Sermon on Mark 10:2-16

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Our Gospel reading today is hard.

All of us either are or know someone—probably many people—who are divorced.

Sometimes divorce saves people’s lives—sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally.

Divorce is hard, even under the best circumstances.

Sometimes people who have divorced have later married other people who light up their life.

Divorce can be very painful, not just for the couple, but for their children, other family members, and friends. And sometimes it’s still the most compassionate option. And sometimes it’s not.

There are as many reasons for divorce as there are people who have experienced it.

Divorce is complicated.

We have rituals around what to do when a spouse dies. We bring casseroles, send flowers and cards, show up with groceries or take-out, we surround the bereaved with love at the funeral.

We don’t have rituals around divorce, though it’s also a painful and life-changing experience. There’s grief involved, even in the best of circumstances, because even good change is hard. And it’s not always good change.

Too many people have been hurt by this Gospel reading. Too many people have seen it as an outright condemnation of divorce regardless of circumstances. Too many people have been encouraged by their clergy to remain in abusive marriages.

This is a tough reading. We’re going to dig deeper, and I want to encourage you to be kind to yourself today, because divorce can be such a painful subject.

Let’s start off by noticing that the story begins by saying that some Pharisees were trying to test Jesus. That changes how we look at the teaching, because Jesus didn’t independently decide that divorce was an essential topic to instruct his disciples and followers about.

So, what was the test? It could have simply been a controversial topic that would likely get Jesus in trouble no matter how he answered.

There also could be a political reason why it would have gotten Jesus in trouble. The only other time divorce is mentioned in the Gospel of Mark is in chapter 6, when it talks about King Herod and his marriage to his brother Philip’s wife, Herodias. John the Baptist had spoken publicly about this being unlawful, which got him killed. Perhaps the Pharisees were hoping the same thing would happen to Jesus.

But instead of giving them a clear yes or no answer, Jesus pointed them to Moses and had them confirm that the Law permits divorce.

Instead of letting that be the end of the conversation, though, Jesus pointed them back further—all the way to the first humans in our reading from Genesis today.

As Jesus often did, he took the Law and interpreted it in a way that gotpast the letter of the Law to its heart.

God created a second human because it wasn’t good for the first human to be alone. We were created for community and with a need for community.

Jesus warned that the Law permits divorce because of humanity’s “hardness of heart.” Ideally, marriages would last, and divorce wouldn’t be needed, because we wouldn’t hurt or betray or neglect each other.

But part of being human on this side of life is that we fall short, we miss the mark, and we hurt each other and ourselves.That can be incredibly painful, but God is with us every step of the way, holding us, weeping with us. God loves each of us the way we should be loved, even when we don’t get that love from other human beings.

Jesus’ disciples still seem concerned about the topic of divorce, though, so they talked to Jesus about it later.

This time, he spoke more directly. He outright said that people who divorce their spouses and then remarry commit adultery against their first spouse.

Again, this is tough.

Just because someone’s marriage didn’t work out the first time doesn’t mean they should be barred from another chance at love and the promises of marriage.

Let’s look at a couple things this could mean:

First, let’s remember that marriage in the first century was not the same as it is now. It was an economic agreement, a marker of status, and a way to continue one’s family line. It was not a bond of romantic love as it’s usually considered in the US today.

Women and children were the property of their husbands and fathers. There’s disagreement among scholars about whether Jewish women in the first century could even initiate divorce. Roman culture seems to have been a bit more egalitarian in that regard.

It’s interesting that Jesus specifically namedmen who divorce their wives and women who divorce their husbands in this passage. Perhaps it was a dig at Herodias, as we talked about earlier. Perhaps it was a way to show the inequity of the law.

Though even if women were allowed to divorce their husbands, it would have been hard for them to survive on their own. Society was structured in a way that made women dependent on men for resources and social standing.

As we talked about a couple weeks ago, there’s a reason why the Hebrew Bible repeatedly instructs God’s people to care for widows and orphans—they were the least protected by society because they didn’t have the support and protection of men.

Divorce was hard on women in the first century in different ways than divorce is hard today, though certainly it can still be an economic hardship and have social consequences.

Lest you think I’m completely ignoring the second part of our Gospel reading today,which is a whole additional story, let’s take a look at it too and how it relates to the first story.

People were bringing kids to see Jesus, and the disciples were shooing them away. Jesus scolded his disciples and kept spending time with the kids.

Even though the two stories don’t seem related, they both involve vulnerable people.

Jesus essentially told the Pharisees that even if the Law permitted it, men shouldn’t divorce their wives for insignificant reasons, because it would leave the women without their social and financial support system.

And then, he told his disciples that the Beloved Community belongs to people like children—vulnerable, without social standing, completely dependent on others.

God created humanity to be in relationship—not just romantic partnership, but community with other people and with God.

Jesus came to spread the Beloved Community, which focuses on those society forgets about—those without a social and financial support system, those who are vulnerable and who need community to survive and thrive.

Jesus didn’t tell the Pharisees that Moses was wrong and divorce shouldn’t be lawful. It was more like, “Why are we even discussing the exact letter of the law about this? We should instead be building a community where everyone is loved and supported and cared for.”

As painful as our reading today is and as much as it’s been used to keep people in abusive and life-draining marriages, divorce isn’t even really the bottom line.

As is so often the case, Jesus’ teachings consistently come back to caring for the vulnerable, building community, and loving one another.

We can look at Genesis and see that God intended for humanity to care as deeply for each other as we do our own bodies.

We can look at the Law and see that God knew we would fall short of that ideal.

And then we can look at the Gospel of Mark and see that Jesus wanted his followers to strive for that ideal to the extent of our ability, not just for spouses but for our extended community, especially for the most vulnerable. And everyone is invited into that community. All people are bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh.

That is the Beloved Community on Earth.Be at peace, Beloved, and love one another.