18th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 22
Mark 10:2-16
"Marriage"
2 And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"
3 He answered them, "What did Moses command you?"
4 They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to put her away."
5 But Jesus said to them, "For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.
6 But from the beginning of creation, ’God made them male and female.’
7 ’For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,
8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.
9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder."
10 And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter.
11 And he said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her;
12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."
13 ¶ And they were bringing children to him, that he might touch them; and the disciples rebuked them.
14 But when Jesus saw it he was indignant, and said to them, "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God.
15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."
16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them.RSV
Grace and Peace to you from Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus who is the Christ. Amen
Our lesson from Mark this morning is a lesson which makes me and other pastors shudder. It is a passage about marriage, divorce, and adultery.
I think we can look at this passage with two different eyes. One eye of grace and the other eye of law.
The eye of the law sees this passage as one where we can feel self righteous about ourselves as we see those in our midst who have been divorced. We can point to verses 11 and 12 and say very loudly that those who divorce and remarry are committing adultery. And we can say that Jesus said this so it is true.
We can pounce on people and make them feel guilty about their broken lives. We can cast blame, we can feel morally superior, we can talk about them behind their backs. We can do all sorts of things to make ourselves feel great, them feel bad.
Or, or we can look with the eye of grace. Grace which says that though God wanted us to remain together as one, God knew of our sinfulness and knew that divorce would eventually happen. And when it does, we are to forgive, comfort and have compassion for those who have experienced this kind of brokenness in their lives.
Jesus knew that our sinful selves are not always equipped to follow through on the commitments we make.
So he says in verse 5 But Jesus said to them, "For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.
The hardness of your hearts--looking to your low moral state, and your inability to endure the strictness of the original law, the sinfulness in which we live brought this law about.
To put away your wives--tolerated a relaxation of the strictness of the marriage bond--not as approving of it, but to prevent still greater evils. Jesus said that Moses allowed divorce because it would prevent even greater ill, maybe the murder of the wife or husband.
As we look at these verses through the eye of grace we see that Jesus and God really wanted for us to be in a committed relationship, but at the same time they knew that because of our fallen state that was not always possible.
Anyway, to put it in simple terms, we have divorce laws because of human sinfulness. If human beings were perfect, we wouldn’t need divorce laws --we wouldn’t need any laws. We would instinctively know and follow God’s will in all that we do.
But I think Jesus is also saying in this passage as we look at it through the eyes of grace, that marriage is something that is not easy, we need to work at it. We need to make a commitment to it.
Mignon McLaughlin says "A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person."
Marriage is not something that just happens at the altar the day you get married, but marriage happens daily. We need to work at it. We need to nourish it.
There is a book by Herbert Anderson and Robert Cotton Fite, entitled "Becoming Married." I had Herbert Anderson as a professor at Seminary. He taught us about counseling.The title and the theme of the book is that "marriage"doesn’t instantly happen with the ceremony or the signing of the license.
The becoming one begins before the ceremony and needs to continue progressing to become one for the rest of their lives.
There is a favorite song of mine by Kenny Rogers that speaks about the commitment we have in marriage. And about how the partners help each other grow.
The song is entitled "Through the Years" Listen to the lyrics.
I can’t remember when you weren’t there
When I didn’t care for anyone but you
I swear we’ve been through everything there is
Can’t imagine anything we’ve missed
Can’t imagine anything the two of us can’t do
Through the year, you’ve never let me down
You turned my life around, the sweetest days I’ve found
I’ve found with you ... through the years
I’ve never been afraid, I’ve loved the life we’ve made
And I’m so glad I’ve stayed, right here with you
Through the years
I can’t remember what I used to do
Who I trusted whom, I listened to before
I swear you’ve taught me everything I know
Can’t imagine needing someone so
But through the years it seems to me
I need you more and more
Through the years, through all the good and bad
I know how much we had, I’ve always been so glad
To be with you ... through the years
It’s better everyday, you’ve kissed my tears away
As long as it’s okay, I’ll stay with you
Through the years
Through the years, when everything went wrong
Together we were strong, I know that I belonged
Right here with you ... through the years
I never had a doubt, we’d always work things out
I’ve learned what life’s about, by loving you
Through the years
Through the years, you’ve never let me down
You’ve turned my life around, the sweetest days I’ve found
I’ve found with you ... through the years
It’s better everyday, you’ve kissed my tears away
As long as it’s okay, I’ll stay with you
Through the years!
As you listened to those lyrics, can you see the love in that relationship. Through the good and through the bad they relied on each other to get through the years. And that is what Jesus is talking about.
We need to work at marriage.
I get many e-mails from different groups and in one e-mail came these bill boards that people saw.
This one said: Loved the wedding, invite me to the marriage. -God
Isn’t that true. We talk about God at the wedding then in the marriage He is forgotten about. For a marriage to work, God needs to be present along with our willingness to work at the marriage.
Someone wrote:
Some marriages are made in heaven, but they ALL have to be maintained on earth.
Another thought says:
A good marriage is the union of two forgivers.
It is maintaining that is very important. Working, struggling, forgiving, loving, upholding, putting another first are all the ways of maintaining a marriage. As Kenny Rogers says in that song: "It’s better everyday". We can go through our rough times in a marriage, but it is the strength of the marriage that can look back over those times and see that indeed each day was better. Each day the couple grew closer and stronger.
A funny closing story sums up this idea of working at a marriage.
There was once a man and woman who had been married for more than 60 years. They had shared everything. They had talked about everything. They had kept no secrets from each other except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had cautioned him never to open or ask her about.
For all of these years, he had never thought about box, but one day, the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she would not recover. In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife’s bedside. She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box.
When he opened it, he found two crocheted doilies and a stack of money totaling $25,000. He asked her about the contents. "When we were to be married," she said, "my grandmother told me the secret of marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you I should just keep quiet and crochet a doily."
The little old man was so moved, he had to fight back tears. Only two precious doilies were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He almost burst with happiness. "Honey," he said, "that explains the doilies, but what about all of this money? Where did it come from?"
"Oh," she said, " that’s the money I made from selling the doilies."1
She had her own way of making that marriage work!
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.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.
What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder."
Amen
Written by Pastor Tim Zingale October 2, 2006
1from Grac*e-mail
