Scriptures:
Job 1:1, 2:1-10, Psalm 8
Job 1:1, 2:1-10, Psalm 8
Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12 Mark 10:2-16
Today
is World Communion Sunday. World
Communion Sunday, observed by some Protestant denominations on the first Sunday
of October, began within the Presbyterian church as a way to lift up the unity
of the body of Christ. It was adopted
and promoted by which would eventually become the National Council of Churches,
of which the United Church of Christ is a part.
Of course, as a Roman Catholic friend reminded me, Roman Catholics –
along with Orthodox Churches, Anglicans, and Lutherans, celebrate communion
every week, so for them, every Sunday is World Communion Sunday. But it’s nice that, along with the
Presbyterians, we Reformed churches can get our acts together once a year to rouse
ourselves to join in the worldwide demonstration of Christian unity.
On
this Sunday of unity, our reading from Mark’s gospel raises a church-dividing
issue – marriage. In every age, the church has had hot button, divisive issues
– ranging from the role of Gentiles in the church and whether it was ok to eat
meat sacrificed to idols – these were hot buttons when the New Testament was
being written – to the nature of Jesus – whether human, divine, or fully human
and fully divine – to whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, or from
both the Father and the Son – that issue divided the Eastern Orthodox churches
from the Roman Catholic church – to the authority of the Pope, to slavery, to
evolution, to the role of women in the church, to whether divorced people were
allowed in the church – While some of the early questions sound ridiculous to
our ears, wars were fought over them, and today the last few are still hot
buttons in some parts of the church. And in our day, there’s the question of whether
two adult human beings can be married regardless of gender. That last question wasn’t on the radar in
Jesus’ day – wasn’t addressed by Jesus directly – but is a question in the
church today, to which we respond as best we can not only with the letter of
Scripture, but the spirit as well, reminded that it is the Risen Christ who is
the living word of God, to whom the Scriptures point but whom the Scriptures
cannot confine. If there’s any good
news, it’s that many of the older questions were just as hotly debated as our
current questions, and the church eventually came to consensus and survived.
Jesus’
words were prompted by a question, not about marriage, but about divorce. “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife”,
some Pharisees asked. And it wasn’t an
innocent question, by any means – there were various schools of thought in
Judaism about whether and under what circumstances a man could divorce his
wife, and so no matter what Jesus said, he was going to offend someone. Jesus responded to their question with a
question of his own: “What did Moses
command you?” And the Pharisees replied,
“Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce
her.” And Jesus basically said that
Moses’ words were a concession to human “hardness of heart” – but it wasn’t
God’s original intent. From the beginning of creation, Jesus said, “God made
them male and female. For this reason a
man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two
shall become one flesh.”
I’d
like to look at the reference to Moses – to the Old Testament – that the
Pharisees made, to provide some additional context. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 states:
“Suppose a man enters into
marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something
objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it
in her hand, and sends her out of the house; she then leaves his house and goes
off to become another man’s wife. Then
suppose the second man dislikes her, writes her a bill of divorce, puts it in
her hand, and sends her out of his house (or the second man who marries her
dies); her first husband, who sent her away, is not permitted to take her again
to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that would be abhorrent to the
Lord.”
Some
things I’d like to bring up: it’s
notable – likely especially notable to the woman among us – that this is a very male-driven process – it’s all
about whether the man finds something objectionable about the woman. Nobody’s asking the woman whether she finds
something objectionable about the man. Formally
the phrase “something objectionable” would be a reference to indecency or
infidelity on her part, but let’s face it, if a guy finds something else
objectionable, like she’s put on a few pounds over the years or snores in her
sleep, it’s easy enough to conjure up justification for divorce. By the standards of Deuteronomy, if the guy
finds something he considers objectionable enough, he can hand his wife a piece
of paper and send her away, with no recourse – her views on the matter are
irrelevant. In that patriarchal society, there was a huge power differential
between men and women, and Jesus’ example of interacting with women and the
early church’s acceptance of women in some leadership roles did much to empower
women. Certainly, in that patriarchal
society, there was no such thing as alimony – so in a divorce, the woman would
essentially be abandoned, with very little means of earning a living other than
latching onto another man – either on a long-term basis via remarriage, or
repeatedly on a short-term basis via prostitution. And so, in that culture, religious rules
giving a lot of latitude for divorce were great for the guys, but not so good
for the women they sought to dump. And
let’s face it, then as now, some guys are dogs.
When
the disciples were alone with Jesus, they asked for clarification. And Jesus said, “Whoever divorces his wife
and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her
husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” In that patriarchal
society, there wouldn’t have been a lot of female-initiated divorces, but this
was more common in the Roman society surrounding Judea, and so Jesus addressed
it. So it would seem that Jesus concerned
about divorce, but really concerned about remarriage after divorce.
It
would seem that Jesus himself recognized that not everybody could accept his
words. In a parallel passage, Matthew 19
contains a passage parallel to today’s passage, but with some interesting
additions. Matthew 19:9 says, “Whoever
divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits
adultery.” That “unchastity” exception is
not contained in the Mark passage. In
Matthew’s gospel, the disciples respond by saying, “If such is the case of a
man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” And Jesus responded, “Not everyone can accept
this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from
birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there
are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. Let
anyone accept this who can.” So Jesus
gives what he knows to be a difficult teaching, at the same time acknowledging
that it’s not for everyone. I think we
can do no less – state the teaching of Jesus, but remember as Jesus did that some
are not called to marriage, and remember also that even those called to
marriage are broken human beings and that where our lives don’t look like the
teaching – and all of our lives, single or married, fall outside the teachings
of Jesus in all sorts of ways – if we seek it, God’s grace will prevail. Life
is complicated, and the one thing I do not want to do is to lift up this teaching
as a club with which to beat ourselves or others over the head. Those who have
divorced and remarried have already been through plenty of pain, and there’s no
just cause to add to it. Even the Roman Catholic church, which does not
recognize divorce, provides for annulments by retrospectively looking for
evidence that there was never a valid marriage in the first place according to
their guidelines – full and free consent, sufficient maturity to understand the
magnitude of what’s involved in marriage, commitment to fidelity, openness to
children… you could say, that God had never joined the couple together in the
first place.[1] Of course, this approach has its own problems
– where does that leave the children of any age that came out of a marriage
that’s annulled, that was retrospectively determined never to have existed?
A
personal testimony: my parents divorced as I was graduating from high school….my
sister was in 8th grade…their marriage had been falling apart in
slow motion for years before then, and the divorce brought an end to years of
pain. While my father was badly hurt in
his first marriage, he found great healing in his second marriage, and his
second wife – Catholic, as it happens, though they were married out of state by
a justice of the peace - was a wonderful caregiver in his final years. So my father found a measure of grace in his
second marriage. Even in a
less-than-perfect situation, grace prevailed….though amid pain, as my father on
his deathbed was very clear that he wanted his first wife – my mom – nowhere
near the funeral. Grace in the midst of pain…..that’s so often how life plays
out.
In
looking at this text, I think it’s best not to lay down any law, but to suggest
different angles from which to understand the text. In our gospel, the Pharisees seemingly
approach the question from the wrong end, making it about divorce, but Jesus
turns around the issue, making it about marriage. The Pharisees want to talk about the
circumstances under which marriage can be broken, but Jesus wanted to talk
about keeping marriage together.
Similarly, I think a lot of the culture wars discussion approaches
marriage from the wrong end by looking at the gender of those involved, taken
for granted in Jesus’ day but an open question in ours. I’d suggest we look at what Jesus seemed to
have emphasized – fidelity in marriage, keeping marriage together. “Whom God has joined together, let no one
separate.” And I would suggest that the
discernment that God has joined two people together, belongs, regardless of
gender, to those two people and, if a religious wedding is sought, the clergy
working with them in planning the wedding, and not to those outside the
relationship. And if two people and the
officiating clergy discern that, indeed, God has joined a couple together, it
would be well for those outside the relationship not to find themselves on the
wrong side of Jesus’ words, “let no one separate”. Where God seeks to join together, it’s not for
bystanders to insert themselves to get in the way.
In
discerning whether God has joined two people together, for those seeking a church
or synagogue or mosque wedding, there is a role for clergy, that isn’t present
in a civil ceremony. It is customary for clergy to meet several times with
couples seeking to wed, not only to plan the specifics of the wedding day, but
to help the couple to look beyond the wedding day to the years of marriage that
we hope will follow, to pray and bring words of scripture to bear on the
relationship. And note: this is about clergy doing religious
weddings, not county clerks issuing marriage licenses. Government officials issuing licenses have a
very narrowly-defined role – perform due diligence to be sure the parties
aren’t currently legally married to other people or that there’s no other legal
reason the couple can’t legally be wed, and civil law is the standard - but for
those who choose a religious marriage, the role of clergy is more nuanced and
more expansive. Every year, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of
starry-eyed couples approach clergy asking to be united in marriage. It is expected that clergy will do
pre-marital counseling, and in that counseling they will ask questions – about
families of origin, about approaches to solving problems around money and
intimacy and such, to offer the couple some guidance in avoiding pitfalls in
their shared life. And every year, in
some of those conversations, the pastor or priest or rabbi or imam picks up on
realities that the prospective marital partners struggle with out-of-control
addiction, anger management problems, tendencies toward violence, or have no intention
to be faithful…perhaps one or both of the partners stumble into the counseling sessions
reeking of booze, or one partner is wearing sunglasses and has bruises on her
neck and arms, or perhaps while the counseling is going on, one of the partners
is texting to arrange a rendezvous with someone else later that very evening –
and if that clergy person is a responsible clergy person, he or she is going to
look that couple in the eye and tell them, in words more polite and pastoral than
these, “No. I can’t in good conscience
go ahead with this. Your relationship looks like a train wreck waiting to
happen. If you are joined in marriage, I
predict that you will hurt and maybe destroy each other. I’m not stopping you from getting married
elsewhere, either at another church or at a justice of the peace, though I’d
urge you to reconsider. But in good
conscience, I can’t do this.” It sounds
unloving to say “no”, but to legally bind two people together in a relationship
of mutually-assured destruction is no act of love. But that discernment is based not on the gender
of the partners, but on their character.
“Whom
God has joined together, let no one separate.” I believe we should see this
teaching, not as a club with which to beat people over the head, but as an
impetus for us to look at ourselves and our society in the mirror, and to ask
whether our culture and society supports marriages and committed relationships,
or undermines them. And to scapegoat
LGBT persons misses the point that today, of all segments of society, LGBT
persons are the most vocal about how high a value they place on marriage, while
everybody else can blithely take marriage for granted as an option they can
choose or reject as they see fit. Our
culture encourages those of great financial means to look on absolutely
everything – even other human beings – as commodities, and at least among the
very wealthy, if one’s spouse is showing signs of age, it’s time for a divorce
and the acquisition of a trophy wife or husband. For the rest of us, for us here at Emanuel
who aren’t in a financial position to acquire a trophy wife or husband, our
economy puts a lot of stress on marriages.
Being forced to work two or three low wage jobs to provide food and
shelter doesn’t leave a lot of time or energy for quality time with
family. Higher paid jobs that require a
lot of travel are very hard on families, as is military service, especially
today in which young men and women are routinely redeployed over and over again. And public assistance guidelines can work to
actively separate women and children from the men in their lives. So, as often happens, when we point the
finger at couples who split up, perhaps as a society we need to look at the
three fingers pointing back at us, and ask what we’ve done to make the
situation better or worse. And as a
church, I pray that we can be a family of faith where all are welcome –
regardless of race or ethnicity, regardless of age or ability, regardless of
gender and sexual orientation, and regardless of family configuration, whether
single or married, divorced or remarried.
Perhaps
it’s important to remember that even before Genesis speaks of Adam and Eve
becoming “one flesh”, it quotes God as saying, “It is not good for the man to
be alone.” Part of our essential humanity
– part of the way in which God’s image is reflected in us – is that we seek
connection with human beings beyond ourselves.
For many, the primary way that connection happens is through marriage. Others are called to singleness, but still
find human connection through a circle of friends that becomes a “family of
choice”. For those with connections to
faith communities, church can become a kind of extended family – as indeed I hope
Emanuel Church is or can be for many of us.
It is part of the human condition that our ability to connect with other
humans can bring so much joy, and so much pain, into our lives. And yet to live
an isolated, disconnected life can bring pain as well…the shooter in this
week’s school shooting was a loner frustrated by his inability to connect with
others, as was Dylann Roof, Elliot Rodgers, Adam Lanza, and on and on.
Isolation can be deadly; connections to others can be literally life-giving. So may we give thanks for the connections to
other people we can make, and may we refrain from looking down on those who
feel called to relationship choices different from our own.
As
I said, the church can be an extended family – and it’s a family that extends
beyond our own little house of worship on Fillmore Street. On this World Communion Sunday, we’re
reminded that the family of the church, of which we’re a part, extends around
the globe, and through time as well as space, connecting us to our mothers and
fathers in the faith, and their mothers and fathers of the faith, and so forth
through the centuries. Last weekend
brought a joyous gathering of a part of our family to see the Pope. So even if we spend a lot of time by
ourselves, we are never alone – God is with us, and the church surrounds us
with care. May we celebrate all of the
families – family of origin, family through marriage, family of choice, the
family of the church - with which God has blessed us, and may our family at
Emanuel Church always be ready to welcome others to the table. Amen.
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