Sermon for SMHP, Year B, Proper 22, Oct. 7, 2018
Mark 10:2-16
2Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus
they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3Jesus answered them, “What did Moses
command you?”4They said, “Moses
allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” 5But Jesus said to them, “Because of your
hardness of heart Moses wrote this commandment for you. 6But from the beginning of creation, ‘God
made them male and female.’ 7‘For
this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his
wife, 8and the two shall
become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let
no one separate.”
10Then in the house the disciples asked
him again about this matter. 11He
said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery
against her; 12and if she
divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
13People were bringing little children to
him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to
them. 14But when Jesus saw
this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me;
do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.15Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive
the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” 16And he took them up in his arms, laid his
hands on them, and blessed them.
So…divorce
is a bummer.
It
is very important that you hear what I am saying here, because I don’t want
anyone going home and posting on social media that Pastor Donna preached a
sermon judging divorced people.
You
know, because I know you spend your Sunday afternoons reacting to my sermons on
social media.
I
do want you to hear what Jesus is saying to us this morning, and what we can
probably agree to: in general, divorce
is a bummer.
Except
in cases of abuse, when divorce can literally be a life-saver. And in other cases I bet we can name, cases
in which the greater good could be found in an amicable parting, rather than an
antagonistic pairing.
So
even as we hear Jesus offering this morning those words which are still
pronounced in many a marriage ceremony—“What God has joined together, let no
one separate”…even as we hear those words, and we recognize a clear
preferential option for marriage over divorce…
…we
want to start by acknowledging that it should be clear that the concern Jesus
is raising here is the same one he has been raising to us for three weeks
now—first in Capernaum, and now in “Judea and beyond the Jordan”: concern for the most vulnerable members of
society.
Divorce in the time
of Jesus left vulnerable people—women, and often children—without the means to live
a good and productive life. The division
of labor was clear—men work for money or goods, women tend the home. There were rare exceptions, but the structure
of first century Palestinian life was pretty simple and consistent.
And
marriage structured the household for the care of all the people—women, men,
children. It was outlined throughout
scripture, and reiterated by Jesus that day “beyond the Jordan:” “a man shall leave his father and mother and
be joined to his wife, 8and
the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh.”
God
intends for us to be in relationship with one another. God longs for us to be in
relationship. Shortly after creating the
first human, God realized that a second human was necessary. According to the Genesis account, which we
heard this morning, as soon as God called that second human into being, God
ordained marriage as the structure for their life together.
And
it is possible to read the account in Genesis 2 and assume that God’s only hope
for deep relationship is marriage between a man and a woman.
If
you don’t read past Genesis 2, that is.
Further
on in Genesis, and throughout the scriptural narrative, human beings are called
into several types of deep relationships of love and fidelity.
Abraham
loved his son Isaac so much that God used that relationship to test the depths
of Abraham’s faith.
Moses
couldn’t have been Moses without his sister Miriam’s strength and his brother
Aaron’s voice.
James
and John, the Sons of Thunder, are seemingly inseparable disciples of Jesus who
speak and act in unison.
David
the future king, loved the son of King Saul, Jonathan, so much that upon the
death of Jonathan, David sang this Psalm:
I am distressed
for you, my brother Jonathan;
greatly beloved were you to me;
your love to me was wonderful,
passing the love of women.[1]
greatly beloved were you to me;
your love to me was wonderful,
passing the love of women.[1]
Ruth
swore fealty to her mother-in-law Naomi.
“Where you go I will go,
and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my
God.”[2]
And
then there are these two. Joseph defied
the law to marry a woman carrying a child not his own. And raised the son of God to be a great human
as well as a great Messiah.
So
many relationships. So many kinds of
relationships. Parents and children,
stepparents and children, siblings, friends, lovers.
Relationships
marked by bonds of all kinds which share one trait: a sense that the destiny of the one is caught
up in the destiny of the other, caught up in what Dr. King called “an
inescapable mutuality.”
Think
about the relationships in your life. It
is my hope for you, and it is certainly God’s hope for you, that you have those
sorts of relationships, relationships of “inescapable mutuality.” God ordained those relationships because they
serve important purposes for us.
When
God created the first woman, it was with clear purpose…which was?
Help
and companionship.
A
marriage relationship, and for that matter any other sort of covenantal
relationship, should provide love and companionship. God ordained marriage in order to provide a
helper, a lover, a companion for Adam.
The marriage relationship shelters the persons within it, especially
those who are vulnerable. Protection of
the vulnerable is one of its primary purposes.
Protection
of the vulnerable should be a primary goal of any of us who claim Jesus
Christ. For three weeks now in our
gospel lessons, alongside discourses on a range of topics, Jesus has been
drawing little children near to him. In
the midst of a conversation about marriage and divorce, Jesus insists that
children will be the ones who will inherit the kingdom.
And
during those weeks, in the world beyond this sanctuary, we have seen vulnerable
women mocked and vulnerable children locked away. If this discourse on marriage seems
antiquated to you, do look again. It is
the failure to honor and respect one another that has brought us to the
precipice of civilization.
Those
who will coax us back from the ledge will be the ones who understand as Dr.
King did, as Jesus did, that we are bound to one another, “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,
tied in a single garment of destiny.”
The
garment of our destiny is a bit frayed, but it can be mended, when we begin to
realize that God called us into relationship with one another for just that
purpose. That we might work
together.
That
we might rise together, and fall together.
That
we might build up what is good, together.
And tear down what is not.
Together.
God
ordained marriage to be a melding of equals for the purpose of care, help,
love, and joy.
God
raises up other companions for our journeys as well, because, as God noted in
God’s first moments with us, “it is not good for us to be alone.”
Let
us not be alone. Let us be
together. All of us. Honestly, the world is counting on us.
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