Edgewood United Church

United Church of Christ

October 22, 2006  Edgewood United Church, UCC Rev. Karen E. Gale

Dealing with Divorce
Mark 10:2-16

I am a lectionary preacher. The lectionary is a three year cycle of readings with four readings selected for every week. This week’s choices included Job losing his family, possessions and health and wondering why. Or Jesus’ words on divorce. Not an easy choice.

I chose the gospel reading about divorce because it is close to our own experience, and a topic that is hard to talk about, and hard to think theologically about. It is hard because so many of us are affected by divorce and the ripples it causes throughout our families, congregations and communities. It is hard because Jesus’ words sound harsh to our ears.

The Pharisees come to Jesus seeking his opinion on something, his religious view. Now, as usual, the Pharisees were actually trying to trip Jesus up, to trap him within the complex arguments of Jewish law in order to discredit Jesus. They are not genuinely interested in seeking his wisdom.

‘To test Jesus, they asked, “is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Jesus answered them, “what did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

The Pharisees ask their question hoping to trap Jesus within the complexities of Jewish thought around divorce. “There were two schools of thought in Jesus' day concerning divorce, one liberal and one conservative.  Rabbi Shammai taught that divorce was only permissible on the grounds of some sexual impropriety.  His was the stricter view.  Rabbi Hillel, on the other hand, had a more liberal view and taught that a man could divorce his wife for any reason.  If she burned his breakfast, put too much salt on his food, showed disrespect to him, spoke disrespectfully of her husband's parents in his presence, spoke to a man on the street, or even let her hair down in public, he could divorce her. The view of Rabbi Hillel was the view that was popular in Jesus' day.”  (Lindy Black, sermon nuggets)

Who would Jesus side with, knowing full well that he would anger the supporters of the other side? 

The Pharisees may also have been setting Jesus up to trip politically by soliciting an answer that could set him up against much divorced Herod family, a Roman backed Jewish family in power. Remember, John the Baptist was beheaded because he railed against unjust divorce in Herod’s family.

But Jesus, as is typical, sides with neither argument and instead proclaims that divorce itself is not what God wants for people.  That divorce comes about due to the hardness of men’s hearts.

Scholars and pastors have wrestled with this text and lifted up one possibility for Jesus’ vehement words.

Divorce in Jesus’ day was an extreme hardship on women. It was a disaster for a woman to get divorced. For one thing, women themselves were not allowed to divorce their husbands under Jewish law (though they could under Roman law). Only husbands could divorce their wives. If a man did divorce his wife, the children stayed with the husband so the wife lost the children and her relationship with them. Divorce was also a social scandal. Women who were divorced had nowhere to go. They could not stay with their divorced husband’s family; they could not set up a household on their own. They had to beg their family of origin to take them back and since any dishonor a woman carried went back on her family, the family often would not take a woman back. That left a woman with the options of begging, prostitution or an unlikely remarriage.

Divorce was a terrible, terrible place for a woman to end up.

Men could also divorce women if a marriage was not fruitful, meaning producing children. Infertility was always blamed on woman. This was a concern amongst Jews at the time as they were tiny minority and were always facing attrition as people sought a different life with the Greek or Roman religions/sects.

The question for Jesus really is, "Jesus, should a man divorce his wife for burned toast or only for adultery?”  And Jesus replies, “Neither.” Women and men, Jesus teaches, aren't for use as baby factories or tickets to respectability, and a relationship isn't to be taken up or put aside with those things in mind.

It is also important to remember the social context of divorce. “In Jesus' time, marriage and divorce were not just about the man and the woman. They were about two families representing many generations, property, honor, and status. Divorce was not just an individual event; it was a risky break of confidence that could lead to family feuds, shame, and hardship for numerous people. The hardness of heart Jesus speaks of seems not only to point to the potential suffering of the woman, who must return in shame to her family of origin; but it also points to the suffering of two entire families and the greater community.

“For those of us today who have lived through the pain of divorce, whether our own or others', this ancient understanding of marriage and divorce seems to ring more true than we might think at first. Even today, marriage and divorce affect many more that just those who sign the forms and enter or dissolve the legal contracts. They often affect our parents, friends, and siblings, who can wrestle with the part they played or failed to play in a marriage that didn't work; and they certainly impact our children as their schedules and lives must be forever altered.”
(Richard Helmer, ECUSA Selected Sermons)

But there is yet another problem with this text. It “has often been used against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) folk. Some readers claim that Jesus is defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. But here, Jesus is explicitly answering a question about how a husband should treat his wife (Mark 10:2). He emphasizes that when two people become one flesh, God is in that union. Because of that holy union, neither is free to treat the other as disposable property (Mark 10:9-12). Children, as well, are not disposable property because God’s reign belongs first to the most vulnerable among us (Mark 9:14-15).” (Out in Scripture.com)

Jesus is not talking about defining marriage, he is talking about how we treat each other, how we are compassionate with each other, how we live together in love and in covenant and how our promises are not to be taken lightly. Especially those promises, covenants, which we have made with God as a witness.

Jesus is saying that divorce is not what God hopes for us. Not what God dreams for us as stand together and pledge to a life together. “Marriage is an interesting relationship in our society. Where else do we make unconditional pledges? What is said at marriage are not words of a conditional contract-- no one says, "If you'll be healthy, provide good times, if our life together is rich..." We say "for better, for worse; in sickness and in health; for richer or poorer 'til death do us part." The pledge on both sides is unconditional. One devastating part of failed marriages is that we learn that we cannot keep our own sincere pledge. Even with sincere pledge, we don't/can't always keep our promises. (Desperate Preacher.com)

The trouble with our making unconditional promises of unconditional love is that we are limited human beings. We do have hard hearts at times. We are human and we mess up. We have emotions and sometimes our anger, bitterness, revenge, rage etc boil up and cause horrible mess. We are limited. And our love is limited even as we promise to love without limits.

Divorce comes when we find ourselves at those limits without the way to go back. Or sometimes abuse or addiction makes it impossible to recreate what has been lost. And we find ourselves and our relationship broken with the pieces unable to be mended.

Divorce is painful. It is difficult. It provides a huge temptation to strike back and hurt others because we ourselves are in so much pain. And it brings real challenges—financial, parental, emotional.

But the hurt and brokenness of divorce is not the final word.

This what makes Jesus’ next words so difficult.
After the disciples express their concern to Jesus he says, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

Jesus’ words indicate that those who divorce were not permitted to remarry. I have problems with this.

Some of the most memorable weddings that I have performed or attended have been remarriages of folks who have been divorced. It is a true joy to see two people who have worked through their pain, reconciled as best they could, forgiven themselves and their former spouse, and opened themselves up to love again. Standing, trembling, making those covenant promises once again that they would love forever, til death parted them.

It seems particularly brave and hopeful to see someone try again out of the ashes of a broken marriage. Jesus words seems in contradiction to this miracle.

Many in church take Jesus’ prohibitions to heart and make ecclesial law, church law, around them. In the Catholic Church, divorced people cannot get remarried. Divorce is not truly permitted and divorced people are not allowed to take communion, to be a part of the sacraments, are not allowed into the heart of the living church. But in other traditions, where there might not be written law, divorced people are pushed to the side, excluded from church life, or found wanting.

If Jesus was upset about the rules of Torah permitting divorce in certain circumstances for the way they would hurt women and children, I wonder wouldn’t Jesus be upset by those same sort of rules today that bar people from truly accessing God, from being fully embraced by the welcome of the church. For isn’t it those who are most hurting from the devastation of divorce, those who most need the comfort and compassion of the church community, the assurance of God’s presence and the hope of healing, forgiveness and new life.

Divorce is a part of our human life. We make covenants, promises to God and to one another. And sometimes we are unable to keep those covenants. We make mistakes, we are human people. We hurt one another and we are hurt by others. We damage relationships and sometimes are unable to repair those relationships. Divorce is the bitter fruit of brokenness. And we all know brokenness in our own lives whether we have been touched by divorce or not. Divorce is sometimes the best answer for a terribly painful situation.

But how many of us truly have not been touched by divorce? Divorce ourselves, divorce of our parents, divorce of good friends or relatives or neighbors or our children.  We know this pain, this grief, this guilt, this hurt.

I know it. And find I disagree with what Jesus has to say. It does not match the man of deep, deep compassion. I can understand Jesus’ frustration with the Pharisees looking to see how much proof they needed to dismiss their wives. And I can understand his frustration with the disciples’ misunderstanding, never mind that later they prevent the children from coming to him. (All in all they are having a pretty bad day).

But I cannot imagine Jesus in our context looking at the brokenness of divorce and condemning men and women to misery. I can imagine Jesus urging us to look to love and forgiveness, to take our covenants seriously, to look to reconciliation. But, this is the Jesus who told the one without sin to cast the first stone at the woman caught in adultery. And the entire crowd moved away quietly.

Jesus understands our brokenness. He lived it himself. And divorce is just one part of how human brokenness impacts our lives.

But it is not the last word. Just as out of death comes resurrection, out of divorce can come new life as well.

As many of you know, my parents are divorced. They divorced when I was a young adult, just out of college. It was a terribly difficult time for it to happen because I was just old enough to be looked to as an adult support yet still wrestling with my own identity as an adult yet still child in the midst of their separation and the dissolution of my family.

They had a very bitter divorce. Court dates and tears and silence. It was better than having them together, by far, but still so very difficult. All the dreams of what could have been torn apart. All the memories of what was had a shadow cast over them.

And it took a long time for everyone to heal. For me to heal. For my younger brother to heal. For each of my parents to heal. And because things were so difficult and so bitter, we never got together as a whole group again. Family holidays alternated. Visits to the East coast were split between households. My parents did not come in contact with one another for years. Thirteen years to be exact.

Thirteen years passed until the day before Jeanne and I were to be married. And at the rehearsal for our wedding my parents were once again in the same room, in this very sanctuary, for the first time in over a decade.

Everyone was nervous, especially me. They greeted each other and we got on with the rehearsal. Then we had the rehearsal dinner in our backyard.

And there the miracle happened.

You see in every divorce it is not just that the parents do not see each other anymore; it is that there are whole sides of the family that never see each other anymore. One divorces, loses, entire networks of people.

But at our rehearsal dinner my mom got to see my uncle, my dad’s brother, for the first time in 15 years and they could catch up. These are people who used to spend time together at holidays every year. And my dad got to talk with my cousin Sarah who he last knew as a shy teenager and who in the intervening years had grown up, gone to Africa with the Peace Corps, and gotten married herself.

In our backyard a miracle occurred and I realized that we did not have to lose each other forever. Some things would never be the same. And that is true in every divorce. Dreams die and hurts, though healed, retain a scar.

But new life is possible. Reconnection is possible. And nothing has to be lost.

Ever since that night, things have been a little bit easier. Not perfect. Holidays are still split. My parents still do not talk to each other. But we made it across some invisible threshold that night that made all the difference.

I know divorce is a reality in many of your lives. And I know the hurt and loss that it brings.

But I also know that we believe in a God who heals and holds us through our mistakes and through our pain. And that we come together in a community that is big enough to hold us in our suffering and walk with us as we come to have faith again, in ourselves, in our ability to have new life.

We can be made whole again through the God of love, Jesus, the man of healing and forgiveness and the Holy Spirit that lifts us up and connects us one to another.

The quote I used for the meditation at the front of the bulletin reads, “we are all broken and wounded in this world. Some choose to grow strong at the broken places.”

With God’s help, may this be true for us all. Amen.