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Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
October 8, 2006
Delivered by Reverend Sandra Stayner
Genesis 2:18-24
Hebrew 2:9-18
Mark 10:2-9
Thoughts on Divorce
I wonder what you thought when you heard the gospel this morning. If you missed the story for some reason you can find it at the bottom of your scripture insert. I suspect many of us heard these among us who are or have been happily married. Others might be wondering how the church can allow divorce given these words of Jesus. (Of course, throughout most of its history the Christian church has not allowed divorce!) The Pharisees' question seems quite clear. They seem to be asking about Jesus' views on marriage and divorce. "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"
Actually, the Pharisees' are not really interested in Jesus' views at all. They are simply trying to draw him into a controversy that was going on among religious leaders at the time about the grounds upon which a husband might be permitted by Torah to divorce his wife, (an argument about how scripture should be understood.) In the Torah (the Jewish law, written in the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures, the section of our scriptures which is called the Old Testament) it was allowable for a husband to divorce his wife. The question was under what circumstances? Could a husband divorce his wife just because he felt like it, or only after she had committed a serious fault? The Pharisees were trying to hook Jesus into taking one side against the other thus allowing the group with whom he disagreed to condemn him for his answer. I think it's pretty interesting that even in the first century people were fighting about the meaning of scripture!
To their surprise Jesus refuses to get caught up in their petty disagreements. He completely sidesteps their argument - which is smart! But it's the way he answers them that is really surprising! He says that the commandment in the Torah (the Scriptures) that allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and divorce his wife - was only put there because of the hardness of the people's hearts. Of course, this begs the question of Jesus' interpretation of Scripture. Could Jesus really be saying that some bible verses express not the perfect will of God, but allowances that had to be made for the incredible hardness of heart of some of God's people?
What I've realized over the years is that we have to be really careful and intelligent about the way we read scripture or we are going to make big mistakes in our understanding of who God is. The religious leaders of Jesus' time - the learned, holy spiritual leaders - were making some big mistakes in their interpretation of the Torah, mistakes which Jesus seems to think came from their hardness of heart. What seems to trouble Jesus in his conversations with religious leaders is not their ability to adhere strictly to the law Jesus but rather their lack of compassion, their lack of concern for their fellow human beings.
At this point we should perhaps take a moment to look at marriage and divorce as it was in Jesus' time, which is very different from today's expectation of marriage as a mutual agreement between two consenting adults who have fallen in love and want to live the rest of their lives together. In Jesus' time Marriages were contracts between two families, involving property, status and honor. Divorce could easily lead to family feuds, shame and great hardship, especially for the woman's family who, because woman couldn't live on their own, would be required to receive the woman back into their lives to feed, clothe and house for the rest of her life. The Torah allowed a man to divorce his wife, but the consequences for her and for her family could be absolutely devastating in ways that are hard for us to understand today.
In his reference to a scripture from Genesis Jesus explains what God from the very beginning of time intended for the institution of marriage. "A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." What is created when two people are joined together in God's name is something that is good, very good, something that should never be willfully tossed away. Indeed the institution of marriage was created as a way for men and women to learn to love as God has loved us. Jesus tells us that this is still God's intention for the institution of marriage.
But life is less than perfect, as we all know. It is possible for some people who are married to hurt one another so often that their hearts become hardened towards one another. They grow so far apart that they are incapable of living together in peace and mutual respect. The Church, recognizing Jesus' constant focus on the compassion and mercy of God the Father makes room for those whose lives are less than perfect to make a new start - not by willfully tossing one another away, but by a mutual agreement that the marriage contract between them must be severed and the two go their separate ways. (The church is also clear that both parties must take full responsibility for the care and nurture of children involved in the break up.) Using Scripture as an excuse for men and women to woefully mistreat one another was and still is contrary to God's plan. Jesus' condemnation of the hardness of heart that refuses to take into consideration the life of the injured party is just as powerful today as when he was speaking to the Pharisees, and we should never think otherwise.
Listen to what William Countryman says in his sermon about these scriptures. "What Jesus is really doing in this story is turning the whole use of scripture on its head. The scriptures, he says, are not a book of statute law to protect the "powerful", they are a book of astonishing insights into God's extraordinary generosity. The purpose of God all through the scriptures is the well - being of God's beloved human creatures. If you find things in the Scriptures that seem to speak otherwise, consider who benefits from that. Whose hardness of heart caused that blemish in the sacred text, whose hardness of heart is maintaining that interpretation even now?" He goes on to say, "When religious people (that's us) read Holy Scripture we are still capable of using it to support and affirm our own hard-heartedness. White Christians in the early 10th century justified slavery by the Bible. After the Civil War, they justified discrimination against blacks by the Bible. Christians have justified wars by the Bible. Christians have justified Inquisitions by the Bible. Christians have justified the subordination of women by the Bible." And I want to add that some Christians still justify discrimination against Gay and Lesbian persons by using the Bible.
If we are to respond faithfully to the words of Jesus in our scriptures today we must embrace his warning to the Pharisees not to use scripture as a way of acting on hardness of heart. The words of Jesus are always life-giving, life-affirming. They are meant to break open the meanness and judgment in our lives that prevent us from reaching out with compassion to every human being we encounter. It is only as we seek to turn our whole lives over to love of God that God's truth will be made known.
I have a special word for you children who are caught in the middle of parents who are seeking a divorce. God knows how painful it is for you to see your parents or the parents of your friends turn against each other and decide to go their separate ways. It is really not God's desire for you to be hurt so badly. But sometimes things go wrong in this world, and we adults are not as perfect as we wish we could be. If two people have come to a place in their relationship that they really can't live together any more it might be the best thing for everyone for them to live apart. The wonderful thing about God is that he is able to bring good out of the most terrible situations. He will never abandon you, however hard life might seem. God will always be with you and you can always cry out to him to help you get through the bad times. And we at St. Peter's are here for you and your parents to help in whatever way we can. So don't despair. Trust God. He loves you very, very much.
In Christ's name
Amen |
