There is a group of new Pastors who are keeping in touch with one another this year via e-mail. We check-in and see how things are going. We talk about ideas for children’s sermons and compare life in the parish to what we learned in the classroom.
It’s a helpful way to enter into a new profession, to have a group of friends and peers there for support. As we chatted away about preaching this week, everyone had a variation of “let the little children come to me” Great to preach about, I said, but the reading is mostly about divorce. “Oh, I can’t preach on that.” The replies came. There was a general consensus that preaching on divorce is a sure way to ruin your career and that even the senior pastor would get fired for preaching on such a thing.
A similar thing happened this week around the office. People would stop by the church for this or that, a meeting, choir,,, and they would ask “So Pastor, what are you preaching on this week?” “Divorce” I would say simply. The reaction was always the same. **GRIMACE** **SHOCK** **DISBELIEF**
These reactions are understandable. Divorce can be a messy and painful experience. I suppose there was a time where divorce was infrequent and isolated. But now it is hard to find someone who hasn’t been touched by divorce. Our parents, our friends, our brothers or sisters, our children, or even ourselves, have had the unfortunate and unpleasant experience of divorce. Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, I remember that the kid who stuck out was not the kid whose parents were divorced, but the kid whose parents were married!
To say that divorce or separation is unpleasant is often an understatement. Sure, there are the Hollywood divorces, citing “Irreconcilable differences.” But frequently there have been issues of mistrust at best and abuse at worst. When you hear the word “Divorce” what comes into your mind? Seeing those you love go through the experience, or remembering having gone through it yourself. My parents are divorced, and for me the first thing that I think of when I hear the word “Divorce” is “Custody Battle” For all of us, these memories are Painful both emotionally and physically.
I think that these memories become painful for us spiritually as well when we hear the words of Jesus say that Divorce equals adultery. Here we are in the place that is supposed to provide us with solace, a place that is supposed to provide us with positive and wholesome human relationships, and most importantly a place where we have a relationship with a loving God. Yet Jesus is telling us that our actions violate one of the commandments.
It’s no wonder that people avoid preaching about this topic. When you consider all of our personal history, our memories, our issues, our baggage about divorce,,,, hearing these words from the lectionary and the pulpit can seem almost caustic, almost toxic.
But is that how Jesus is saying it, or is that how we are hearing it?
Let’s not take Jesus out of context.
When the Pharisees come to him and ask him about divorce, Jesus doesn’t give them an answer, but asks them a question in return. What did Moses tell you? Well, Moses said it was o.k. and allowed us to write a certificate of divorce. Jesus says that while Moses allowed it, God never intended it to be that way. We heard the same passage from Genesis this morning that Jesus quotes. And it’s not a passage about marriage. It’s the story of creation. God created the world, created people, created animals. God brought the animals to the people and said “Are any of these a good companion, a good helper?” And despite the dogs and cats, birds and fish, lizards and snakes [all of which are good pets] there was none to be found. So God created in us the need to be with one another, the desire for closeness to another human being, the sense of having a “better half” that makes two people a whole.
In a similar way, let’s not take our own lives out of context.
Unless there was a shotgun involved, most weddings do not happen without a little bit of falling in love. There is dating, there is courting, there is the feeling of being in love. “In the Beginning” it was good. “In the Beginning” it was as God intended it to be. Which is probably why the memories of the divorce and separation are so painful. Because we loved the person, or we know that the people loved one another. The same is true for our friendships, our work relationships, and our relationships with other family members. We care about the person, or the project at work, or the team so much. We are committed.
That is the world as it should be, but unfortunately it is not the world as it really is. And, as I’ve learned from people around Holy Cross these last few months “It is what it is.” We live in a world that is plagued by sin. Greed, Power, Violence, Avarice, Spite, Jealousy, they all enter into our daily lives and our relationships. They affect not only our marriages but our friendships and our professional lives.
This is the issue that Moses had to address and that Jesus addresses to us now. The world as it should be, the world that God created, does not have divorce or separation. But the world as it is, the world that we live in, is a world where perfect relationship are impossible.
Notice that Jesus doesn’t judge. Jesus doesn’t make a value statement. He simply states the facts. Divorce equals adultery.
But let’s not take Jesus out of context? What happens next?
There are children who are being prevented from coming to Jesus. Prevented by adults who have ideas about what’s right and wrong, what’s proper and not, what’s legal and illegal. Adults are funny in that way. The mind of the adult is full of value’s and judgment’s and belief’s. Jesus chastises those who stand between him and the children. Jesus wants the children to come to him. And he puts them in his lap and he blesses them. And this, too, is part of the scripture on divorce.
When we or the ones we love have been through the ordeal of divorce, and we hold that pain with us, we feel like it’s a part of ourselves that we want to hide from God, to deny. When we have put our all into a team, a coworker, a project, or a family member, we are hurt to see that relationship dissolve. And we don’t want to let God see what’s happened. It’s probably the reason why we would rather skip over this lesson for today. It’s probably also the reason why we experience Jesus’s words as being so negative.
Those feelings of pain and guilt and shame are like the disciples, preventing us from getting to Jesus. The stereotypes that divorced people are subjected to combined with legalistic interpretations of scripture from different denominations and the ways in which our own families sometimes turn their back to divorced persons can feel like roadblocks to Jesus.
But Jesus wants us to come to him. Jesus wants us to be Children of God, to sit on his lap. Children are interesting. They always want to tell you what’s going on in their lives. They are always wanting to share a new thought, or idea, to share a new toy or joke. They are authentic. They don’t hide parts of themselves, and they certainly don’t bite their tongue! Jesus wants us to be like Children to God. To be authentic to God.
Martin Luther spoke of authenticity to God in a passage that is also taken out of context more often than not. He said that if you are going to believe in Grace, then believe in true Grace and not fictitious Grace. And “If Grace is true, you must bear a true and not fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are in this world, we have to sin…[but] no sin will separate us from the Lamb [of Christ].”
This is not a new idea that Luther came up with. God told the Israelites a similar thing through the prophet Isaiah. God Said, where is the certificate of divorce that separated us? There is none. Or to which of my creditors have I sold you? I have not. Why was there no one there when I came? Why did no one answer when I called? Is my hand so short that I cannot reach you? My hand can dry up the sea and make rivers into deserts. I clothe the night sky in stars and blackness. And I give you words to sustain one another when you are weary. Morning after morning I waken your ear to hear. I the Lord God will help you. Do not be disgraced. Do not be put to shame. I will help you. [Isaiah 50]
Jesus wants us to come to God with all of our quirks and scrapes and bruises and even our divorces. And Jesus wants to bless us. Through Jesus, God does not forsake us or condemn us.
So Please, let’s not take Jesus out of context.
