Pasadena Presbyterian Church Sermon Text
October 5, 2003 

"Re-Membering What Has Been Torn Asunder"
Preached by The Rev. Dr. Barbara Anderson

Scripture:  Mark 10:1-12

Jesus left that place and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered around him; and, as was his custom, he again taught them. Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" He answered them, "What did Moses command you?"  They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her."  But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you.  But from the beginning of creation, '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.  Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter.  He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery." 

- Mark 10: 1-12

A couple stands before a minister, holding hands and gazing deeply into one another's eyes, as friends and family look on with joy and hope.  "I promise to be faithful to you, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live."  Promises are made, a sacred covenant entered into, dreams of love and hope for the future peal from the carillon.  "What God has joined together, let no one tear asunder." 

Each couple that is joined in such a covenant expects it to last a lifetime, wants it to last a lifetime, promises, with God's help, to make it last a lifetime.  That is God's will and desire, as well.  As the words of the traditional liturgy say, "Marriage is not to be entered into lightly, but soberly, reverently, and prayerfully." 

In the Gospel story we've just heard, Jesus affirms the primacy of the marriage covenant.  We seldom speak directly in the church about Jesus' words on marriage and divorce, yet they are central to our understanding of marriage and weigh heavy on the hearts of faithful Christians in times of marital conflict and pain, whether the marriage at risk is one's own or that of a friend or family member. 

So, I want to pause for a moment and speak directly about Jesus' context and words.  Scholars believe that in Jesus' time divorce may have been somewhat common, even in the Jewish community.  We know that Jewish women could not divorce their husbands, but that husbands could and did divorce their wife for as small an infraction as burning the morning toast.  All they had to do was put a sign on the door, and it was done.

The divorce laws were terribly cruel for women. A divorced woman had no recourse.   She was usually shunned if she went back to her parents, and considered to be committing adultery if she found the protection of another man and remarried.  Prostitution was usually her only alternative.  By contrast, a man could divorce his wife and remarry without being considered an adulterer against his ex-wife.  (Did you catch that?)  Jesus' statements in verses 11 and 12 are therefore, in an odd way, radical, because even though they say one ought not to divorce, they do give women legal standing in the context of divorce. 

In this story, as they often did, the Pharisees have asked Jesus a trick question.  Herod Antipas had divorced his wife and married his sister-in law, Herodias, after she divorced Herod's brother.  Such marriages and divorces based on passion, greed and convenience were common in royal families. John the Baptist had just been beheaded for saying publicly that Herod's and Herodias' divorces and remarriages to each other were wrong.  Now the Pharisees, who were closely aligned with Herod's family, are asking Jesus' opinion on the same question.  This is a dangerous question.

Jesus bases his answer not on the law, but on God's intent for humanity made known in creation itself.  He says that although religious law technically permits divorce, God's will that precedes the law is for union.  Couples are brought together by God into a holy union, a gift to be nurtured by hard work, dedication, and faithfulness by both members of the couple.  When that happens, joy is multiplied, burdens are shared, partners grow both as individuals and as a pair.  Mutual respect, compassion and tenderness permeate the air in such a home, even in difficult, painful, or conflicted times.  Life is nourished and God's goodness celebrated.  This is the model of covenantal love that God intends for humankind.  Therefore, "what God has brought together, let no one tear apart," says Jesus.

But we know, and God knows, that in the privacy of many homes, much happens that comes not from God, but from human sinfulness and brokenness, instead.  Partners are torn apart by belittling sarcasm, viscous barbs, cutting silence and cruel actions.  Divides occur and instead of being bridged, grow wider and deeper.  Resentment, fear and violence occur in the very setting that is to be a refuge of safety and a haven for growth. Such relationships are not what God intends for marriage.  This is not God's vision and will for covenantal relationships.

Although it is understandable why one might do so, Jesus' words on divorce should never be read as telling an abused spouse that she must remain, or that he must not leave.  Jesus would never want a child to be kept in a situation of emotional, verbal, physical or sexual abuse, just for the sake of promises beautifully framed on a wall or illusions of a perfect family that long to be preserved in the parents' minds and in the eyes of the world.  Some marriages are a mistake from the beginning and it is better for the mistake to be recognized.  Some marriages need to end because they are destructive of the life and the spirit God has placed in each person.

Just as marriage and holy unions are not to be entered into lightly, they are never to be broken lightly, but soberly, and only after great prayer and reflection.  However, in a broken and sinful world, where healing and wholeness come in fits and starts, and where some brokenness is so deep and pervasive that it can only be healed by God in the fullness of time, there are situations where divorce is, strangely, the most faithful, though terribly painful option.

As the Presbyterian Church said in 1930 when wrestling with biblical teachings on marriage and divorce, "Anything that kills love and deals death to the spirit of the union is infidelity." Death, desertion and infidelity and happen in marriages in more than just physical ways.  Jesus' words are not a legalistic weapon, but an ideal towards which we strive in an imperfect world.

We live in a broken world where, sometimes, the brokenness is ultimately beyond our repair. In such circumstances - with humility, contrition for own culpability, and prayer for God's wisdom - we choose the covenant of life with God over a covenant that is, regrettably, bringing destruction to the hearts and home of its parties.  At such times, as we stand in midst of broken dreams and promises, in the wreckage of human brokenness, Jesus' words weigh heavy on our hearts: "What God has joined together, let no one tear apart."

Imagine with me another type of covenant, another type of new beginning, another setting imbued with hope.  I remember when our sons were born, holding them in my arms, with my heart full of hopes and dreams, plans and promises.  I knew their knees would be scraped by life and their hearts broken at times, but I longed for the best and promised to do what I could to make life good.

When the world was born, much as when a child is born, God's heart, too, was full of hope and dreams, plans and promises: hope for a world where all would dwell together in unity, in peace and unafraid; plans for a world where every person has enough to eat, shelter from the storms, work to do and rest from their labor.  Surely God's heart was full of dreams for a world where each person shares freely until all have enough, and full of promises for a world in which all creation lives in harmony and balance. This is what God promised, planned, hoped and dreamed.  We are part of a covenant with God to live in such a way that the hopes and dreams for unity voiced in the heart of God at the birth of the world may come true.  "What God has joined together, let no one tear apart." says Jesus.

But we know, and God knows, that in a world where there is much good, much justice, much mercy, much compassion, there is also sin and brokenness.  Much as parents' dreams of a sheltered life for their children are unfulfilled, so too, God's hopes are clouded by the pain of humanity's warfare and tragedy, scraped knees, bruised hearts and broken lives.

"In a broken and sinful world," nation fights nation for land, wealth, oil and status.  Peoples fight one another to avenge grudges now centuries old.  Youths are shot point blank on the streets of our community because they have chosen not to join a gang.  Air and water grow more polluted as we continue mindlessly down the path towards our own destruction. Even in the church it seems we must tear ourselves apart in each new generation to discover God's word for our time.

Yet God created the world for unity.  "What God has joined together, let no one tear apart," says Jesus.

Long ago, God walked among us in Jesus of Nazareth, preaching and teaching, healing the sick, and eating with sinners.  Where community had been torn apart by human sin, he built bridges between insider and outcast, between rich and poor, between men and women.  Where life was torn apart in the hearts of those he met, he healed it and put it back together.  You might say, he "re-membered" it.  Where life with its structures and systems had grown toxic and destructive, he challenged it. 

Finally, though, the powers of human brokenness that were fighting for their life in a struggle between Good and Evil, seemed to win at a place called Calvary.  In our brokenness, we crucified Jesus.  We broke his body.  We tore him apart.  We hung him on a cross until he died.  Hearts were broken.  Lives were broken. For three days it appeared that hope had been broken. "What God has joined together, let no one separate," says Jesus.

Today we gather at the communion table and remember that that which God has joined together, and we have broken apart shall be and has already been put back right.  In the words of the liturgy, we "remember the Lord's death until he comes again."  How odd that must sound to one who is not familiar with it: to celebrate and remember a death ritually, over and over again. 

There's the key: we re-member. When we re-member a person, we bring together different parts and form a new whole.  When we remember the past, we bring new meaning for today from the separate experiences of earlier days that we have re-membered and put back together.

When we re-member Christ's death, we put it back together in such a way that it has meaning which could not have been seen before.   We give it new meaning that could not be seen by human eyes until Easter came and Christ was raised.  On Easter, hope was re-membered and put back together.  God's love that conquers evil was re-membered and put back together.  God's power to redeem even the world's worst brokenness was re-membered, and like a broken bone that heals, became stronger at the broken place.

As we gather today at the Lord's Table on this World Communion Sunday, we come as separate people of many races and nations, speaking many languages.  We come as people with broken places in our lives, broken hearts, broken relationships, broken promises.  We come as a world, broken and torn apart by hatred and greed, revenge and rage.  Some of our brokenness we can, with God's help, heal.  Some of our brokenness will involve hard choices.  Some of our brokenness will only be healed in God's time, not ours.

Nevertheless, we come to the Lord's Table in our brokenness.  For at the Lord's Table, we re-member Christ, broken, restored and raised for us.  We re-member Christ, who in his brokenness for us, became the bridge that reconnects and re-members us to God and to one another.  At the table, we are made whole.  We are forgiven and healed.  We are united with the broken parts of ourselves, with one another, and with God.

"Do this, remembering me," says Jesus.  Each time we eat this bread and drink this cup, we put back together and give meaning to the Lord's death until, in the fullness of time, Christ comes again.  Then God's dream at our birth shall come true, and all creation shall finally be made whole.   Amen.

 

 (c) Copyright 2003 by Barbara A. Anderson.  All rights reserved.  Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution.