By Ransom, did Paul mean Bride Price?

A sermon for Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost Year B (with Ephesians replacing Hebrews)

Genesis 2:18-24

Psalm 8

Ephesians 5:25-33

Mark 10:2-16

Mawwage, Mawwage is what bwings us togethew today…”

Rowan Williamson in his essay, The Body’s Grace, spoke about what sexual sin is. He defines desire for another as including the desire that they desire you. This makes one vulnerable on a tragi-comic level. Sexual sin arises when one tries to control, deny or bypass this vulnerability. One way to do this is to not think of people as human but as sexual objects. We’ve been hearing a lot about in the last few weeks as well as the last few years if we’ve been paying attention.

There’s a way in which Christians fool themselves into thinking that marriage somehow fixes this problem and all sex within marriage is sinless. And while marriage may afford some confidence in mutual desire, it does not guarantee it. Truthfully, marriage for love (read desire) is a very recent thing in the West and does not exist in many places in this world. It certainly wasn’t what marriage was bout in Jesus’ time.

In Jesus time marriage was very different and there are a few things of which we need to take note. While monogamous marriage was common practice, it was not required by Jewish law. There was perhaps social pressure form monogamy being the standard in the Empire as a whole. It was most likely common practice because grooms often could not afford more than on wife. For there was a bride price.

In Jesus time women were beginning to be recognized as persons with their own thoughts and feelings. Jewish marriage practices still reflected the patriarchal view of women as domestic help and the father should be compensating for loosing that labor. Betrothal was the initial financial arrangement between families and usually happened before the bride was old enough to reproduce. A contract was drawn, a tradition still followed to this day. Marriage did not happen in the synagogue or temple, but in the bedroom once the bride was of childbearing age. There was a formal procession to the banquet hall, often at night, think of the wise and foolish virgins parable, the bedroom being a private room near the banquet hall, commonly at the groom’s father’s House.

I think most of us know that divorce in Jesus’ time, left a woman with no means of support. If that were the only reason for Jesus’ words, why would he bring up Genesis? One possibility is that he was suggesting the equality of men and women. Before Eve arrived, Adam was referred to as gender neutral in Hebrew. It was only after they were split that male and female indicators were used. (The word traditionally translated as rib, actually means side or flank.) Two equal halves of one whole. To support this idea, and for other possibilities we need to turn to Paul.

Paul instructs husbands to love their wives as themselves, thereby including women into Jesus’ second commandment, equating women with neighbors. While the equality of women was a powerful statement for the time, it’s still relevant today as recent events reveal. For Paul, however, Genesis as a model for marriage had a much deeper and mystical relevance. It is a model for Christ and the Church.

I recently read an article that suggested when Paul uses the Greek word we translate as ransom, he is metaphorically referring to the bride price for the Church. The Greek word literally means buying back from, re-purchasing what was previously forfeited or lost. I used to think the word itself implied captive or slave, but it doesn't in and of itself. In this light though, the last supper makes a bit more sense. Drinking blood was pretty much forbidden in Jewish custom, however if the blood is the bride price, then it truly seals the new covenant, the wedding contract.

On the cross, Christ paid a bride price for all of us, and we become heirs through marrying the son. Personally I see this as a model of polygamy; we are each one of us brides of Christ. Traditionally, it’s thought to be a model of monogamy, the collective Church seen as one person. Either way you see it, it makes our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving significantly less morbid, possibly even a bit erotic. A true celebration of the most significant relationship there is.

For this is a marriage of love. As a marriage of love, it does find us in a tragi-comic vulnerability. To be honest, as a pastor, I feel an echo of this vulnerability. A desire for us to love one another as Christ loved us. That is but an echo, however, not on the scale of vulnerability when we stand naked before God’s love. Let us now, as we approach the banquet, and drink our bride price, let go of any control, denial or attempts to bypass our vulnerability. Think on the idea that the love marriage between Christ and the Church is perhaps the first one ever. Let no man tear it asunder.