| Rector’s
Sermon
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| This morning’s gospel has the capacity to disturb if not offend just about everybody. If you’ve been divorced and remarried you won’t like it. If you’re looking for some explicit justification of a blessing for same-sex unions, you won’t like it. If you’re looking for something more from Jesus about the nature of marriage, you won’t like it. And if you think this provides motivation for fidelity, you won’t like it. The truth is that Jesus in particular and the Bible in general says very little about marriage which comes as a surprise to many couples with whom I meet to plan their wedding service, which is probably why so many of us end up with 1st Corinthians 13. I frequently wish Jesus had more to say about marriage. A good marriage is hard work—“So, Jesus, couldn’t you give us a little help here?” Who’s supposed to manage the check book? Who takes out the garbage? Who says “I’m sorry” first after a big fight? People need to know these things. But, alas, all we have is this little snippet about divorce. It’s tempting to observe that what we need now may be very different from what people needed in the First Century AD, or that the institution of marriage is very different now than it was 2,000 years ago (for instance, it was still legal to practice polygamy in Jesus’ time). It’s also tempting to wonder why Jesus himself wasn’t married, if in fact he wasn’t. (Remember, the Da Vinci Code had him hooked up with Mary Magdalene.) St. Paul doesn’t seem to have anything especially good to say about marriage, and a number of theologians in the Early Church pictured it as a kind of necessary evil. But despite all that, I think Jesus points a way toward that which is good, toward that which is hopeful, toward that which will bless us. Let me try to help us understand just a bit what the context is here. In the first place, this was yet another example of the Pharisees trying to trick Jesus—St. Mark says “to test Jesus.” There were two schools of thinking about divorce in the First Century. One school had a very strict interpretation with sexual misconduct as the only grounds for divorce. The other school was much less restrictive, allowing divorce for anything, however trivial, that displeased the husband. The Pharisees were hoping to trap Jesus into siding with one group or another. In essence, Jesus’ response is that whatever legality you invoke misses the point. In the first place we’re not just talking about husbands divorcing their wives, but also of wives divorcing their husbands. In the patriarchal society in which Jesus finds himself, we might interpret this as being a huge step forward for the equality of women. But then Jesus goes on to say that God intended from the beginning that we should live together in a kind of communion that would be of God, that it’s not right for anyone to be lonely, that true love is sacrificial love, wanting only the wellbeing of the other. Now that’s a pretty ideal picture but it is in fact a picture of the Kingdom of Heaven. King Oehmig observes, “The reality of our broken world is that this microcosm of Christian community we call marriage, this lavish and generous promise to love one another forever, exclusively, and unconditionally, frequently fails.” Karl Rahner says of Christian marriage, “It is a genuine community of the redeemed and sanctified—the smallest of local churches, but a true one; the Church in miniature.” Therefore, to love one another while we have every reason to be estranged from one another, is the kind of love that God in Christ has shown us and wants us to know as inheritors of God’s kingdom. For this reason, it seems to me, the Church should be less about assigning blame or making pronouncements about the inviolability of whatever we “think” Jesus said, and more about being the kind of community that models the love God has for all of us, for ALL of us. Can we be the kind of community that offers forgiveness, that offers understanding, that offers a place at the table? If appropriate boundaries have been violated, can we be clear about processes of reconciliation, if possible, or at the least how we can respect an honest difference of opinion? Can we aspire to be a community of grace or of mercy or of generosity, both of spirit and of means, so that this can actually be a place of grace, mercy, and generosity? We have evidence of that all around us at Christ Church, whether it be a kindness shown to one of our guests on Rummage day, or an outpouring of response to Bishop Joseph’s visit from the Sudan, or a couple seeking to marry after former failed marriages. There is enough brokenness in our world for us to mimic the hard-heartedness that so clearly repels Jesus. Instead, we are to be a place and people of healing, of knowing God in our heart of hearts, and following the footsteps of Jesus who said that as you serve the least of these my brothers and sisters, you serve me. |
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