Sermon for October 6, 2024 - The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Growing up I sometimes felt like my family was the exception to the rule. Besides being dragged to church every Sunday during childhood and adolescence which was quite unique among my friends, many of them, including one of my two best friends, came from homes with divorced parents. For my best friend, his father left when he was young, so he does not have many memories of them as a family. What he remembers most was the shouting, the arguing, and broken pieces of household items strewn across the house. As a result of the death of this relationship, my friend grew up in a house filled with unresolved anger and brokenness. And it bled into his relationships with his mother and his sister. Shouting was the norm, even when I was there. We often spent time together in the basement, staying out of sight and earshot of his mother to avoid another full-throated brawl.

I wish I could say that his story was unique, but it is an all-too-common narrative. The death of a marriage is no small thing and has a deep lasting impact on those involved. And for us who stand-by on the outside helplessly watching as hearts and souls become broken, we too become affected. Today we encounter a familiar passage, that on the surface, is one that seems like a rather straightforward teaching on marriage and divorce. Marriage is good, divorce is bad. This binary thinking coupled with these verses has been used against divorced persons in justifying why they should not or cannot be fully included in the Body of Christ and our sacramental life.

We should know by now that Jesus does not like binary thinking, and he instead offers us another way, a third way. So, before we too buy into this toxic thinking of exclusion and shame, over inclusion and healing, let us spend a little more time with this passage so that we might see how Jesus is inviting us to reorient our understanding of all relationships in the Kingdom of God.

Our lectionary still has us in the section of Mark where Jesus is leading the disciples toward Jerusalem. Along this journey he is trying to help the disciples find their way into what God desires for each of them and for the world. After teachings about the Messiah, greatness in the kingdom, and serving others, we encounter yet another lesson as the Pharisees attempt to test Jesus on the topic of divorce.

Divorce was a complicated matter in the first century; much as it is in our current day. There were differing perspectives between Jews and Romans, and also within Judaism itself. Even within the New Testament there is not complete unanimity on this topic.

We should remind ourselves that the ancient world was extremely patriarchal, and wives were regarded as the property of their husbands. Among Jews, technically only the husband could divorce his wife. This is the working assumption underpinning the conversation between the Pharisees and Jesus. However, in Roman society, a wife could divorce her husband. So, there were competing rules and expectations in a land where Roman and Greek culture comes into conflict with a vastly different Hebrew culture. In either case there was, and still is, an inherent inequality between women and men, as men held most if not all the power and authority in any relationship.

We should also remind ourselves that marriages were not based on love between two persons but on property, status, and honour considerations between two families. Divorce, therefore, could be complicated. There is a whole tract of the Mishnah, the rabbinic collection of Jewish oral law, that is devoted to the topic. As such, Jews often regarded Romans and other non-Jews as having weaker standards on marriage, marital fidelity, and divorce. The Herodian dynasty, however, gives an example of how strings of marriage and divorce could be used to manipulate political and status advantages even within Jewish circles, as Herod and his children had many wives.

So, we might ask why is the question posed by the Pharisees to Jesus on divorce a “test”? Since Moses stated a “commandment” on divorce, there really was not a question whether it was lawful or not. The real issue is what constituted proper grounds for divorce. The parallel passage in Matthew poses the matter more precisely. “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?” It is the “for any cause” that was the problem.

In Mark’s gospel, however, Jesus expresses an even more restrictive view. Divorce is a symptom of human failure that is contrary to God’s intentions in creation, so, Jesus says, “What God joined together, let no human separate.” Is this a blanket prohibition against divorce? What about the abusive or destructive relationships of which we are painfully aware? Should a corollary to Jesus’ pronouncement be just as true: What humans wrongly joined together, let God rightly separate?

As we should expect, God’s commands are not arbitrary, and they have a principle that motivates them. In a patriarchal Jewish society where, only husbands had the prerogative of divorcing their wives, a prohibition of divorce provided a safeguard for women who could be left seriously disadvantaged after a divorce. Furthermore, as Jesus spells out to the disciples, in situations where either party could initiate a divorce, it is the faithful partner that is harmed when his or her spouse divorces in order to marry someone else. Committing adultery is not an abstract, moral sin. It is a real, hurtful action against one’s God-joined partner.

Given the way divorce worked in the ancient world, and often still today, certain people were disproportionately hurt in a divorce, more often than not it was women and the children they cared for. In the culture of Jesus’ time where honour and shame were decisive factors in determining behaviour, people would be very eager to welcome someone of high status whose company could increase one’s own honour. Children, however, were of very low status. There was no perceptible value in hosting a banquet for a child. So, when Jesus says that the reception of God’s dominion is like embracing a child, he is asserting again that God is not experienced in power but in weakness. Entering God’s dominion is not a way to become first or great but a way to identify with the least and to serve simply for Jesus’ sake.

Through his teachings about the Messiah, about greatness, about serving in the Kingdom of God, Jesus has asked the disciples to forget everything they know about the economy of the world around them, and instead embrace an entirely different understanding of how to live and act in the world. Jesus has consistently asked them to use what they have in service of those who are most vulnerable: children, the poor, those denied status. In doing so the Kingdom of God becomes the great equalizer, where all stand on equal footing in front of God; rich and poor, weak and strong, married and divorced. We must literally have a beginner’s mind, the mind of a child in order to fully understand Jesus’ teachings. We too must retrain our thinking and our actions if we want to walk this third way in the world, this path of discipleship.

There is also a corporate dimension to this. When we live out these teachings and offer selfless service to others, we create a piece of the Kingdom of God in the here and now, and indeed in the place we call home. Because we have been a faithful community of disciples for generations, we have created this sacred space that draws each of us closer to God. You all have done amazing work in growing spiritually, in raising your children here. For many of you, you are now reaping the rewards of a life well lived working and serving; family visits, trips for fun, choosing what you want to be involved in, and of course creating your own schedule rather than living by the world’s schedule. Well done, you good and faithful servants of God. You deserve to sit under your own vine and fig tree to admire the world and the life you have co-created with God. But, our work towards the Kingdom of God is not over. We cannot sit back, rest, and hope that others will come and pick up the baton to carry on the work of God in our place. We must continue to be a house of prayer for all people, who once they enter these doors sense that the world inside the church is very different from the world outside. Why do you seek spiritual refuge here? What draws you to this haven of love and fellowship? At some point you were invited to come and see for yourself, or you stumbled upon this community and never left. For the sake of all those still searching for God, we must continue the work of offering our time, talent, and treasure to the glory of God through this beloved community so that others can find what each of us has found here.

All of our relationships inevitably get caught up in the sin within and around us. Sometimes that happens so profoundly that we are left feeling lost and alone, and ultimately on a search for God in our lives. While we might want to shun someone for their actions or even deny entry into this community because someone does not look like us, think like us, act like us, we must remember that at some point we were that person; lost, alone, broken. We are all broken people who are invited to come here to be healed by the hands of Jesus. Every week, nay every time you step into this sacred space this is the gift God offers us each and everyday, without merit; unconditional love for you. Every gift you give out of gratitude for all the blessing God has bestowed upon you helps us to realize a kingdom in which all are welcome. Amen.