Mark 10:2-16
October 8, 2006
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
When a man marries a woman, they become one, but the trouble starts when they try to decide which one!
The trouble with wedlock is that there’s not enough wed and too much lock!
Someone once said, “Marriage is love. Love is blind. Marriage is an institution. Therefore, marriage is an institution for the blind!”
Some feel it’s inappropriate to make fun of the holy state of marriage. Then there are others who know it’s the only way we can live with it.
We all know that our marriages need regular, proactive attention. We give our cars regular tune-ups. We get performance evaluations at work. We do Fall cleaning in our houses or what we will be doing this Saturday—cleaning up the church. For our marriages to be good and strong, they too need some tuning up attention every now and then. But we probably also have heard that divorce rates inside and outside of the church are the same. So while we hope and pray that all of the time that I spend in pre-marriage counseling with couples will remain together until death do them part, we haven’t exactly upheld a model of healthy and sustainable marriages for the watching world.
We also haven’t done a great job caring for the divorced in our churches either. Divorced people tell stories of how they have been socially marginalized in the church—about being branded with a “D.”
Part of the reason for this is that divorce is understood from several different streams of belief on what the Bible teaches about divorce and remarriage. Some people find no justification for it, others say it’s acceptable given certain circumstances, still others see many reasons for people who might divorce and remarry freely. Consensus hardly abounds and we will not settle this matter this morning and definitely not from sharing a sermon from this pulpit.
But what we can say this morning is that we need “divorce prevention through marriage attention.”
Is It Lawful?
We see in Mark 10, the Pharisees questioned Jesus about the law, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” They want to know the rules. Who can and who can’t? For what reasons can this be done? Isn’t it ironic that this question is one that has been echoed through the centuries and emerges for us today and we realize that divorce and family break-ups concern us as well? Divorce has become so prevalent in our world that there are likely few extended families that are not affected by it; that don’t have some family member divorced. We have people who are divorced in our extended families.
People want to know whether that is okay or not. Is the very fabric of our society being torn apart? Is there redemption after divorce?
So the Pharisees ask Jesus the question. But Jesus puts the question back to the Pharisees. According to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, it is not unlawful for a man to divorce a woman. If he grants the woman a certificate of divorce, she may marry again. The Pharisees respond correctly. But Jesus makes it clear that he regards this as a concession to human sinfulness.
Jesus calls them to step back and look at the larger picture of the intentions of God for creation. Jesus quotes Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 and says that God made them male and female and for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother. In short, God did not create a flawed creation but because of the hardness of hearts (our human sin and weaknesses), “adjustments” have had to be made.
It’s important to note that while the Pharisees were concern about granting rights and permission, Jesus was expressing a concern about the will of God. Jesus wants us to step back and see what God’s intentions are for us.
Later on, the topic of divorce was still on the minds of his disciples so they ask Jesus again. And we see in Jesus’ response that he contrasts his answer with that of Deuteronomy. Jesus declares that either a husband or wife who divorces and marries and then remarries is committing adultery.
Adultery was always an intimate relationship between a married woman and a man other than her husband. Therefore a woman could commit adultery against her husband, but a man could not commit adultery against his wife. But Jesus is saying in verse 11-12 that a married man can commit adultery against his wife too. This means that in respect to marriage after divorce both parties, both the man and the woman are put on equal footing! In the end, when a man and a woman are married, their goal is to prevent divorce through attention to their marriage. We don’t get marry and expect to be divorced. We get married and as our vows declare, stay married “until death do us part.”
Hard Sayings
Biblical scholars refer to this passage as one of Jesus’ “hard sayings.” It’s tough talk and for most preachers including this one, we would rather choose another passage to preach on. In fact, I have been praying about delivering this message all week. I fear that I would offend someone here this morning and I pray that I won’t.
Jesus justifies his tough position against divorce and remarriage because it is God’s intentions that married people stay together. God is on the side of unity, community, and togetherness. This gives order and stability to the world that, without people who are show enduring commitment to one another “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, until death do us part,” would be a heartless, unstable, and chaotic place.
The very next words of Jesus are about the love and care of children. What he says against divorce and what he says about children in today’s Gospel are related. Just like women under Deuteronomic laws can’t defend themselves, children can’t either. Jesus became angry with his disciples for turning the children away because he knew that they can’t defend themselves. Both women and children were considered inferior to adult males but in the Kingdom of God they have a place. Jesus speaks against divorce because he knew that women in his days would become defenseless and vulnerable in a male dominated society.
It would be a sad perversion for the church today to take what Jesus said against marital breakup and use it to beat up on those persons who, for various reasons, have decided to end their marriage and separate, as if divorce were the one unforgiveable sin. Marital separation hurts people, and hurting, vulnerable people are those who are especially loved by Jesus. Today’s Gospel defends those who are victimized in marriage and divorce and defends little children as well.
Sadly, we live in a broken world where people make and break promises, where people find it difficult to keep their commitments, and where people have promises broken by other people. But we know that Jesus is clearly on the side of those who are hurt by such human chaos. That’s the reason why Jesus talks tough to us.
Prevention through Attention
When we decide to get married, the question is how are we going to relate with one another as in one flesh and not if we are going to relate. As people date seriously, they inevitably think about their potential partner by asking, “How can we make this work?” When a couple makes their vows, it’s the power of intent. Regardless of one’s feelings or even conduct, a person cannot promise to love another person—they can only vow to do so. We make a vow and devote the rest of our life discovering what that vow means and be willing to change and grow accordingly through the years.
And every time we attend someone’s wedding and we hear them giving their vows to each other, we quietly remind and rehearse for ourselves our own vows to our loved one. And anyone who is honest about marriage will tell you that holding those vows takes effort. It takes selflessness, growing together, compromise, seeing and believing that two lives becoming one flesh. We can prevent divorce when we give attention to our marriage.
Tony Campolo, the American Baptist teacher and preacher says that over the years he has spoken at a lot of marriage seminars at churches. At almost every church he goes to, he says sooner or later some guy will raise his hand and ask, “Who’s supposed to be the head of the house? Who’s supposed to run things in the home?”
While he does not always say so aloud, in situations like that Campolo says he feels like telling the audience, “If you were a Christian, you wouldn’t ask such a stupid question! A Christian never asks who is going to be the master. The Christian always asks who’s going to be the servant.”
In fact, he says that the ideal marriage is where the husband says to his wife, “Honey, my dreams, my hopes, my aspirations mean nothing to me. If I can help you to become all that you can be, I’ll sacrifice everything I am for that.” In response, in the ideal marriage the wife will then say, “Oh, no! I’m ready to sacrifice my hopes and dreams and my aspirations to enable you to become all that you can be.” And then the man says, “Oh, no…” and the couple has their first fight. In an ideal marriage, this is the only argument that Christians are supposed to have.
Jesus wants our relationships to be on equal footing. Both the husband and the wife need to take equal and shared responsibility to make their marriage healthy and growing. Here’s an illustration of this—sharing the household work evenly. Yet many times, the household chores are primarily placed on just one spouse, quite often the wife.
One way to make sure that doesn’t happen, at least when it comes down to the laundry, is to purchase the new Your Turn washing machine. Pep Torres, a Spanish designer, incorporated modern fingerprint technology into a washing machine. The machine is then programmed to prevent the same person using it twice in a row to try and ensure that men do their share of domestic chores. In other words, to turn on the washing machine the user has to place his or her finger on a pad. But when that wash cycle is completed, the washing machine will not turn on again for another load if the same fingerprint is detected. The inventor believes that the appliance might catch on and be a good teaching device, especially in households where the men think that household work such as laundry is beneath them.
Open to Learning
Someone made the observation that Jesus blessed the children and taught the adults. Our culture tends to do the opposite. We teach the children and bless the adults. We place our children in school for twelve to twenty years including church school primarily aimed at children. We bless the adults saying you are grown up, you make your own decisions and whatever you decide will be okay.
If we can take a lesson from the Scriptures this morning, we can learn something as adults. We think that we know enough about God that there’s no more room for growth and no more possibility of a new insight.
According to Jesus’ hard sayings and teachings for us today is that a broken promise, including the broken promise of marriage, is a serious moral matter, no matter what reason we might give for thinking that we are justified in breaking those promises.
I think we’ve got to fight the tendency just to explain away Jesus’ words on divorce. We have come here this morning to be with Jesus, to listen to Jesus, even if what he has to say to us makes us uncomfortable. Remember, the one who says that divorce and remarriage after divorce is a sin is the same one who repeatedly says (so many, many more times than he condemned divorce!) that he has come to seek and to save the lost, and to forgive sinners.
If you have been hurt through divorce, then today’s Gospel is the good news that, from the beginning divorce is not what God intended. If you have hurt someone through divorce, then today’s Gospel is a good time to be reminded that Jesus came into the world to save sinners, to forgive us, to offer us the gracious means whereby we can pick up and start over.
Jesus doesn’t want us concerned with whether or not we can pursue divorce. He wants us concerned with whether or not we are pursuing our marriage. Let us take these hard sayings from Jesus and commit ourselves to a healthy and sustained relationship because divorce prevention can be achieved through marriage attention and our trust in God to guide our steps through the years.
Let us pray.
Merciful God, you have called us to follow you, to walk your way, no matter the trials and temptations that are offered by the world. Lord Jesus, give us strength and forbearance when promises are broken and dreams are shattered. Give us your grace not to be overcome by our failure, strength to get up, to ask for forgiveness, and to begin again, walking your way, by your grace. Amen.