RVCC Pastor's Sermon

Sermon - October 4, 2009

“A Culture of Brokenness”

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Mark 10:2-16

Divorce is as American as apple pie. That is the reality. Every time I lead a couple through their wedding vows, the thought flickers through my mind that half of these marriages at which I officiate are going end in divorce – painful as that is for all involved. The long and the short of it is that – often despite our best efforts - we live in a culture of brokenness.

But it is not just us – in this place and in this era. Divorce was commonplace in the ancient society in which Jesus lived as well, and that fact was perhaps exacerbated by the national debate that was going on at the time between the followers of two master teachers of the day, Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai.

The Shammai cohort was conservative and asserted that divorce was permissible only in cases of adultery and infertility. In contrast, followers of Hillel were more liberal and progressive. They believed that divorce was allowable for a number of additional reasons, including burning the bread, talking to another man in public, and finding another man attractive (Edward Marquart).

Remember, of course, that in either case, only a man could initiate divorce proceedings. A woman did not have an equal right and privilege to dissolve a marriage.

It was into this ongoing discussion and debate that the Pharisees were attempting to lure Jesus when they “tested” him that sunny afternoon in the local synagogue by bringing up the hot topic of the day. They wanted to know whether it was lawful (and that is an important word here as we will see), whether it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. Here is how Episcopal priest, Charles Hoffacker, tells the story:

“Jesus knows this question is not an honest inquiry. These Pharisees are not interested in learning his opinion, but in testing him, defeating him.

He responds to the question with a question: What did Moses command you? In other words, how does the Law of Moses read, the law you hold in such high regard?

Jesus knows the answer, of course, and so does everyone within hearing distance. It's what we call today a no-brainer. And so the Pharisees shoot back the correct reference: Moses allows a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.

The reference here is to Deuteronomy, chapter 24 (the source of the Jewish law as written by Moses and where Moses acknowledges a sad and painful reality of his own long ago time). That’s right! Divorce happens here in the broken and weeping world of the Hebrew people outside the Garden of Eden.

The acknowledgment found in Deuteronomy is turned by these particular Pharisees (who are sparring with Jesus) into permission for divorce….(However), though the Pharisees get the reference right, they get the spirit wrong. And Jesus lays into them.

“So you give me that Deuteronomy passage as permission for divorce, with its demand that the paperwork be in order? Moses would never have written that except for the fact that divorce was happening anyway, except for the hardness of the human heart in this world outside Eden!”

And then Jesus takes them all the way back to the beginning.

“Yes,” he said. “You are right. Moses did allow for divorce, but I go back to the book of Genesis, which was given to us long before the Jewish law, and there it says:

A man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one. What God has joined together, let no one separate!”

“What?” The Pharisees shouted at him. Both sides (mind you). Both the Shammi and Hillel Pharisees: “No divorce? No remarriage?”

The disciples of Jesus couldn’t believe it either, and so they got Jesus into a little house and asked him, “Did you really mean what you said? No Moses? No divorce? No remarriage?” And Jesus replied to his disciples: “Whoever divorces and remarries commits adultery. This is true for men and women.” (Marquart)

What, I ask you, are we to do with words like that – words that seem to condemn half the population, just like, interestingly enough, Jesus’ words about riches and possessions seem to condemn us all? Where is the Gospel in this passage? What is the good news here?

I believe that, if we stop for a minute and move away from the literal interpretation that we seem to, for whatever reason, fall back on when we look at this passage, we will see that hidden in and around and through these seemingly harsh words, there is in fact good news.

And that good news lies in the way that Jesus ultimately chooses to focus not on the law as outlined in Deuteronomy but rather on the beautiful and mystical mythology of Genesis. It is here, Jesus seems to say, hidden in the legend of a garden, whispering to us from the gentle breezes rustling the leaves on the garden trees, that we find the eternal truth.

With his response, Jesus masterfully turns the tables on the Pharisees once again. He will not play their game where they nitpick their way through the Mosaic Law, getting lost in the particulars, not able to see the forest for the trees. Instead, Jesus draws a critical distinction – and this important - between what the law says - and what God intends.

United Church of Christ writer, Kate Huey, reminds us that “Jesus is asked a legal question, a technical, down-to-earth, question about everyday, lived reality, and he answers with an ideal that is, to be honest, almost impossible to achieve, at least for everyone.

But in a way, don’t we need strong voices – even today - that lift up the ideal, the intention of God from the very beginning….As in every subject he addressed, Jesus seems to wrench our attention from the technicalities to the heart of the matter.”

Jesus simply says, "From the beginning it wasn't so." This is not the way God intended things to be. God did not intend the world to be a place of pain and wretched aloneness. God did not intend for us to live in a culture of brokenness.

Look to the garden for the truth – he says, and there you will find that from the very beginning, God intended us to live in relationships grounded in love and in communities founded on compassion. And so we are called to live not as Jesus accused the Pharisees of living – with hardness of heart – but rather to live as children – soft and warmed by love, blessed.

And I would submit that we who say we are followers of Jesus have made a sacred commitment to actually attempt to frame our lives around God’s intentions for us – even in their most ideal form. And so we seek above all to forge our relationships with love.

And are we always successful in meeting this ideal? Heavens no! Half of us find ourselves in relationships that are instead founded on power or control or greed or ego and are ultimately unsustainable. But by the grace of God, we are not cast aside.

Why? Because we who say we are followers of Jesus have also made a sacred commitment to build up communities which find their strength in compassion. And so we open our doors and open our arms to all who enter here, in this place. We welcome here in this church the ones whose lives are broken, the ones who live in pain, and in the end that surely means all of us. We welcome the ones who see and experience the world differently than we do.

That is our calling – and it is indeed a sacred one – and a difficult one. You and I are called to weave a social fabric here in Raymond that will be so strong and so life-giving that it will withstand our culture of brokenness.

How? How will that be possible to create such a fabric? It will be possible simply because we trust so much in the enfolding love of God that we will seek to weave that fabric with the threads of our strong affirmation of what God intended for us from the very beginning – which is a world where we all seek to live in loving relationships but also where we sustain one another – no matter how broken and embattled we are – in compassionate communities.

Sermon - October 4, 2009

“A Culture of Brokenness”

By Rev. Nancy Foran Mark 10:2-16

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Mark 10:2-16