Faithfulness in the Kingdom - Mark 10:2-16

Whelp, there’s no one here to stop me, so we’re gonna do it. We’re going to talk about divorce. I trust this church family to think and talk and pray about hard things faithfully, and frankly, today’s lectionary didn’t leave us much choice. I’m starting to see why both Kate and Ragan had somewhere else to be today.

One of the joys of parish ministry for me is working with couples as they prepare to take the vows of holy matrimony. In our sessions together we talk about all kinds of things, like how we respond to anger, what role God plays in the relationship, and what we learned about marriage as young people.

For instance, if you had asked ten-year-old Hannah what marriage was, she would have told you that it’s something all grown-ups do, that they all like it, and that the main point is to have children. Similarly, if you had asked high school or college-aged Hannah what her biggest fear was, without hesitation she would have said, “getting a divorce.” If only young Hannah could see me now!

My answers to both of those questions are a lot different today, and I’d like to think they’re more faithful. Because my early impressions about the purpose of marriage and the implications of divorce were rooted not in my faith tradition, but on the modern, American system of marriage, and on a deep misunderstanding of what our scriptures have to say about the matter.

When we meet Jesus today in chapter ten of Mark’s Gospel, his journey to Jerusalem is nearing its end. As his arrest and crucifixion loom, Jesus is using his final opportunities for preaching and teaching wisely, and working hard to drive home the message about the Kingdom of God.

Within just a few verses, we see two blind men given their sight, a little boy freed of his demon, an admonition about the value of young children, and a warning against wealth. He’s repeating over and over again, with words and actions, that God cares about the most vulnerable in our midst, and that’s where we should focus our attention, as well. That’s how the Kingdom of God will come about.

Sadly, our society seems to tell us that often, divorce represents a personal failure, whether that means one member of the couple is abusive or neglectful, or both members simply “couldn’t make it work.” The message we frequently hear is that people experiencing divorce don’t deserve our care, because that’s the choice they made.

But Jesus places divorce smack in the middle of a slew of teachings about the disadvantaged and disenfranchised. He draws our attention to the fact that people whose partnerships have dissolved and ended are vulnerable, just like people with physical maladies or spiritual distress, and anyone who has ever experienced divorce from any angle can tell you that Jesus knows what he’s talking about here.

Now there are some contextual details in this passage that are worth unpacking. In Jesus’ day, marriages were not about two people choosing to spend a life together. They were more typically contracts between male heads of families that involved buying, selling, and trading women. If these women were abandoned by their husbands, they had no rights and no status. Jesus warns men against treating women this way.

With so few options at their disposal, some women chose to use their bodies to their advantage, even at the expense of their husbands. Jesus warns against this, too. Jesus is clearly not in favor of divorce as a the go-to problem solving technique when things get difficult.

However, Jesus does not leave it up to us to decide who’s made the right choice with divorce and who hasn’t. The Pharisees ask about what’s lawful for “a man” and “his wife.” They aren’t naming names, but they’re clearly talking about other people. But Jesus asks, “what did Moses command you?” And then says, “because of your hardness of heart” was this commandment written.

While the Pharisees are looking for ways to condemn others, Jesus suggests that they take a good long look at their own relationships. It’s a good reminder that when it comes to relationships, we have plenty of our own work to do without wasting time assessing others. Christ’s message in Mark’s Gospel is clear to me. People experiencing divorce deserve our compassion, not our judgement.

I know one woman who answered the premarital session question very differently than I did. If you had asked her at age ten what marriage is, she would have told you it’s a thing some grown-ups do, but that she wasn’t sure why, because most of them seemed miserable, including her own parents. Perhaps some of you had a similar experience as a young person.

But she would also tell you that divorce saved her family. After over a decade of marriage, the only way her parents were able to remain faithful to the vows they made on their wedding day was to stop living together and end their legal partnership. In doing so, they were able to create a new relationship in which they could raise their children and support one another — from a healthy distance.

Scriptures like the one we read today and exposure to different ways of life have revealed to me that marriage isn’t necessarily what I thought it was as a child. And I’m not alone in my evolving understanding of this sacrament. Matrimony wasn’t even considered a sacrament until around the 13th century. For the first millennium of the Church, we didn’t celebrate the union of two souls liturgically.

During that time, Christians began to notice the incredible way that God can be revealed in a deep and committed relationship between two people, and in 1563, at the Council of Trent, the Roman Church acknowledged the sacrament officially. The Church of England beat them to the punch by a mere 14 years, when Thomas Cranmer included marriage in the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549.

If you’ve never read through that service in the prayer book, I highly recommend it. Much of the language is quite stunning, and resonates with people in all kinds of relationships beyond marriage. I’ve often lamented that we don’t have similar liturgy to celebrate the relationship between a parent and a child, or one for colleagues and business partners, or one for me and my best friend, Emma!

What our scriptures, our tradition, and our Savior Christ have to teach us today is that the concept of marriage evolves throughout history, and our job is not to be faithful to a system that we’ve put into place, but to be faithful to God, and that means being faithful to the people we are in relationships with. For some, that faithfulness looks like legal union, and for some, it doesn’t. For some, the best way to remain faithful to God is to end a legal union. And when that happens, it is worthy of our grief, and it is the responsibility of the community of faith to show God’s love to those involved.

In the liturgy for marriage, the Book of Common Prayer says that “the union of [two people]…is intended by God for their mutual joy.” Every time I read this aloud at a wedding, I imagine how much better the world gets every time two people who love each other dearly just get the giggles together. When we remember to be faithful to God and to the people we are in relationship with, instead of to the false idol of society’s expectations, God will break into the world in the most joyful of ways.

In the Kingdom of God, faithfulness wins the day every day, in every kind of relationship. And in the Kingdom of God, those who have been unfaithful, or have experienced unfaithfulness, are forgiven, healed, and renewed. For what God has joined together, no one can separate. Amen.