Divorce and Healing: October 6 2024

     Mark 10:2-16                                                  October 6, 2024

 

                In the other churches where I served, we always had the animal blessing as part of our Sunday morning service that was closest to St Francis day.   On that day, we used different readings than those that were assigned, which means I have never had to preach these texts that come up every three years.  This week, I spent a fair amount of time thinking about how I could avoid this Gospel reading, but I realized that when we have texts like this read aloud, it’s best to preach on them.  I imagine that when some of you heard these words about marriage and divorce, your heart sank a little. Perhaps you thought, you know I have been through enough, do I really need to hear this kind of judgment on Sunday morning?  So I want to start by telling you that this sermon is not going to be explicitly about divorce or why divorce is bad.  The goal is that those who have already suffered through the heartbreak of divorce will find healing rather than judgment.

                Last week I talked about the fact that Jesus was always looking out for the least of these. He was passionate about protecting those who were vulnerable and unfairly treated. The reading we heard today was likely the same day that he warned people against hurting the little ones, the least of these.  For all we know, he’s still holding that child in his arms who he held as an example of the little ones.  My guess is that he wanted to continue talking about caring for the least of these, not the legal loopholes available to men who wanted to divorce. 

                The pharisees wanted to test Jesus. Given that the laws around divorce were a controversial topic and that King Herod had divorced his wife so he could marry another, they figured that they might be able to trick Jesus into saying something that would get him into trouble.  At the time, there were two interpretations of Deuteronomy 24, which says that a man could divorce his wife if he found something objectionable about her.  One of the interpretations allowed a man to divorce his wife for any reason…including bad cooking.  The other interpretation was that the man could only divorce his wife in cases of adultery.  Surely Jesus had an opinion on this important matter of legal loopholes available to men who wanted to divorce their wives. 

                Jesus refused to debate legalities.  He didn’t even want to debate divorce.  Instead he shifted the conversation from divorce to one about the importance of marriage.   Many of the pharisees got twisted up in legalese.  They wanted to know what they could get away with, rather than talk about the intent of marriage.  Jesus brought them away from the law to the intent of the creator—that people would create lifelong unions.  He ends by saying, “Therefore what God has joined together, let one separate.”  We actually quote that in our wedding ceremony and it is my favorite thing to say. 

The Greek text says “no man” rather than “no one.”  I am inclined to think that this is one of those examples where Jesus really means men…because he was talking to men who made the rules about what men could do to get divorced.  At the time, men made the rules and in many places they still do.  There was only one case where a woman could request a divorce and even then, she would still suffer the consequences of the divorce. 

Remember who Jesus was talking about before the pharisees interrupted him, how we care for the vulnerable and the marginalized…the least of these.  Last week I talked about the fact that children had no rights at the time. Women also had few rights and were vulnerable. In most cases, women’s economic stability was dependent on a male relative.  If her husband divorced her, she had few options.  If she was lucky, she would have a male relative who could take care of her.  If she was very lucky and young enough to bare children, she might be able to find another husband. If she did not have those safety nets, she would be impoverished and forced to beg on the streets or prostitute herself. In Jesus discouraging divorce, he was once again protecting the most vulnerable. 

What does that mean for us today?  Divorce is rarely equitable, but it’s more equitable than it was in Jesus’ time.  Would Jesus be as vehemently against divorce now as he was then? I really don’t know.  I suspect if it came up now, he would once again return to the purpose of marriage.  No one goes into a marriage wanting it to end in divorce.  People enter marriages for the purposes of commitment.  And we should honor that commitment as best we can. But we have all seen marriages that needed to end and we have seen beautiful examples of remarriage.  If Jesus was alive today, I don’t think Jesus would be prohibiting people from getting married again.  If you read the text closely, he’s acknowledging that people will get divorced and remarried, but he’s also acknowledging that divorce hurts people.  And just because people are legally divorced, doesn’t mean the marriage never happened.  Jesus is acknowledging that there is brokenness…but there is also healing.

In the Gospel of John, there is a wonderful story of Jesus meeting a woman who had 5 husbands. The text doesn’t say why she had been married that many times, but it seems unlikely (or very unlucky) that 5 husbands died.  What is more likely is that she was divorced that many times because she was infertile.  It was a common reason that men divorced their wives. Jesus sat with this woman who had probably been ostracized and talked to her.  He never condemned her.  He never judged her. He had one of the longest conversations between him and another person in all of scripture.  She then went and told the whole town about him.  She became an evangelist.  Jesus saw past what had stigmatized her and treated her the way he treated his disciples, maybe even better.  That is an example of how Jesus treated people who divorce and remarry.

It is no random thing that right after the pharisees forced Jesus to address divorce he decided to bless the children.  It says that he laid his hands on them.  When Jesus lays his hands on people, that usually means that he is healing them.  Given the way children were often treated at that time, there is no doubt that they needed healing.  We all do.  I think the reason that the Gospel writer put this story of Jesus blessing the children right after Jesus’ words about divorce was to show the reader what really matters.

Jesus came and lived among us for many reasons.  The stories I find most powerful are stories where he sits and listens, when he heals people, not necessarily the external things, but those parts of us that are broken because of whatever has happened in the past or is happening now.  So whether you are existing in a challenging marriage (because let’s admit, all marriages have their challenges), or recovering from a broken one, or soaking in gratitude for your second or third marriage, know that Jesus came not to judge, but to bring love and wholeness to this broken world.   

The little ones: Sept 28, 2024

 Year B, Pentecost 19                                                 Mark 9:38-50                                                                             

                There is nothing like a recommendation to cut a limb off to really start your morning right.   ^‘”If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off…if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off… if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell…”  I think most of us can accept that Jesus doesn’t actually want us to remove limbs and other parts of our bodies.  Speaking hyperbolically was a common form of rhetoric at the time and still is in many ways. However, that doesn’t mean we ignore what Jesus said or dismiss it. Jesus was trying to shock people. He thought this was important enough that he need to scare people into listening.

            Right before he recommended removing limbs, he said, “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.”  Millstones are big.  At the time, they would have weighed over 3,000 pounds.   This is another example of hyperbole because there is no way someone could put that around their neck and then somehow be thrown into the sea.  But you get the picture. Jesus was saying that it would be better to die than put a stumbling block in front of one of these little ones.              

            Who are the little ones that Jesus is talking about? It’s a good time to consider the context. Right before our text for today, Jesus caught the disciples arguing about who was greatest.  He had just told them he was going to suffer and die. Instead of asking him questions to gain understanding, they simply distracted themselves by arguing about who was better.  Jesus responded by saying, “Whoever wants to be first of all must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a child in his arms and said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me…” 

            How did the disciples respond…they once again got competitive because someone else was casting out demons in Jesus’ name and this person wasn’t one of the chosen 12.  They wanted Jesus to reprimand that person who was doing good in his name.  Of course Jesus refused and tried to bring them back to what was literally sitting in front of them---a child.  Remember, that was what Jesus was talking about before they changed the subject.  He brought them back from competition, toward a vulnerable child. When he said little ones, he might have been talking about children, or people who might be new to the faith, or people who were vulnerable in some way.  Jesus was always trying to protect and care for the ones who were often ignored.

It might seem odd to us now that Jesus would be especially concerned about children. Everyone loves seeing cute children, especially if they are well behaved and quiet.  The way we treat children in our culture or social circles today is not how all people perceive or treat children.  We are accustomed to seeing our children doted on and loved.  We expect them to have family looking after them.  We are fortunate if that is what we are accustomed to witnessing, but it is certainly not the norm.  It is really only in modern history that children had rights, let alone the exalted place they currently hold in our culture. 

            In the time that Jesus was living in, children were the least of these.  They had no rights.  The mortality rate was high and people could not assume their child would live to be an adult.  Women had lots of children to ensure that at least some would live to carry on the family name and tradition.  Today, if there was a food scarcity, the children would be fed first. In Jesus’, they would have been fed last, if fed at all.  Not only were they not highly regarded, they were a nuisance.  They had to be taken care and could not contribute much to the family.  Therefore when Jesus told his disciples, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me…” ---That would have been shocking.  It was not sweet and sentimental.  It was shocking because Jesus was saying that welcoming this child was the same as welcoming him. 

            Notice that Jesus warns them about putting a stumbling block in front of the little ones who believe in him. From this description, we can see he’s focusing on believers, Christians. He is talking to the disciples who will be the ones teaching and leading these new believers when he is gone. This doesn’t mean that Jesus never talked about the importance of caring for all people---he did.  But right here, in this conversation with his disciples, he’s focusing on those who believe in him.

            Who are the little ones today? Obviously, actual children would still be included as “little ones.”  They have more rights than they once had, but are still incredibly vulnerable.  We have seen that in these horrific school shootings. But what about people who are simply new to the faith…or people who have left the faith because they have been deeply wounded by the misuse of Christianity? We need look no further than our LGBTQ+ community to see people who have been incredibly wounded by Christians—especially Christians in leadership. 

Now, you might say, well that’s not us.  That’s those other Christians. Sometimes, but the Episcopal Church has not always been as welcoming as we are now and there are still many Episcopal Churches where the LGBTQ+ community is not welcome.  We have also wounded the African American community with our complicity in slavery and then segregation and frankly, too many things to name.   These “little ones” are everywhere and they still need support rather than stumbling blocks.      

            While this language that Jesus uses is violent and unsettling, it shows us how much Jesus cared about the “little ones” then and now.  He wanted his disciples, the leaders of his future church to look out for those who needed protecting.  And we have failed Jesus again and again in protecting these little ones.  I could give you more examples, but you get the idea. 

            I am not saying that I love this language that Jesus uses, but it does show us how fervently he cared for God’s children—the vulnerable, the oppressed, those on the margins who have been kept out intentionally or by our inattention.  It’s a privilege to serve a God who cares for the least of these, who makes them a priority over and over again.  Jesus was warning against putting up stumbling  blocks, but I think we can do more than  just not trip people.  We can be companions for these little ones.  We can’t just say “all are welcome.”  That is not enough. Instead, we need to find concrete ways to welcome those who Jesus would consider the “little ones.”  Because in welcoming them, we are welcoming Jesus.