Posted by: pastor on 11/11/2009 16:21:27
Sermon from October 4
God's Last Word on Marriage & Divorce
More than one of the resources I consulted in preparation to preach today cautioned, in one way or another: be careful what you say about this gospel text; it’s impossible to overestimate people’s sensitivity around the matter of divorce. Virtually no one is contemporary America is immune; that much is certain. I suspect that if I were to ask all of the adults to stand, then seat, by group, those who have been divorced, those whose parents or children or siblings have been divorced, and those whose close friends have been divorced, no one—or practically no one—would be left standing.
Under the very best of circumstances divorce is painful. Among our divorced friends are a few with whom we’ve been able to continue to socialize—together—but even these most amicable of divorces have been distressful. The best-case-scenario divorce is still a far cry from any couple’s expectation at the start of marriage.
Before we can begin to understand what the Bible has to say about divorce we need to see how it views marriage—and that is a complicated picture! There are Bibles in the pew racks, and you’re welcome to check the references and come along for the ride, but it could get bumpy! Contrary to popular belief, there is no single biblical position on marriage; it seems instead to be a work in progress. In 1 Samuel 18 King David’s first wife, Michal, is given to him by Saul as reward for taking the lives of 100 Philistines. One of Nehemiah’s “reforms” in post-exilic Jerusalem was to purge the city of everything foreign—including non-Israelite wives. And although biblical women never have multiple husbands, men—particularly men of stature, like kings—with multiple wives are common. (Think Abraham and Solomon.) St. Paul has a lot to say to the Corinthians about marriage and non-marriage and divorce, but acknowledges that much of it is his own opinion rather than divine directive.
When Jesus speaks about marriage and divorce his position is extreme. Let’s consider his words about divorce first. On the one hand his stance is more egalitarian than the prevailing Jewish law, which allowed only men to divorce their wives: to both men & women he says “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” On the other, he seems, with equanimity, to prohibit divorce and remarriage, or more to the point, to insist on permanency in marriage.
It probably should be said that one interpretation of Jesus’ stark proclamation, is that anyone who divorces a spouse in order to marry another commits adultery—that what he condemns is not divorce and remarriage as we usually experience it, but divorce as a means of trading in one spouse for another. It’s an attractive understanding—an apparent loophole for most remarried folk…But the Gospel isn’t about finding wiggle room for human failing, of which divorce is one manifestation.
That much should be apparent from the way Jesus reframes the Pharisees’ question about the legality of divorce. He doesn’t answer by reciting either Jewish law or Roman law on legitimate grounds for divorce—by drawing the perimeter here or there: sexual infidelity: okay; too much garlic in the hummus: not okay. Instead Jesus speaks to God’s intention in the beginning—God’s plan for human beings, created in God’s own image.
In the first story of creation God creates human beings last, the pinnacle of creation, the crown jewel capable of communion—a responsive relationship—with God… And in the second creation account, human beings, men and women, are created for similar purpose: for intimacy with one another—for companionship. Just as God could not rest content with creation until there were human beings able to return God’s love for creation, neither can human beings be fulfilled in perpetual solitude; we’re just not made that way.
Jesus takes us deeper, beyond what any law or institution prescribes or proscribes, into God’s good design for humankind: devotion to God and mutual love for one another—the holy ideal of which we all, coupled or single, fall ever short. Truth be told, all marriages fail, even those that remain intact; we all fall short of our intentions, our promises.
No one starts a business intending to fail, and no one enters into marriage aiming for divorce. But like a commercial enterprise that, whether through a pattern of poor judgment or a streak of bad luck, becomes overwhelmed with debt and must declare bankruptcy, some marriages become overwhelmed by hurt or distrust or acrimony, so that the marital relationship is overburdened with debts of pain, and divorce becomes the less harmful alternative. Not desirable; but perhaps the better of undesirable alternatives.
If that were the last word, we would be left with a shrug of our shoulders, a collective sigh, a 20 cents-on-the-dollar resignation: “Ah well, what’s done is done.”
But God never leaves us to linger in our regret, our failure, our loss. Never. When we break down and we lack the resources—the “love or skill”—to repair or restore them, God comes to us with grace to heal, to forgive, to salve, to restore our hope.
Our best relationships are those that are modeled after God’s own faithfulness to us, those that mirror, however dimly, Christ’s own self-giving to us, to the world. God alone is first and finally faithful. It is God who continues tom pursue—to woo—us humans like a lover struck by Cupid’s arrow, continually drawing us back to God’s own heart.
