People, Not Problems

Proper 22, Year B
Mark 10:2-16
The Rev. Joshua Rodriguez-Hobbs

This morning, we’re hearing one of Jesus’ hardest teachings: Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record this saying of Jesus, but only Mark leaves us without any loopholes. This is an absolute prohibition, and the church has not used it well. Because it seems so simple, so straightforward, with no room for ifs, ands, or buts, the church has misused it to shame, condemn, and ostracize people. I know that many of you find it painful to hear this passage read aloud in church. So I think we need to begin this morning by acknowledging that the church has misused this teaching of Jesus to wound people, rather than to build up the body of Christ. We have, as Christians, as the church, been so eager to rush to judgment that we’ve misread this passage.

To begin with, we just can’t assume that Jesus thought about marriage and divorce the way that we do today. To confess that Jesus is fully human and fully divine means that, in his human nature, Jesus was the product of the culture into which he was born, a culture where marriage functioned differently than it does for us today. Raise your hand if your parents arranged your marriage. Of course they didn’t! You met your spouse, and the two of you chose to get married. But that wasn’t the way it worked in Jesus’ day. Parents picked out their children’s spouses, and the children had no say in it. Marriage was an exchange of property between two families. The two families would exchange wealth in the form of a dowry and a bride gift, and then the bride’s father would transfer ownership of her to her new husband. Marriage has changed significantly in the two thousand years since Jesus had this conversation with the Pharisees. Might we ask if divorce has too?

Jesus and the Pharisees all know that the Law of Moses permits divorce. Deuteronomy says:
            Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because
he finds something objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house.
The debate was over what counted as “something objectionable” enough for a man to ask for a divorce. Did you notice, by the way, that only the man is allowed to initiate a divorce? Some of the Pharisees said that “something objectionable” meant sexual immorality—a view that Matthew’s Gospel says Jesus took, in a softening of the words we heard Jesus speak this morning. Others said that “something objectionable” meant anything objectionable: burning dinner, being barren, getting old and less attractive than a younger woman. But their attention was solely on the man. They don’t ask what happens to the ex-wife, who is put out of the household. Where does she go? As a single woman, she couldn’t own property. Her own father or brothers might take her back in, or they might not, because she would have shamed them by getting divorced. If that happened, the only two ways she could support herself were begging or prostitution. The absolute prohibition against divorce Jesus makes this morning would be a safeguard against this. It would protect the vulnerable.

But there’s another layer here, too. The Pharisees aren’t really interested in Jesus’ answer. Mark tells us that they ask this to test him, to trip him up and to find something they can use against him. And it’s odd that Mark has Jesus talk to his disciples about a woman divorcing a husband. In first-century Palestine, women couldn’t initiative divorce. Mark has Jesus reference a Roman custom, because Roman women could divorce their husbands. Something more is going on here, something that should make us think about something that happened way back in Mark 6. I know, we haven’t been in Mark 6 since July, so it’s unfair to ask you to remember it. Mark 6 is where we hear about how Herod imprisoned and killed John the Baptist, because John told him that it was not lawful for him to be married to his brother’s ex-wife, Herodias. Herod and Herodias had both divorced their previous spouses to marry one another, using Roman, rather than Jewish, law. Are Jesus and the Pharisees talking about any divorce, or are they talking about a specific divorce? Are the Pharisees hoping that they can find something to make Herod arrest Jesus, too?

I don’t think it’s an either/or situation. Immediately after this discussion about divorce, we again hear Jesus talk about welcoming children. Remember, children were also vulnerable people in Jesus’ day, very similar in social status to a divorced woman. Jesus is telling us that what matters is not disputes about theology or politics. What matters is welcoming and caring for the vulnerable. This passage isn’t primarily about divorce, at least not the way we know divorce today, but about the way we welcome and care for the least of these.

When I wrote this sermon on Thursday, I had a nice, generic ending that I can’t preach this morning. You see, in between writing this sermon and preaching it, I heard about the shooting that happened at the community college in Rosebud, Oregon. One of my first thoughts was, well, that has nothing to do with Sunday’s readings, so I don’t need to mention that in my sermon. But that set off a red flag for me, because if I’m going to stand up here and say that what Jesus is really talking about is paying attention to those people whom we would rather ignore, that Jesus is calling us to see people instead of issues, then my desire to ignore this tragedy is a sign that I need to confront it.

On Friday, I read a pastoral letter from Scott Mayer, the bishop of Northwest Texas, who many of you met when he came here to ordain me to the priesthood on December 13, 2012. Bishop Mayer’s letter started by noting that this is the 142 school shooting since December 14, 2012, the date of the Sandy Hook Shooting. He went on to note that it is the forty-fifth school shooting in 2015. We have a problem, and although I’m afraid to confront it, if Bishop Mayer can call on Texans to work to end gun violence, I feel like I don’t have an excuse in Baltimore. I don’t think legislation can solve this problem, even if it might be a piece of the solution. I think that as people of faith, we can, and probably do, disagree on what legislative solutions should look like, but legislation will never get us to the place where we need to be. What we need is changed hearts and minds. What we are called to be is peacemakers.

Today is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, and I don’t think it’s an accident that I am preaching this sermon today. We mostly remember Francis with pet blessings, but Francis was truly a radical Christian, who risked much to preach Christ’s Gospel of Peace. During the Crusades, Francis traveled to Egypt to preach to the sultan, seeking to bring an end to the wars. Francis was bold and not afraid to risk. What are you called to risk to preach peace to those who are near and to those who are far off? How can you be a peace-maker in your small corner of the world? What do you need to see that you would rather ignore?

Let us conclude this morning with a prayer attributed to St. Francis: Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.