Text: Mark 10:2-12 RSV
Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
In the Beginning
When I first learned that I would be preaching this morning I went to my copy of the Revised Common Lectionary to see what Gospel passage was selected for this day. Finding that the selection from the Gospel of Mark was on divorce my immediate reaction was to see what the other readings for this day were. The first word out of my mouth was “NEXT”.
I briefly looked at the passage from Job, then Hebrews, and then the Psalm. But as I looked at each of the passages I found myself being drawn back to the Gospel text. I began to wrestle with the question, why was I resisting this reading from the gospel of Mark. What was it about this passage that caused me to want to skip it and seek something else?
There are many reasons why a pastor or the modern church might want to skip this passage. After all, there are plenty of other passages that are not included in the lectionary. For example I have yet to hear a sermon on Psalm 137:9; ‘Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!” It has been a long time since I have heard a sermon on how women should keep quiet, with covered heads, in church. Although I suspect there are still some preachers around who think this is an important message. And there may be some of us gathered here today who wish that I had followed my first instinct to skip today’s passage from Mark. There is no doubt, that for those of us living in this postmodern world, this passage, from the Gospel of Mark, raises a very uncomfortable issue.
Reasons to Skip this Text
There are some very good reasons why we should consider skipping this text. The first reason for me is professional. What preacher in his right mind would choose a text on divorce as the sermon for his first Sunday at a church. When I think of first sermons I usually think of Sermons that uplift and inspire people to new beginnings. And, as all too many of us are painfully aware, divorce is about endings. It takes a significant amount of healing after a divorce before one is ready to seriously contemplate new beginnings. There seems to be very little in this passage today that is uplifting or inspiring.
The second reason is personal. I am divorced and have happily remarried. If taken literally this passage condemns me, and anyone in a similar situation, as an adulterer. I certainly do not think of myself as an adulterer. Any such accusation about my marriage to Cathy, my best friend, my lover, my wife is insulting and hurtful -- even when coming from our sacred scripture.
The third reason has to do with the divisive nature of Jesus’ heterosexual words at a time when many of our churches are seeking to be open and affirming to people of differing sexual orientation. And for many of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters this passage represents one of the passages that have been historically used to condemn and exclude them from Christian fellowship.
The fourth reason for skipping this text has to do with pastoral responsibility for those who look to me for pastoral care and words of comfort. It would not surprise me if there are not some of us here today that find this passage causes deep feelings of pain and anxiety to come up from the deep recesses of their memories or from recent or current events.
Finally, there is our responsibility to our brothers and sisters who find themselves in abusive marital relationships. Through out the history of the church this text has been used to encourage women in particular to stay in an abusive marriage that I am convinced God did not intend.
If there is anyone gathered here experiencing feelings of hurt or anger over the use of this passage I want you to know that I share those feelings with you, and that I both apologize and ask your patience as we together seek to hear God’s word still speaking to us this day from this passage in the gospel of Mark.
So what is going on in this text from the gospel of Mark?
The Narrative
Jesus is struggling with the reality that he is on his way to Jerusalem to die. Jesus knows that what remains of his life is going to be consumed by suffering, humiliation, and a painful death. All of this is going to happen at the hands of the occupying Government of the Roman Empire with the full support of the religious community that he claims as his own. He will be abandoned by his closest friends at his time of trial, and denied by the very disciple he has proclaimed as the future rock on which his church will be built.
Already he has told his disciples and those who followed him twice that he was going to his death. He will only tell them once more. It seems the only response he gets from those gathered to him is confusion, misunderstanding, and even at times indifference. Instead of joining Jesus in preparation of what is before him, offering him comfort and the companionship I am sure he sorely desired, Jesus was faced with controversies, disputes, and arguments from adversarial religious leaders, who came one after another to test and challenge him and his teachings, along with the petty little arguments and misunderstandings of his disciples. The disciples and practitioners of the law are so consumed in their legalistic arguments that they are deaf to the Living Word of a God still speaking in their midst.
While the Pharisees are making a legalistic argument, Jesus’ response is about relationships. Jesus begins in the very beginning reminding the Pharisees that God is the creator of Men and Women and that human relationship with one another is preceded by human relationship with the Creator. It is this sacred fundamental relationship between human individuals and their Creator that governs how we are to live our lives and how we are to join our lives to others. Any relationship created outside of the love of God, whether allowed by law or proscribed by religious tradition, are in fact acts of infidelity to our sacred relationship with our Creator.
Jesus’ response to the Pharisees, and their quoting of scriptural law, is to name the motive underlying the very need for law, that is, the hardness of heart that all to often consumes the human experience in this life. It is our hardness of heart that gets in the way of our call to love and our fidelity to the others we join our lives with.
For those of us who have suffered through a divorce we know first hand the devastating necessity for hardness of heart just to get through the break up of a marriage. It takes a hard heart to see your family break up around you, the loss of second mothers, second fathers, sisters and brothers by marriage that have come to define who we are as members of a family. It takes a hard heart to turn family decisions over to lawyers who will decide on your behalf who gets the home, which personal possession, mementos of a history together being torn apart. It takes a hard heart to enter into a legal dispute over who gets the children, is it going to be joint custody or sole custody, what are the visitation rights going to be. How are we as parents going to divide our time with our children now that the family unit has been torn apart. It takes a hard heart indeed to go through a divorce. It is because of our hard hearts that we have the law, and we have divorce lawyers. The Pharisees are making a legalistic argument. Jesus is talking about relationships.
So if God is still speaking what has God to say to us here today. Is there any good news to be had from this hard teaching on divorce? What is the good news for those of us living in a time where divorce is such a common human experience?
The Good News!
The good news is that while the Pharisees are testing Jesus to see if he knows his law, Jesus is telling anyone with ears to hear a love story. Let me say that again, Jesus is telling a love story!
This is a story about a God who loved creating and loves his creation. God created us as sexual beings for one another. Fundamental to our very creation is a human longing to love someone, and a longing to be loved by someone, no matter what our created sexual orientation might be. There is within the very ground of our created being a deep desire to be joined with another human being, forming a lasting love that will nurture and sustain each partner till by death do they part.
We share with our creator a desire for love, a longing for companionship, a need to be joined in a relationship of love in which we can become more than our individual selves without violating our created individuality, together transcending our individual selves. In fact this is a love that while creating a union between two lovers, affirms the sacredness of the individual partner within the loving relationship. This is a love that God promises us, calls us to, and sanctifies as holy.
We put our hope in a type of love that springs forth and enfolds every space of our wakeful days and our restful nights. The world may accuse us of being dreamers, for believing in a love that overcomes the vulgarity of human frailty. But to the contrary, it is this very love that provides human creatures with the way, the desire, and the strength of fidelity to God’s love story, in the very midst of the world’s daily call to infidelity.
The world may call us dreamers, but it is the love of God for God's creation, and God’s promise that we can actively take part in that love through our relationships with another human being, that provides us with a very real understanding of God’s love for us as human creatures. Any life, any promise, and any relationship that is built on anything other than the promise of God that we are capable of true love is built on a fantasy that only leads to hardened hearts and broken homes.
If you have been graced to get this right the first time, and are fulfilling God's promise in your marriage, we celebrate this day your witness to God's love. If you are in search of the love of your life, not yet having experience the joys and trials of marriage I challenge you to take seriously the type of love God has promised you. And if you are like me, celebrating the opportunity of a second chance to experience the blessing of true love with another human being, take time to thank God for the grace of healing and new beginnings.
And let us remember, Jesus is telling a love story. He is describing a relationship that completes us as God's creation. Jesus is talking about a relationship that brings two unique people together in such a way that without loosing or compromising the uniqueness God has given each of us as individuals makes us one with an other. God promises us that this type of love is both real and possible for each one of us. What God’s love has joined together, let no one put asunder.
Note: This sermon was first written for the wonderful people of First Congregational Church, Council Bluffs, Iowa, and was delivered on the 18th Sunday after Pentecost year B, October 9, 2009.
