Mark
10:2-16, Genesis 2:18-24
Divorce. Likely everyone gathered here today has been
affected by it. Either we are people who
have divorced or we love people who gone through a divorce. Even marriages that have remained intact
often have at least one story of struggle where divorce was weighed as an
option. But there are other ways to
handle difficulties that arise in marriage.
Once when Ruth Graham, wife of the famous preacher, Billy Graham, was
asked if she ever considered divorce she innocently replied, “Divorce? No.
Murder, yes.”
“Is it lawful for
a man to divorce his wife?” This is the
question the Pharisees pose to Jesus in our gospel today. Let me just say here that a superficial read
of Jesus’ response has caused way too much pain and suffering to the people who
have needed God’s grace the most. Now everyone around Jesus knew the answer to
the Pharisees’ question. The law of
Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and divorce his
wife. Jesus doesn’t bother to quibble
with this. Instead he goes straight to
the heart of the matter. "Because
of your hardness of heart,” Jesus explains, “Moses wrote this commandment for
you.” And he goes on to reference the
act of creation and relationship where the two become one flesh and declares,
“Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
It’s important to
remember that marriage in first century Palestine was quite different than
marriages of today. Back then marriage
was not a choice between individuals, but an arrangement between families, in
particular the men in the families.
Marriage was a tool to ensure economic stability and social
privilege. A woman’s body was treated as
property belonging first to her father and then to her husband. Debate within Jewish circles of the time was
not about if a man could divorce his
wife but how - under what
circumstances was it lawful. One popular
teaching coming out of the scribal school of Hillel gave the man complete
impunity. He could divorce, or dispose
of, his wife for any reason at any time.
While the Shammai school limited divorce to cases of adultery. In a world where women had no legal
protection and were totally dependent on their husbands’ support, the prospect
of divorce put women at great risk.
Given this reality, Jesus’ prohibition against divorce puts him on the
side of the weak and the vulnerable providing some degree of protection for the
women of his time from men who might use divorce for their own benefit.
Fast forward
roughly two thousand years and, at least in most industrialized countries,
things have changed greatly. Marriage
has become less about gaining security and more about people seeking mutual
fulfillment. Taking Jesus words out of
their cultural context and uncritically using them as an unbreakable command
against divorce denies the spirit of care and concern that pervades this
text. Not to mention we miss the real
point that Jesus is trying to make. As
is often the case, Jesus is not so concerned about the state of the law, but
the state of the heart.
Divorce isn’t
really the issue here. It’s a symptom of
a much more serious problem - that problem being hardness of heart. And it’s not just married or divorced people
who suffer from such hardness. All of
us, to some degree or another, do.
Regardless of our marital status, if we have known division and
separation in a relationship we have experienced divorce in our lives. Yes, hardness of heart splits up marriages,
but it also divides parents from children, brothers from sisters, Republicans
from Democrats, Christians from Muslims, whites from blacks, rich from
poor. This type of separation goes
beyond having differences with one another it’s about coming to the point where
one has no need for the other.
But before it
comes to this, before any type of a relationship ends in that final kind of
division or divorce, separation begins first in the heart - either in our own
or in another’s. We start by isolating
ourselves. We put up emotional walls and
hunker down. Often we become fearful or
defensive or judgmental. We do things
and think things that close ourselves off.
Now given the wide range of relationships that we have in our lives
sometimes this type of hardness is absolutely necessary for safety and
survival. There are certain situations
where we have to harden ourselves for the sake of protection in order to find
freedom from toxic or dangerous relationships.
But God knows that living with a hard heart for an extended period of
time is not a long term solution that brings life.
You know what the
first thing that is ever said to be not good in the Bible? Being alone.
We hear that in our first reading today from the book of Genesis. After all of creation is declared good, God
goes onto say, “It is not good for man to be alone.” Now that doesn’t mean that alone time is bad
or that God intends everyone to be married.
But it does reveal that God’s intent is for human beings to be in
relationship with one another - to experience relationships that are deeply
connected and meaningful. Hardness of
heart works against all this. It takes a
soft heart, a heart that is open and vulnerable to be able to live into the
abundance of God’s creation.
And one of the
means that God uses to soften our hearts is worship. Do you feel it sometimes? You come into church after a long, difficult,
maybe even painful week. But you’ve held
it together. You’ve been strong. You’ve kept it going. But then you’re here and your defenses are down,
which gives God’s Spirit an opportunity to minister to you. To speak to your heart. To whisper into your soul that you are
loved. This is the holy work of
softening. And for many of us it results
in tears. Which sometimes, people have
told me, is the very reason they avoid church - because they are afraid they
will cry. But I say come. Church is a place where we are surrounded by
the love of God and God’s people. Let
the softening of your heart happen here.
Still, there’s no
getting around that we live in a broken world full of imperfect people. We break promises, we let each other down, we
hurt one another, often without even meaning to. And Jesus is in the midst of such chaos
offering us his life and peace. It is a
soft heart that is able to receive that gift and to be joined with God in the
deepest places of our being. When we do
we become “one flesh” with God. And what
God has joined together no divorce will ever separate.
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