when it came to women. Other times, like this, he was completely bound by the cultural thinking of his particular context. I mean, isn’t it adultery to look at a man lustfully? It’s not like women don’t do this. Why is marrying a divorced woman (v. 32) committing adultery but not marrying a divorced man? It calls out women as objects of sexualization without agency and I have such a hard time moving past my modern lens to glean whatever gospel is to be found here.
In Matthew 19, Jesus’ teaching on divorce is slightly different. He lays the responsibility at the feet of the men—if you divorce your wife and marry someone else, you commit adultery, not the divorced wife. Here he is looking out for the oppressed community of women whose security is wholly dependent on being married or having sons to support her. It’s a far cry from equality for women, but it’s something.
What’s most challenging for me when I read passages like this is the recognition that these Judeo-Christian attitudes about women and sexuality persist to this day. It is not just the fully human Jesus who was bound by the cultural thinking of his context. Two thousand years later women and girls are still overly sexualized (especially BIPOC women) and given less agency than men. Maybe this was Jesus’ attempt to reign in the male fixation on sex and move them toward a more egalitarian ideal. I don’t know. Because we’re still nowhere near there.
How do my religious beliefs inform my attitudes about sexuality and marriage?
