Talking Divorce [Proper 22B]

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Mark 10:2-16

Talking Divorce

We're gonna talk about divorce today. And I realize that for some of you, divorce is an uncomfortable topic; for some of you it drags up painful memories and hurt feelings – from your own divorce, or from your parents' divorce, or maybe from the broken marriage of a child, grandchild, or close friend. 

And I understand, that the Church has a complicated history with the topic – which is why many priests and pastors will today preach Hebrews or hold a St. Francis’ Pet Blessing or focus on the second half of this Gospel, the part about children; and I get that.  In fact this very passage from Mark's Gospel has often been used to pulverize people in one of their most vulnerable moments.  This Gospel has been used by religious leaders to further victimize women in abusive marriage relationships.  For those unexpectedly abandoned by their spouse, this text has, at times, been used to cause additional shame and pain and embarrassment.  At our worst, the Church has used biblical passages, like today's Gospel, to justify excommunication and isolation, to turn our back on those who most need to hear a word of grace, who are desperate to experience the healing message of the Gospel, who long for some kind of reconciliation.

Now considering our uncharitable history in the Church, it is certainly tempting to make up for past mistakes by ignoring this passage altogether.  Or blowing it off.  Or explaining it away.  Or pretending like it never happened.  But we can't just leave it hanging there.  Too many people have been hurt – by divorce and by the hurtful ways in which the Church has treated those who have been divorced.  And so what better place, and with what better people, to consider Jesus' words about divorce, than here?  So we're gonna talk about this tough Gospel today.  

First let's consider the context.  It is important to acknowledge that divorce in Jesus' time was a different thing than it is today – and, of course, so was marriage.  The words were the same; the concepts were very much not.  Marriage in that context was mostly a transaction.  In much of the ancient world, women were property.  Marriage was then a business deal between families, between two men: the woman's father and her betrothed.  The woman usually had no say.  Money, property, status, and honor all played important roles in the marriage arrangement.  Very rarely was love a consideration, although certainly there were loving marriages in the first century.  Girls were usually married off as close to child-bearing age as possible – usually between 12 and 20.  And while polygamy was allowed by Mosaic Law, it was rare by the time Jesus came on the scene because of financial restraints – more wives and more children required more money than most men had.  Again, financial considerations reign supreme. 

In this highly patriarchal world, divorce was incredibly frequent; it was a cultural norm.  And, as we see in the Gospel, divorce was lawful.  Even though divorce was a commonly accepted practice in Jesus' context, there were still a variety of views on divorce.  So while most everyone agreed than men should be free to divorce their wives, there were arguments over what justified the decision.  For some, and we see this elsewhere in the New Testament, only in cases of sexual infidelity (by the wife of course) was a man free to divorce.  For others though, even the smallest issue justified a husband drawing up divorce papers – like if his wife burnt his dinner or if he found a prettier gal.

It is in this context, in which women were so commonly dismissed and divorced, so easily cut off from financial security and safety, for just about any reason imaginable, that Jesus makes this strong statement about divorce.  And the Pharisees knew that he would.  They were counting on this response.  That is why they come to test him; that is why they ask the question: Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?  They know the correct answer is yes, yes it is lawful according to Deuteronomy; but also they suspect that Jesus will give the unpopular and unorthodox answer: no.

And they are correct.  So in that sense, the test worked.  But Jesus does not just give a yes-or-no answer, he goes deeper.  He doesn't contradict Moasic Law, as the Pharisees hoped he would; he goes beyond the expectations of the Law, beyond the cultural norm, beyond even the issue of divorce.  The Law allows a man to write a certificate of dismissal and divorce his wife – which actually does provide a small amount of protection for a woman; the certificate at least gives her proof that she is free to marry again without legal ramifications.  But Jesus considers that a pragmatic compromise, a concession for a species that cannot seem to sustain relationships.  It is lawful, sure, but not what God hopes for us.  As is always the case, Jesus is less interested in the letter of the Law and more interested in God's best hopes for humanity.   

But the letter of the Law is easier to follow.  And that is why, most of the time, humans, even good, religious humans, are more interested in paperwork than people.  The Pharisees were only interested divorce as a hypothetical legal matter: would Jesus rightly or wrongly interpret the Law?  They weren't interested in the human toll, the emotional struggle, the justice issues wrapped up in divorce; they weren't interested in the complexity.  The Church has often taken this same approach – ironically turning Jesus' challenge of strict legalism into its own  kind of strict legalism.  And so the result is that the Church has drained this Gospel of its Good News and turned it instead into an instrument of shame and punishment directed at those who already bear the wounds of a broken relationship.

So what is the Good News here, in this Gospel passage?  I think it might be that Jesus cares about us too much to leave any of us alone.

In some ways this passage is about divorce.  Nobody enters a marriage hoping for divorce.  Neither is that God's hope for married couples.  God loves us and does not want us to experience the pain and heartbreak that so often accompanies a broken marriage. But by appealing to the Creation story, Jesus is expanding the conversation to all human relationships.  We are meant to be one, to be reconciled with each other.  That is what God wants for us.  And that is not a message strictly for those who are married, or divorced, or remarried.  This message is for everyone.

Jesus is challenging us.  This is hard news and it is good news.  It is hard news because all of us struggle to be in relationship with other people; we confess that every week.  And while not all of us have gone through a divorce, I think it is safe to say that we all have, at one time or another, walked away from a relationship, broken off a friendship, said something hurtful, or did something unkind.  And Jesus wants us to know that, while it is perfectly legal, even socially acceptable, to end relationships, God wants something better for us.  Human relationship is one of the gifts of the Creation story.  God said it was not good for Adam to be alone.  And so God blessed him with a partner, a friend, a person.  That is not a statement just about marriage.  That is a statement about relationship, of which marriage is one kind.

And that is the good news.  God loves us too much to allow us to live in the shambles of our broken relationships.  As Christians, we are called to be ministers of reconciliation.  As Christians we are called to model that reconciliation in this world.  Before he was killed, Jesus told his disciples, “This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other.”

That is still true.  And that is why Jesus challenges his contemporaries' lax attitudes about divorce: our relationships should mean more than the paper upon which they are written.  God cares about our relationships. That is why God eternally bonds us to the entire community of the baptized; that is why God pulled the second human out of the first and the third human out of the second and so on and so on and so on.  God blessed us with connection.  And God wants us to be together.  And yes, that is an unbelievably high standard for us.  And yes, there are times when that is impossible because people are people and we hurt each other in an infinite variety of ways; people are people and sometimes the love we offer is not offered back; people are people and sometimes open arms are left empty.

But none of our failures alter God's dream for us.  God still wants us to be one.  God wants us to love each other, to be reconciled to one another, to see each other as gift.  And that is hard.  Of course.  But isn't that our dream too?  Wouldn't it be amazing to live in a world like that?  Isn't that what we imagine Heaven to be like?  No more hurt; no more pain; no more violence; no more brokenness.  Just love. 

We are Christians and this is to what we are called in this world: we are called to be ministers of reconciliation, to be the ones who believe in love, to be the ones who build Heaven on Earth, to be the ones who work to make God's impossible dream come true.