Divorce
Divorce is a very emotional and difficult topic for most of us. We all know that marriage is not easy. There is definitely some wisdom in the saying that “success in marriage comes not from finding the right person but from being the right person”. If only it was that simple.
So many marriages are not successful. Divorce has been happening for thousands of years. It would be very surprising if any of us had a family that had not been touched by divorce.
The Church has always struggled with divorce and divorced people. Straightaway we think of Henry VIII. Princess Margaret forbidden to marry a divorcee by her sister, Elizabeth, nominally head of the Anglican Church. Charles and Diana.
Often preaching on divorce has been insensitive and unhelpful. I have seen the results of insensitivity to the struggles which follow divorce in our Parish in Canberra in 1980s.Divorce is not only an issue for the Christian church. There is an Islamic saying; “The thing which is lawful but most disliked by God is Divorce!”
Take heart if you are hurting; it is divorce, not the divorced person that God dislikes! God wants us to have the best and divorce is simply “not the best thing”. It often causes financial hardship and stress, particularly for children. Grandparents can be collateral damage in divorce where their access to grandchildren is blocked or they find themselves as full time carers. Divorce may, in some extreme cases be necessary, but it isn’t always the best thing and it’s clear that it’s not what God wanted for us.
So, the church tries to do an uncomfortable balancing act by standing up for the sanctity of marriage and yet at the same time proclaiming God's forgiveness to sinners who don’t uphold that sanctity. When I was a Rector, the Bishop’s written approval was required to conduct the wedding of a divorced person.
On the surface, the subject in Mark today is divorce, but perhaps the main intention of Jesus is to once again show his followers what the Kingdom of God looks like. We are helped by the reading from Genesis chapter 2. Here, in the story of creation, the sovereignty of God is at the heart of it all. God says, “it’s not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner”. Notice that it is God who decides that Adam needs a helper. It is not Adam saying “Hey God, I am not having all my needs met here in this beautiful garden. Could you please make me a helper”? Clearly God, not man, is the one in charge.
And there’s so much more we can learn from this second chapter of the Bible. If you think about Adam’s situation; he already has support. Adam has God as his superior helper, and he has animals as his inferior helpers. So, our Creator God is actually recognizing that Adam needs a suitable, equal helper / partner.
When sharing that I was preparing to give the sermon, the deep-thinking woman I was speaking to pointed out something that I had overlooked. She had noticed that, quite out of keeping with the idea of men being the only ones who mattered, the last sentence of our Genesis reading is “therefore a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife and they become one flesh” The “clinging to his wife and becoming one flesh” is no doubt the main point to take away from the sentence but the woman in my conversation understood that Scripture was going against the chauvinistic culture of the day when it did not say “the woman leaves her father and mother”.
So, keeping this reading from Genesis in mind, what do we make of the Gospel reading on divorce? It’s helpful to remember that when Jesus spoke these words, he was not teaching or talking to people who were experiencing the brokenness of a marriage failure and had come to him shattered and deeply distressed. Jesus was dealing with opponents who Mark says were Pharisees trying to trap him. There is a political element in that Jesus was in the country of Herod Antipas who had married his divorced ex sister-in-law. These Pharisees remind Jesus that Hebrew law permitted a man to divorce his wife (and he could do that just because he wanted to). In response, Jesus tells them that commandment was written because of hard heartedness and then Jesus refers to Genesis chapter 2 which makes the point that marriage is God’s idea (it is a gift from God).
We can have a fair idea of what Jesus might have said to those who had failed in their marriage commitments. We know what he said to the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53-8 11); “Go and sin no more”. Jesus was also gentle with the Samaritan woman at the well who had five husbands and was now living with a man who was not her husband (John 4:4-29).
Jesus offered these women forgiveness and love.
Now, having answered this “loaded question” from the Pharisees by referring to Scripture, Jesus expands on the problem of how to relate to others by once again talking of “little ones”.
A significant link between Jesus’ teaching about children and his teaching about divorce is that women, in marriage, were and are vulnerable. Children also are extremely vulnerable.
What Jesus says against divorce and what he says for children in today’s Gospel are connected in that Jesus very clearly puts himself on the side of all those who are weak and vulnerable.
The church is making a sad error if it takes what Jesus said against marriage breakdown and uses it to chastise those people who, for various reasons, have decided to end their marriage and separate, as if divorce were the one unforgivable sin. Marital separation hurts people, and hurting, vulnerable people are those who are especially loved by Jesus. Hence the Gospel defends those who are victimized in marriage and divorce and defends little children.
This really is Good News! Jesus cares for, and totally supports, the weak, the vulnerable, and the defenceless. We live in a broken world where people make and break promises, where people find it difficult to keep their commitments, and where people suffer because promises have been broken by other people. Jesus is clearly on the side of those who are hurt by such human chaos and human failing.
Most of us are uncomfortable around vulnerable and needy people. Maybe it’s because we are embarrassed that we are OK and that we don’t need help. Perhaps we are frustrated that these needy people can’t look after themselves. Or maybe we are concerned because we think that we simply don’t have the time or resources to offer to help. It may boil down to our worry that vulnerable people present a threat to our own stress levels and our comfortable lives.
Well Jesus showed us how to react. There’s no doubt where Jesus stood. Jesus is totally in support of the vulnerable, whether they are vulnerable women in marriage or vulnerable children in a dysfunctional family.
But, is there something more to what Jesus is saying? The things we read here in Mark might not simply be some rules and guidelines for Christian behaviour in marriage and the family – though that is certainly what we see on the surface. Perhaps here in what Jesus is saying we are being given a glimpse of the nature of God and we are discovering the great difference between God and ourselves.
We need every glimpse of God we are able to have. It is hard to understand God. Do you remember that God told Isaiah “My ways are not your ways”? However, Jesus is the full revelation of the nature and will of God. We see the ways of God in Jesus!
What are we able to learn about God from the Jesus who Mark shows us here? We learn the Good News that despite our inabilities, our limits, and our failures, God loves us without limit and God is always faithful. We learn that God is a God who heals brokenness, who brings separated parties back together, who reaches out, beyond the bounds of culture, convention and tradition, toward those who are most vulnerable.
God is on the side of the “little ones” no matter what has caused their littleness. Whenever we feel little; whenever we feel vulnerable let’s be encouraged to know that God really cares.