Proper 22 Year B – Reflection for Oct. 7, 2018: Mark 10:2-16
Jackson
A number of years back after I had spent a couple of years in ordained ministry and knew my congregation well, I thought it was the appropriate time to preach on one of the hard (hardest?) sayings of Jesus we find in the 10th Chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel. It is a saying that many are familiar with, even if they have spent very little time reading the Scriptures. It is a saying that I am very sensitive towards as I am the product of parents who each have had more than one divorce, and as a child, I experienced the pains associated with divorce.
Mark writes, “Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Jesus’ answer to his disciples seems nothing less than harsh to us today: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Drops mic. Walks off stage. Or at least that is the way Mark’s Gospel seems to present it.
There are many historical and socioeconomic reasons which can explain away some of the harshness of Jesus’ pronouncement on divorce. And I was sure to share those reasons with my audience, many of whom I knew were divorced and remarried. There is no doubt that in the historical context of the day, Jesus was taking a social justice stance as well as a theological stance. It was also considered to be a political stance and may have been the “hot-button” issue of the day. Certainly, Jesus was against the practice of serial monogamy, which left a divorced woman destitute and usually without future potential suitors. For this reason, I say it was a social justice stance. Furthermore, this makes the most sense as our Lord took the side of “the least of these” over and above those who wielded the power of the religious and economic status quo of 1st-century Palestine.
Drops Mic. Walks away from pulpit.
Well, on this particular Sunday morning as I was wrapping up my sermon I could not help but notice that I had lost the attention of many of my divorced parishioners. A number of them had a distant gaze and some could have been described as having a haunted look in their eyes. After the service, I realized that my pastoral sermon, meant to comfort those who had been through the trials of divorce, had not landed. I spoke with a trusted friend who was present and she confided that the sermon brought back bad memories and brought forth feelings of failure. She knew she was right to divorce a spouse who abused her, but still she could not help but to experience complex feelings. A little later that day, I received a text from a someone who wanted to know where the justice was for him after his wife left him and his kids and she was now living the high life on his alimony payments! My sermon had only brought up painful feelings for him.
Later that evening, as I reflected on the experience, it dawned on me that I had not read far enough in the Gospel of Mark. I do not believe it is a coincidence that following this hard saying is one of the most tenderhearted scenes in all of the four Gospels. “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
My parishioners, whom I loved dearly, didn’t need to hear why (or why not) divorce was not (or was) still considered adultery. They didn’t need justification for the seemingly harsh words coming out of the mouth of the one we proclaim as Lord of Lords. Rather, in their heart of hearts, they needed to hear Christ Jesus say, “Come to me. I will let no one stop you. I will let no divorce stop you from coming to me. The kingdom belongs to you as you mourn your pain. The kingdom belongs to you as hope for reconciliation one day. The kingdom is yours as you cry out for justice. Come to me as a little child and I will bless you. Come to me and I will hold you.”
No matter where life has brought you this day – divorced, remarried, single, married, childless, widowed – that which ultimately matters is a willingness to trust in the everlasting arms of Christ Jesus our Lord. May it be so in all of our lives.
– Rev. Gary Jackson is the rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Cocoa.