Divorce and Remarriage

 This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, 10/6, at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The text is Mark 10:2-16. 

Above is one of the many pictures entitled “The Peaceable Kingdom” by Edward Hicks. He painted 62 such pictures, each one different from the other. Some only include animals, some animals and humans, while others are all humans (Victoria Emily Jones, artandtheology.org). 

God’s plan for humanity was incredible. Throughout scripture, we hear of God’s love and God’s desire for that to be mirrored in human relationships. Everywhere in scripture, including Mark’s gospel, we see Jesus making people whole—healing them, delivering them from demons, feeding them, and teaching them. Every single thing Jesus said and did was that people may be healed and full of life. 

Scripture speaks of the kingdom as: one that will never be destroyed (Dan. 2:44), one of righteousness and abundance (Matt. 6:33), that invites outsiders in, that came near in Christ and was embodied by him (Mark 1:15). It’s a kingdom of power (Mark 91). The kingdom is a place for the poor, broken and disenfranchised. My favorite is, “…the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:21). Where Jesus is, there is the kingdom. Through baptism, Christ is in each one of us. 

We are in the kingdom now, but there’s a problem. It’s that sin thing that was mentioned in the Confession and Forgiveness. We see this in the set-up of Jesus’ teaching about divorce. First, we need to realize that the Pharisees were not sincerely seeking to know Jesus’ thoughts. It was a plot to entangle Jesus in the arguments among various rabbis concerning divorce and remarriage. If he seemed short with them, that’s why. 

I struggled with this when I found myself in the position of being a victim of divorce, something I never wanted. I could not comprehend how God was not changing the heart of my husband after I prayed and prayed and prayed. Surely, divorce was not God’s will for us, was it? Finally, the folks we Had worked with overseas counseled that l needed to divorce my first husband. They even paid for it, knowing my financial situation at that time. 

In spite of it all, my first husband and I have remained good friends. He and Ray are friendly as well. If the two of them are in a room together, soon you hear uproarious laughter coming from there. Together with our grown children and granddaughter, we have our own little piece of the peaceable kingdom. Of course, not all situations are as ours.

All of us have experienced divorce in one way or another, if not ourselves, then a friend or family member. Jesus is not telling those who are suffering from abuse, infidelity, or another issue that they cannot and should not get a divorce or remarry. 

The social issues of Jesus’ time were very different. Today, marriage and divorce are very different. Then the context was patriarchal, in which only the man could initiate an end to the marriage. Adultery was an infraction of one man against another.

Jesus refers to “hardness of heart” as the reason Moses allowed divorce. It was what it was, but not what God desired. Jesus goes to God’s original intention for marital union, the one flesh relationship—two as close as if they were one. 

Jesus is not speaking to our modern issues of marriage and family. I don’t want to get lost in the weeds with this passage, but it could be used to argue either against or in favor of marriage equality. 

The against is:  

Jesus declares that marriage is between a man and women.

For: 

           The practice in most churches is to allow divorced people to remarry. This capitulation to culture is no different, and no less faithful than to allow for same-sex marriage. To argue otherwise [would be seen as] inconsistent and hypocritical. (Eric Fistler and Robb McCoy, pulpitfiction.com)

In Jesus’ peaceable kingdom, he is waiting with outstretched arms for the hurting, not to scold, but to comfort and heal them. What is God’s grand plan? It all boils down to relationships: with God, each other and our neighbors. Jesus calls us to peace and wholeness. However, we experience the kingdom of God as now, but not yet. It is only at the end of the age that we will experience it in its fullness. 

While on this earth, we stumble and fall. We are selfish. It’s that sin thing again. We don’t give enough for the sake of others: the poor, homeless, those wounded from war or natural disasters.  But he has made a way, through the cross, for our sins. God enables us to be the kind of neighbors God calls us to be. 

Let us pray.

Holy God, out of your great love for the world, your Word became flesh to live among us and to reconcile us to you and to one another. Rekindle among us the gift of your Spirit so that we seek to live in unity with all people, breaking down the walls that divide, ending the hostility among us, and proclaiming peace to those who are near and to those who are far away; through Christ Jesus, in whom we all have access in the one Spirit to you, both now and forever.

Amen. (All Creation Sings)

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