Divorce and Remarriage

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

October 7, 2012; 19 Pentecost, Proper 22, Year B

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Mark 10:2-16)  Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus 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."

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
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I always wince when these scriptures come around.  I can sense the discomfort that many divorced people feel when they hear these words in church; …the sting it can cause someone who may be happily remarried. 

In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is unambiguous – no divorce; no remarriage.  I remember when my friend Larry Maze was interviewing in our bishop-selection process back in 1993, a divorced and remarried priest.  He spoke of how he dreaded it when this passage came around in the lectionary.  He regarded his divorce as his greatest failure, though he was grateful that he and his former wife had maintained cordial relations, cooperating well to raise their children.  His second marriage to Beth has continued to be a source of strength and love for them both.  Yet Jesus’ words in Mark’s Gospel call it “adultery.” 

From the beginning, this passage has been a hard passage for the church.  Not many years after Mark’s Gospel was written, Matthew wrote his, using much of Mark’s outline and repeating some sections word-for-word.  When Matthew came to this section, he added a phrase allowing for an exception to the divorce ban in circumstances of unchastity. 

One way of living with the words of scripture is to accept them simply and to live by them obediently.  There is something reassuring about resting in the conviction, “Jesus said it,” or “the Bible says it; I believe; that’s that.”  But sometimes, enforcing abstract principles on the complex realities of life can create injustice.

I got involved once in an institution’s attempt to honor the dictum of scripture even though it seemed to produce something unjust at the expense of one of my parishioners.  This was back in Mississippi, so you don’t know any of the people involved, but I’ll change the names anyway.  Sarah was an active member of my church.  She and her husband Greg had two kids whom I had known from their early teens.  Sarah and Greg were married for over twenty years. 

Now I confess a bias here.  Sarah was likeable and earnest; a little loud and annoying at times, but one of those good-hearted people; innocent; a person with no guile.  Greg rubbed me wrong.  He was flashy and arrogant; cocky.  Greg was a traveling salesman, and there were rumors that he lived up to the traditional reputation of that vocation.  Betty was often in church without him.

In the course of his sales calls, Greg met a young woman just a few years older than his daughter.  They fell in love, and he decided he wanted to marry her.  But there was a complication.  She had never been married and was a very faithful Roman Catholic.  She would not marry Greg unless she could do so in her church.  So Greg pursued a divorce and annulment of his marriage to Sarah.  He was successful.  Here’s how it happened.

It seems that when Sarah was a teen, around 16 or 17, her father became convinced that she was having intimate relations with her boyfriend.  She says to this day, she was not.  But he was a domineering parent, and he pressured Sarah and the boy to be married.  It lasted about six months.  Years later Sarah met Greg, and they married and raised their kids into adulthood. 

But, according to the Roman Catholic canon lawyers, since she had been married previously, Sarah was not free to marry when she married Greg.  So, they granted Greg an annulment, and he and his new, young wife were married in the church.  “Does this make us bastards?” asked Sarah’s children.  “No,” said the church, but that’s what it felt like to them. 

And to me, it seemed like the church had perpetuated something unjust, victimizing a good person and rewarding another of questionable virtue.  My arguments on her behalf failed.  It was a legalistic system applying a legalistic judgment in order to defend a legalistic interpretation of scripture.

The Roman Catholic Church’s intention is a good one.  It is an intention to uphold a high standard of marriage – to follow the scriptural dictum against divorce and remarriage.  But in practice, it seemed unjust to me.

Lest it seem I’m being too pejorative toward our sister denomination, I also remember the days when Episcopal priests would prepare a couple for marriage, and then send them across the street to a collaborating Methodist minister to perform the wedding, because our denomination prohibited remarriage after divorce if the former spouse was still alive.  We changed that hypocrisy less than 50 years ago. 

The intention of these church policies is a good intention:  to protect marriage and to follow the scripture.  But sometimes the practical effect of these laws blocks God’s grace. 

The Episcopal Church changed our policies largely as a result of the witness of our own divorced and remarried members.  We saw grace in their relationships.  We saw the gifts of the spirit manifested in their new families.  We heard them tell us that they had experienced resurrection.  After the death of a previous relationship, love had returned, and it was like moving from death into life. 

I have presided at a lot of marriages.  In all of those liturgies, I have never known anyone who didn’t take their vows with a sincere intention “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, …until we are parted by death.” 

But sometimes death comes into a relationship before we physically die.  I have known marriages that were living deaths.  Some were abusive and threatening.  I have been certain about some destructive relationships – that it was God’s will that they separate and divorce. 

I’ve also known couples who have worked through relationship-threatening circumstances with courage, honesty, forgiveness and perseverance to rekindle the fire of life, sometimes in remarkable ways that made their marriage stronger than it might have been had they not gone through the pain of their crisis.

It is complicated.  Enforcing objective, legalistic rules doesn’t work well and sometimes creates injustice.  Yet we have these words:  “What God has joined together, let no one separate.”  “Whoever divorces… and marries another commits adultery.”

We also have the witness of scripture that tells of Jesus’ refusal to enforce the law when a woman was caught in the act of adultery.  We have the consistent witness of Jesus who offered extravagant forgiveness in God’s name. 

Over and over, when he was faced with the circumstances of real people, Jesus chose love and compassion over judgment and law.  The prodigal son, the good Samaritan, the woman at the well, the ten lepers, the Canaanite dog, the Gerasene demoniac, the tax collectors and prostitutes, the man born blind, the lost sheep, and here in today’s scripture – the little children whom he blesses. 

And this is a clue.  Little children never live up to the rules.  They always fail so selfishly.  And so do we.  

Our standing with God is not about whatever pitiful measure of success we might think we accomplish by following what we think are the rules.  Our standing with God is as God’s beloved children – forgiven, loved and free.  We are invited to accept our own littleness and let God bless us. 

God’s absolute standards remain.  From the beginning, God intends that we be faithful.  But God’s unqualified love and grace and forgiveness trumps all our failures. 

God invites us to live in the spirit of Christ – guided principally by the values of love and compassion.  We are to forgive like God does – 70 times 7.  We are to love our neighbor as ourselves.  We are to expect that God is always doing what God does best – resurrection – bringing life out of death. 

And whenever we fail, we are to accept blessing as simply and confidently as a child does.  For a child never asks, “Do I deserve this toy?”  A child simply takes the gift, joyfully, open handed, with enthusiastic deserving. 

So, little children, regardless of your success or failure – in relationships, or vocation, or your best intentions – look at that window and the generous welcome and invitation it offers you.[i]  Let the love and compassion of Jesus fill your heart with the joy of his divine attention.  Receive his blessing like a child receiving a toy, and be happy.  Be at peace.  You are accepted.  You are loved.  You are blessed.

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[i]  Our window behind the altar is an image of Jesus welcoming and embracing three children.