“It is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs.” (The full text of our readings can be found here.)
In the name of the Living God, who is creating, redeeming, and sustaining us. Well, good morning, everyone, good morning.
You know, I grew up out in West Texas. And when I was a young man I engaged in some pretty risky behavior. Now and then I would drink too much. And I liked fast cars, and liked to see how fast they would go. And I would date these girls..well, if you’ve ever been to a rodeo…well, they were barrel racers. And I want to assure you that they are, every single one of them, loco. I mean not average plain old crazy…they were fancy crazy, with glitter and everything, and some of them were mean, too.
So, I know what it means to walk into a room full of trouble. But when you walk into a church full of people you really don’t know all that well, about a third to half of whom have been divorced, including the guy in the pulpit, to preach a sermon on the topic of divorce, well, that’s next-level hazardous; that’s right on the border between silly and imbalanced. But here in the diocese of West Texas when there’s a really foolish, precarious situation, one that really no one with good sense would mess with, I’m the guy they call. Because, as we all know, fools rush in where angels dare not tread.
So, let’s turn to this passage of Scripture, a passage that has been poorly understood, horribly misused, and cruelly interpreted. Let’s try to look at this story in context, beginning with the historical context.
The first thing we need to understand is that whatever sort of divorce Jesus was talking about, divorce in first-century Palestine had very little to do with the sort of divorce we may have had some experience with. Ancient Israel, like most of the ancient world, was patriarchal, and wives were regarded as the property of their husbands. Thus, while a husband could divorce his wife, the wife had no reciprocal ability to divorce her husband. Marriages were not based on our current notions of romantic love between two persons but on considerations of property, status, and honor between two families. If a husband did divorce his wife, she and the children would probably end up penniless, begging, or something worse
Now let’s look at this story in the textual context, in the context of a story that Mark is telling us. This discussion takes place when Jesus is answering certain questions he’s asked by the Pharisees, asked to test him or to trap him. In this passage, Jesus isn’t asked about how God feels about divorce, or even how Jesus feels about divorce. Rather, they ask Jesus a question they already know the answer to—they ask him what the law says. Now, the Pharisees were a lot of things, but mostly, they were a group devoted to understanding, preserving, and interpreting the law. So, they didn’t come to Jesus with a genuine question, but rather with a snare.
Now let’s look at this story in the broader Gospel context about Jesus’ relationship with the law. Everything we know tells us that Jesus’ relationship with the law was….well, complicated. When Jesus’ disciples were accused of breaking Jewish law by plucking grain and eating it as they walked along on the Sabbath, Jesus responded that David and his companions ate the consecrated bread that the law reserved for the priests. When the Pharisees caught a woman in adultery and were going to stone her as the law directed, Jesus told them that the one without sin should throw the first rock. The Pharisees constantly criticized Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, which he did so regularly one might conclude that Jesus was looking for trouble. And I think he was: I think Jesus was looking for what the great John Lewis called “Good Trouble.”
It seems to me that in this morning’s reading, Jesus is doing what he did so often. I think he was forcing us to overcome our legalism and look more deeply at the principles that underlie the law, and to look more deeply within ourselves. Jesus tells us the problem isn’t with our legal situation but with our medical situation—with the hardening of our hearts. He says Moses only gave you the commandment concerning divorce because of the hardness of your hearts. If you’ve ever walked through a divorce with one of the parties, or with a couple, you know how hard our hearts can get. If you’ve ever watched children go through a custody battle, you know how hard our hearts can become.
Rather than involving himself in a debate about the circumstances in which divorce might be permissible, Jesus (as he so often did) calls us to examine the first principles behind marriage. Part of that first principle Jesus turns to is the story of creation: we were not made to be alone; we were made for life in common, a life in love.
We know of many reasons why a marriage can fail: infidelity; alcohol and substance abuse; workplace stress; financial stress; mental illness; disagreements over parenting styles; religious differences; physical and mental abuse. Like the psalmist says, we’re “just a little lower than the angels.” Very rarely have I encountered a situation where one party was completely to blame and the other party was completely blameless in the failure of the marriage. Divorce can leave behind emotional and spiritual wreckage. And sometimes I have seen circumstances where ending the marriage was the least wrong answer two people had available to them. Because whatever the marriage covenant is, I’m pretty sure God didn’t intend it to be a suicide pact.
I have known way too many people, mostly women, who were berated and shamed by churches and church leaders when their marriage ended in divorce. And I don’t know how Jesus would feel about all the reasons modern marriages break down. But I do know how Jesus felt about our habit of judging each other and I know how he felt about cruelty. I know that, for all of us, hardness of heart is a spiritual issue. Our lives can become so very isolated, so very disintegrated, so very fragmented.
Today’s Scripture isn’t really about the legality of our justifications for divorce. It’s about how we overcome our natural hard-heartedness and learn to live lives that are full of compassion and vulnerability and courage. It’s about learning to live into God’s dreams for the world rather than our failures and disappointments. That’s the only way we’ll discover the real intimacy God intended for us and the real blessing of a life spent in gratitude and the joy of delighting in each other. I’m pretty sure if we start off in that direction we might find the kingdom of God. That’s the kind of life I want, and I hope you want it, too. Amen.
James R. Dennis, O.P. © 2024
Domini Canes 