Sermon; Proper 22B; Mark 10:2-16

First, an admission: I have a problem with today's gospel reading, particularly when it is used out of context and as a stand-alone passage. I find Jesus' statement, “What God has joined together, let no one separate,” and the whole discussion about a divorced person committing adultery if they remarry to be problematic. And with regards to the first part, it's not that I don't believe the statement; after all, I say those words at every wedding, yesterday included. But there have been too many church people who have used this passage as a mandate that a woman (and it's almost always a woman, although it can apply to men) stay in a marriage at all costs, sometimes leading to her death. I don't believe this is what Jesus had in mind.

Another reason is that, having experienced divorce first-hand as a child, I can say quite honestly that we were all better off for it. Add to that times I went to a friend's house to see broken dishes and other debris strewn about and him saying, “Looks like mom and dad have been fighting again,” and I will always contend that divorce is the right answer in some cases.

But outside of cases of imminent danger, or physical, emotional, or spiritual abuse, is there something we can glean from Jesus' anti-divorce position? Well, yes, I believe there is.

Today's passage opens with a back and forth between Jesus and the Pharisees about whether or not divorce is allowed. The upshot is that Moses allowed for it and Jesus tells them (and all gathered, I'm guessing) that it was because of your hardness of heart that Moses allowed it.

This reference to a hardness of heart can be found in a variety of places in Scripture. Besides today's passage, Jesus uses the term against the Pharisees when he heals a man's withered hand on the Sabbath. Paul uses it in reference to Gentiles who follow selfish passions rather than the will of God. Moses and God both use a term similar to this when they call the Israelites a “stiff-necked people.” And probably most famously, we hear about Pharaoh's heart being hardened during the season of plagues. In all cases, this hardness of heart, or stiff-necked-ness is all about imposing or elevating our own will over and above the will of God.

Notice that in today's confrontation the Pharisees approach Jesus from a legal standpoint. “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” and, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate . . .” Jesus responds not with a legal argument but with an appeal to what God commands: “God made them male and female,” and, “a man . . . shall be joined to his wife,” pulling from both creation stories in Genesis.

As I told someone, this is basically a debate between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, with the Pharisees siding with the letter and Jesus siding with the (no pun intended) spirit.

As an example, in football there's a recognition that deception is part of the game (pretending to run when you actually pass). But there's a difference between deception and cheating. Which is why the offense can't run two players into the huddle and then run three players out with one of them stopping inbounds inches from the sideline. It's known as the hideout play, and it's illegal because it violates the spirit of the game.

Or, getting back to Scripture, God commands us to love our neighbor. Wanting to justify ourselves, however, we ask, “Who is my neighbor?” The spirit of the law says everybody. But being human, and not wanting to implement God's expansive generosity, we place limits on who our neighbors are.

God commands us to love our neighbor because God is based in community. The Trinitarian God we proclaim is a God of community – the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Various communities exist all around us, both large and small. They work best when they work for the common good, when they care for each other, when they support each other. They begin to fall apart when the I becomes greater than the WE. This is true of our society at large, of our church, of our families, and of our marriages. As one author said, “Divorce laws are necessary because we will not learn from God or each other. We are obstinate and stubborn.” In other words, we suffer from a hardness of heart.

I have heard many people say about marriage, “If it doesn't work, just get divorced.” Nothing says I like starting out planning for the eventual downfall of the WE.

But I have also heard other people say, “We've probably wanted to divorce each other a dozen times; just never on the same day.” And in the movie that was shown last Friday, one of the characters said something like, “We've had thirteen wonderful years of marriage . . . an hour on Monday, two on Friday, three on Thursday . . . and over the last 58 years, it all adds up to thirteen wonderful years.”

Again, there are valid reasons for divorce, and I will never tell an abused spouse they need to stay in that relationship because, “Jesus said so.” But in the goodness of God's creation (which we celebrate today as we remember St. Francis and bless our animals), and with the command to love your neighbor as yourself, the rupture of a marriage is contrary to the ideal qualities of marriage that God has ordained. Those ideal qualities include loving your neighbor as yourself. They include working together in community. They include being willing to set aside selfish desires for the good of the relationship. They include some measure of self-sacrifice for the benefit of the other. Because of this, marriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God.

If we enter marriage under those parameters, rather than as a simple legal contract, then yes, let no one separate them. And since marriage is a microcosm of society and our lives together, what if we used godly marriage as a basis for our larger society? What if we worked at loving others as we loved our spouse? What if we were willing to make sacrifices for others like we make for our spouse? What if we were willing to create a holy community like our holy matrimony where we were faithful, where we honored each other, where we stood by each other in good times and bad?

That would be a holy union ordained by God. That would be a union which no one could separate.

And I think THAT, in the larger picture, is what Jesus had in mind.

Amen.