Hope for the Hopeless? Jesus on Divorce

Below you will find the conclusion to Linda's sermon on Mark 10:2-16.  Without collapsing the tension or avoiding the dilemma that Jesus' teaching poses, she points us to a surprise ending, one that is routinely overlooked when this passage is preached.

The disciples are listening in when the Pharisee’s propose this question: "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" and it appears they are equally stunned by his response to the Pharisees. 

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“What did he say?  Did Jesus just say that Moses was wrong?"  

As soon as they are alone, they ask Jesus the same question again.  This time, Jesus goes even further; not only is divorce not allowed, but anyone who remarries, man or woman, is committing adultery.

Why would he say that?  It sounds like the ultimate sin and Jesus offers, it seems, no way out.  

OUR DISORIENTING DILEMMA

In contrast to Jesus' words in Mark 10, there are other passages where Jesus ministers tenderly and lovingly to the woman caught in adultery.  He rescues her from almost certain death, and after he has cleared the field of her would-be executioners, all he says to her is this: go and sin no more.  

There is also the woman at the well, who Jesus knows has been in and out of relationships over and over again and then living with someone to whom she was not married.  Instead of pronouncing her sin to be unforgivable  Jesus offers himself to her as living water that will wash away her sin and her guilt. 

So how are we to understand Jesus' words in Mark 10?  

MAKING SENSE OF MARK 10

I think two keys that unlock Jesus' meaning are found at the beginning of this passage and at the very end.

The passage begins with a question from Jesus' enemies, a faction of the group known as the Pharisees.  These religious men came for one reason and one reason only. Mark tells us that they came with a question intended to trick him.  They were not after anything real or life-giving.  Their purpose was to find a way to humiliate Jesus.  

Instead, Jesus sees their true intentions.  Even more important, he is able to see something in their question that they themselves have not anticipated. 

You see, the Pharisees where guilty of having made the law into something that effectively blocked the path to God—for themselves and everyone else.  For everyone else, because the 10 commandments given by Moses had been expanded to become 613 commandments that almost no one could keep.

Only the rich and well-educated had a chance at being able to meet all of the rules and regulations.  That is why Jesus repeatedly chastises the religious rulers of his day because they used the law as a battering ram, beating down the people instead of using it to draw the faithful to God.

But, their use of the law also blocked their own path to God—and that is what Jesus saw and they did not—nor in this case did the disciples.  Neither the Pharisees or the disciples saw that the law, turned by human beings into a giant list of do’s and don’ts—also meant that if, indeed, one thought that they were fulfilling the law, they effectively had no need whatsoever of God.  

God was out of the picture—if we can earn our salvation by following all the rules, who needs God—on the other hand, if the rules are so burdensome that we can never hope to follow all of them then our path to God is blocked.

In his response to the Pharisees' trick question, Jesus does what he is so good at; he refuses to be boxed in by the legalism of his questioners.  

Jesus changes the question by broadening the meaning of the law so that it is abundantly clear that no one, no one, can ever meet the letter of the law by themselves.  

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, "You have heard that it is said (in the law) do not murder, but I tell you that anyone who has been angry with his brother has committed murder.  You have heard that it was said do not commit adultery, but I tell you that if you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you have committed adultery. You have heard it said, love your enemies, but I say to you to do good to those who persecute you."

Indeed, Jesus' persistent message to to all of us is simply this: we cannot earn our salvation by being good enough to keep the law all by ourselves.

We have all gotten angry, most of us have lusted after someone else, and most of us have great difficulty doing good things to those who seem to hate us.

And so it is in this passage.  "No," Jesus says, "don’t even consider divorce.  It is not allowed. If you divorce and remarry you are still in deep trouble because now you have committed adultery."

So, what a are we to do?  

THE ENDING WE HAVE OVERLOOKED

I believe the answer is found in the very last verses of our reading today.  These verses we read today are rarely included, but there is very strong evidence that they belong here.  

Without missing a beat, Mark moves directly from the discussion of a very difficult topic, to tell us that people are bringing children to Jesus to be blessed.  Whether he did so consciously or unconsciously, the apostle focuses our attention on those who are most often the real victims of divorce.  

The disciples reaction is typical, isn't it?  "Don't bring those kids in here!  We are talking about grown-up stuff."  

Isn't it interesting that these two stories which are jammed so tightly together in Mark's narrative, are so seldom connected to one another? Yet Jesus sees these children not as victims or as intruders into the conversation, but immediately lifts them up as examples and teachers for us.

"Come," Jesus says, "come to God like little children, children who are dependent on God’s mercy and forgiveness."

Those people who think they can make it on their own are living a lie that will suck the life out of them. 

And those of us who have messed up, who failed in our promises to one another and missed the mark badly when it comes to loving and valuing the person we married, well, our only choice is to come to God as the children do.  

We must abandon ourselves to God's life changing forgiveness.  We cannot hope to correct our errors or somehow make up for them.  It is our sin, our need and our child-like faith that have driven us into the arms of God who, as a familiar praise song says, offers rest for the weary and hope for the sinner.

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An Unexpected Invitation to Grace

Today's guest post appears  thanks to my wife Linda Wilkerson.  Linda is director of pastoral care & pastoral education for the Parkland Health and Hospital System, where she has served for 12 years.  She has also served for 6 years as my co senior pastor at Iglesia Bill Harrod. Last Sunday she preached on the subject of divorce, basing her sermon on Mark 10:2-16

We often have the pleasure of celebrating with couples in this church who have been married for many, many years.  Just recently we celebrated with Mary and Tony Diaz and with Rachel and Daniel Alonzo.  We also see it in marriages like those of Debbie and Daniel Solis, Mike and Andie Garcia and many other couples in our congregation.  

Their stories remind us of what is possible when two people stick together to raise a family and to contribute to the health and stability of their churches, their neighborhoods and their cities.

We have also had the painful privilege of weeping with and supporting those who are looking for healing from the death of their marriages.  Divorce is common in our day, as it seems it was in Jesus’ day. We get married making a lot of promises to one another and sometimes we fail to carry out those promises.  And those failures have real consequences.  Everyone suffers—husband, wife, children, in-laws.

Many of you know that I am divorced.  And remarried, thankfully, to Mark.  I know from first-hand experience how painful divorce is, no matter the reason.

I am convinced the vast number of couples who go to the trouble to make wedding vows do so with every intent to stay together.  There are many reasons that people do not stay together.  Some of them are tragically flawed, but some of them are also painfully obvious.

TAKING A STAKE THROUGH THE HEART?

For centuries the Christian religious establishment, while offering grace on other fronts, has commanded women and some men to stay in marriages in which they and their children were grossly mistreated and made to suffer on a daily basis.

So today’s passage, where the Apostle Mark records Jesus as clearly saying that divorce should be prohibited and that men and women who divorce and then remarry are committing adultery, could be for me and many of you, like taking a stake through the heart.

Jesus’s words seem to leave no room for a balm of any kind on the soul of the wounded divorced or divorcing man or woman.  And the church, I think, over many years has been guilty of using Jesus’ words as just that—a sword or battering ram—using them to beat up on the suffering while some of those who have not been divorced feel a self-righteous pride.

One woman wrote that when she reads this piece of scripture or hears it preached, she feels as though a load of garbage has been dumped on her, making it impossible to get rid of the stink of divorce.

And, I want to say clearly—I think that when we take this approach to Jesus’ words, we have badly misunderstood what Jesus was about and what he was attempting to do in his teaching on this subject.

PLACING OURSELVES IN JESUS' TIME

First, though I imagine that the emotional pain of divorce is the same no matter what the time period, in our days or Jesus,’ divorce in Jesus day was a far different matter than it is today, in this respect: wives were considered property.  According to Hebrew law, a man could write a bill of divorce for any reason. 

One Jewish interpreter of the law made the famous, or infamous, statement that a bill of divorce was allowed if the wife burned the toast.  A woman’s life was never secure. If she lived with a tyrant she was always one step away from a life of poverty because without being in a relationship with a man she was an outcast in the community, with no way to earn a living a survive. 

Jesus knew that.  When he was asked whether Moses allowed divorce, he went right to the heart of the matter, calling out the hard-heartedness of men who would divorce their wives and leave them destitute. He took a step further when he said that no matter what Moses allowed, this despicable behavior that allowed one person to ruin another was never what God intended.

Pictures of the Happy Couple
Photo Credit: Mark Grace

That’s good news for everyone in a relationship who has been abused, demeaned or made to feel worthless.  God created every one of us in God’s image.  Divorce cannot cancel out that essential fact. As the Psalmist said in the reading from Psalm 8 which Mark just spoke on, we have been created just a little lower than the angels.  We are each a priceless, beloved creation of God. 

No one can ever take that away.

Also, for most of history marriage was not about romance or fulfillment; it was viewed primarily as a legal contract, the lawful exchange of property.

So Jesus, quotes Genesis saying, ‘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.’ I think that by linking marriage to creation Jesus intended to retrieve and to elevate, marriage as something more than just a legal obligation. He may have wanted to assure men and women that, in fact, God blesses our marriages and wills for them to flourish, and that any time a marriage ends in ruin it grieves the heart of God, not because some legal standard has been broken but because of the damage done to Gods' beloved children.

Come back tomorrow to read the conclusion of Linda's sermon taken from Mark 10:2-16

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