Sermon by the Rev. Andrew S. Rollins

October 8, 2006 (Proper 22B)

Text: Mark 10:2 - 9

Title: “The Truth About Marriage”

61 North To Gonzales

I asked Jeanie for her permission to share a silly little story with you today about our marriage. This is a tough text we hear this morning, so I thought that it might help us all to be able to laugh a bit. She said, “No.”

Anyway, several years ago when we lived in New Orleans we decided to take a road trip up to St. Francisville one Saturday. We headed towards Baton Rouge, turned right at the Mississippi, and got off on Rouge 61, but unwittingly headed the wrong direction. We were enjoying talking together and not paying much attention. Finally, Jeanie asked if we shouldn’t seeing signs for St. Francisville. “We will before long here.” Then she noticed signs for Gonzales. “Shouldn’t we stop and ask directions?” “No thank you, I think it’s just over the next hill here. I’ll just look more intently over the horizon.”

She wants to stop and ask directions: “Why not stop here? If we stop, someone can help us. Besides, we might even meet someone new, relate with them, converse with a local. Maybe ask them what are they really FEELING? . . . Sir, my husband is hopelessly incompetent. Can you assist us?”

I don’t want to stop. I’m Daniel Boone. Why would I stop to ask directions? Besides, this is first real adventure I’ve had in three months. My survival skills have been dormant. The most excitement I’ve had recently was when I wore the wrong color chasuble.

Now, every time we head anywhere north of Baton Rouge, I have to hear, “Honey, do you think we could take the route that doesn’t go through Gonzales this time?”

We’re not the first married couple to do this dance. We have had some of our worst fights in the car. The car is a hard place to stop talking to each other. There is no escape.

In marriage, even conflict over small things can lead one to raise large questions about the whole institution: “What have I gotten myself into? I thought we had . . . an agreement . . . a contract? I thought this was going to fulfill me? I thought this was going to be for the larger good of society? What IS this THING I’ve gotten myself into?”

This is a hard text today. The Pharisees brought Jesus a hard issue: divorce. It may help to notice that, from where Jesus sat -- the Son of God looking back at those Pharisees, looking around at the crowd, looking then at his disciples . . . from his unique vantage point . . . the question behind the question was, “What IS marriage?” He is not asked that question. But, if you watch carefully, that is the question he answers: What IS marriage?”

A Change of Terms

The Pharisees approach Jesus with a legal question: Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? As he so often does, Jesus refuses to answer the question in the terms it was posed. They want to talk about what they’re allowed or not allowed to do (the rules, the law, the exceptions). Jesus, instead, decides to talk about God’s first and best intention for marriage, God’s vision for marriage.

He refers them to Genesis. Moses allowed for divorce as a concession to man’s ‘hardness of heart’, BUT God’s original purpose – as described in Genesis -- was lifelong faithfulness between a man and a woman in marriage. The two become ‘one-flesh.’ What God has joined together, man should not separate. Jesus doesn’t give a detailed case law. He doesn’t speak to the possibility of exceptions to the rule. He simply states the rule itself as clearly as can be done. “What is marriage?” Marriage is a lifelong faithful, ‘one-flesh’, God-created, union between a man and a woman.

Questions Raised

That definition of marriage immediately raises a host of questions, doesn’t it? It raised questions the moment the Jesus first spoke these words. Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. That verse follows immediately after today’s gospel reading from Mark: Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter.

We can identify with the disciples. We can guess some of the question those disciples might have asked. And we might add more questions to that list: “Jesus, are you saying that God created every man to leave his parents and be joined to a wife? What about men or women who want to marry but never find the right partner? What about men and women who fall in love and feel sexually attracted to a member of the same sex? Are you saying that every marriage was made in heaven and that divorce and remarriage are never possible? What about marriages in which a husband abuses his wife? Or vice versa? What about partners whose love turns to deadly hostility toward each other?” These are some of the questions we might want to raise with Jesus.

How liberating that the gospels record that the disciples didn’t understand everything that Jesus taught (David Scott)!

Questions have been raised about this teaching from the start. From the start, the church has struggled to maintain the authority of Jesus’ teaching with the reality of marriages which seem to fall so terribly short of that vision. Within the scriptures themselves, there are signs of the early church grappling with possible exceptions to the rule. The gospel writer Matthew adds the phrase “except for unchastity” to Jesus’ command against divorce (19:3). The apostle Paul, faced with the issue of a believer married to a non-believer, allows for an exception. All denominations have struggled to apply this teaching and finally settled on various exceptions to it (annulment, remarriage under certain circumstances).

None of that alters what Jesus himself said was the truth about marriage: that it is a lifelong faithful union between a man and a woman.

Softening His Words

It would be very tempting for me at this point to work to soften the impact of Jesus words. I could speak in such a way that you would walk out of here thinking, “That Jesus is really harsh, impractical, and unforgiving; but that Drew, he’s really quite pastoral, practical, kind, quite the Good Shepherd.” But there would be something wrong with that picture.

Jesus tells us the truth about marriage. Notice that it is not an ideal. It is not a standard. It is a true description of what marriage is. That’s where he insists that we begin.

Cutting Up A Living Body

Beginning with that definition helps us to understand Jesus’ position on divorce. Marriage creates a new being, a ‘one-flesh’ being, a ‘mystical union’ that is the best metaphor available for the relationship between Christ and his Church.

C. S. Lewis wrote that churches “. . . all regard divorce as something like cutting up a living body, as a kind of surgical operation. Some of them think the operation so violent that it cannot be done at all (Roman Catholics); others admit it as a desperate remedy in extreme cases (Anglican and Protestant). They are all agreed that it is more like having both your legs cut off than it is like dissolving a business partnership or even deserting a regiment. What they all disagree with is the modern view that it is a simple readjustment of partners, to be made whenever people feel they are no longer in love with one another or when either of them falls in love with someone else” (Lewis).

That all following directly from Jesus’ understanding of marriage. Divorce is like losing your legs. It’s like an amputation. It is violent. That’s the truth.

Children of Divorce Know This

This helps to explain why it hurts as bad as it does, both for a couple being divorced, and for children of divorce.

My best friend’s parents were divorced just after he left college. To illustrate just how a good a friendship this was, I was traveling with them in Ireland on their honeymoon! (Granted, it was a four-month honeymoon.) We were standing in a train station in Ireland together. They were newly married and Paul had called home and was told by his mom that they were getting a divorce.

He was also told that it was a good thing that he was older when it happened because it wouldn’t be as painful. That was intended to spare his feelings, but it was untrue. The truth would’ve served him better. The truth was that he would simply suffer pain particular to his stage of life. He was old enough to really be caught in the middle – old enough to be told details about each by the other than a child should have to hear – old enough to be trying to is model for marriage was being pulled out at the moment that he relied on it most. That was the truth. Through that all, he kept wondering why it hurt so much – why he couldn’t just get over it – why it kept effecting his own marriage so deeply. The truth would’ve served him better.

Jesus teaches his disciples the truth about marriage, a truth is hard for us (and them) to hear, but a truth that can set us free. It’s a truth that can also mean freedom for divorced couples. It can mean freedom because it can be the first step of God healing them. (And God can heal these wounds.)

Admitting your particular contribution to the failure of a marriage, your own sin, your own falling short (even if it’s not the whole story), has to happen before you can move on. In fact, I am not permitted to do a remarriage until a divorced person has thoroughly examined the cause of the failure of a previous marriage and their particular contribution to the break up. I have to put that in writing.

That’s a painful discussion. But the truth needs to come out. The Truth is always good news. The truth, the unwillingness to forgive, the ‘hardness of heart’ that leads to divorce, needs to be brought before God for healing. The rationalizations, the evasions, the half-truths never lead to healing. They only cover up the wounds. And the wounds can fester for generations.

Ultimately, it’s always good news to see ourselves in the light of God’s Truth. God redeems. God forgives. God heals.

Remember . . . especially if you are divorced, or a child of divorced parents, or remarried . . . remember that there was never a more compassionate, more loving, more understanding, more grace-giving person to ever walk this earth that Jesus Christ. It was Jesus who taught this truth about marriage.

In John’s gospel, Jesus says: If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. The truth will set you free.