Sermon: Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Mark 10:2-16

October 6, 2024 
Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church
Pastor Jonathan Linman

Given that I am a divorced man, and given my privilege of serving a congregation of many same gendered couples who are also married, you might think I’d want to avoid like the plague preaching on this particular passage from Mark’s gospel. For the words of Jesus recorded in today’s gospel are used by some Christians as proof of a prohibition both against divorce and against same gendered marriages. So, do I want to preach on this stuff today? Actually, I do, for I’m always up for a good challenge when it comes to preaching on difficult biblical texts.

Quoting the Genesis passage we heard as today’s first reading, Mark reports that Jesus said, “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.” (Mark 10:6-9) So, it seems that we have a double-whammy: no divorce and no same gendered marriages. 

Of course, it’s not that simple if you take seriously the context of the encounter between Jesus and the religious leaders, the Pharisees, who wanted to test Jesus as the reading clearly states. The long and the short of it is that these religious leaders were trying to lead Jesus into the same trap concerning teachings about divorce that ultimately got John the Baptist beheaded. They were looking for a way to arrest Jesus and depending on how Jesus responded to their question about divorce, they could bring charges against him. Jesus ended up stating the same unyielding view against divorce as John the Baptist, which helped pave the way toward Jesus ultimately being arrested and then executed. 

In this way, this passage serves as its own kind of heralding of Jesus’ coming Passion about which Jesus offers predictions three times in this part of Mark’s gospel. So, there’s a sense in which this passage is not so much about marriage and divorce, but about the religious conflicts that would get Jesus sacrificed for our salvation. In short, this passage points to the cross.

But all of this said, we cannot simply dismiss Jesus’ hard teaching – and it is harder than the law of Moses which in fact made provisions for divorce…. To state it again, Jesus concluded divorce should not be an option: “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Despite the context that this passage’s focus is really about entrapping Jesus for his arrest, I cannot wiggle away from Jesus’ hard message for me as a divorced man. 

Given our human frailty and shortcomings, the long and the short of it is this: all marriages or unions fall short of God’s loving intent in some form or another. It’s not just divorcees. One can stay in a marriage that does not give life or is abusive and dangerous…. There is plenty that separates us even in our married state. Marriages grow cold. Spouses become distant from one another. 

All of this falls short of what God intends in loving unions. God wants us to be united, in harmony with one another in loving, respectful ways. We know that we don’t always achieve this even in the best, healthiest relationships. Marriages can be severed even when they are intact. We can be separated together. The bottom line is this: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (cf. Romans 3:23).

The good news is that Jesus forgives and welcomes us all just the same. Which is why the Gospel writer Mark was brilliant to pair Jesus’ strict teaching about divorce with the story of Jesus welcoming and embracing and blessing the children by laying his hands on them. 

And when it comes to Jesus’ welcome of the children we’re not talking about child-like innocence here, that there is something intrinsically virtuous about the child-like state. No, in the time of Jesus it was the case that children were essentially non-persons, radically dependent on being received or rejected by the head of the house. In short, God in Christ chooses to welcome children who represent all of the least, the last, the lost, even sinners, even us. It’s not our intrinsic value, nor how society values us, that makes the difference. It’s that God in Christ cherishes us in deep and profound ways. Again, it’s all about God’s loving will and God’s decision for us.

As the author of the letter to the Hebrews puts it, as we heard in today’s second reading: “Jesus is not ashamed to call [us] members of his family, saying, ‘I will proclaim your name to my family; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.’” (Hebrews 2:11b-12) That’s addressed to all of the marginalized. And it’s addressed to us, even the divorced among us, and anyone living in less than perfect relationships.

And Christ’s radical welcome opens the door to our becoming new creations in Christ via Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus’ death and resurrection usher in a new reality, a new creation in which Christ is the new Adam. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Jesus’ death and resurrection expand what we think of as natural law in the created order. His resurrection unleashes the new creation, for life from death was an unheard-of new thing. Thus, we now think about natural law in new, expansive ways. 

As Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians: “For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ.” (Galatians 3:26-28)

With this in mind, that we’re no longer male and female in the traditional ways of being male and female emerging from the first, old creation, I conclude that marriage need not be limited to the union between a male and female, but now includes people of the same gender and transgendered folk as well. We can thus think of marriage expansively, breaking down old legalisms about marriage and who can marry whom. This is good news for us in this congregation which has long welcomed and celebrated those in the LGBTQIA+ communities. And it’s good news for all who are excluded by the social norms of the old, former understandings of natural law. 

So, how does this new creation in Christ come about in our lives today? It happens sacramentally. It’s when we emerge from the waters of baptism that we begin to share in this new creation, when we become new creations in Christ. Baptism is in essence when Jesus says to us, we who are clamed as God’s children: “Let the children come to me; do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the dominion of God belongs.” And it’s amidst the waters of baptism where Jesus takes us up in his arms, lays hands on us, and blesses us” (cf. Mark 10:14-16) – just as pastors do when they baptize children and adults. We thus come to faith, to trust in the embrace of our being beloved new creations in Christ.

But there’s more to all of this than just our views of marriage between individuals. Sacramentally we expand the notion of marriage beyond that of uniting individuals to seeing Christ as uniting with the church as a whole, Christ as bridegroom and the church as Christ’s communal bride. 

And it’s in the Eucharist where our marriage with Christ becomes consummated, the two becoming one flesh, Christ and the community which is the church, Christ’s body. In the Holy Communion is our mystical union with Christ and indeed all of creation. That’s a very expansive view of marriage indeed! 

Moreover, the Holy Eucharist is a foretaste of the heavenly marriage feast to come when all that is divided, divorced, separated, severed by sin and mortality will be united, reconciled. In this sacramental, mystical, sacred union we enjoy with Christ, where we become one flesh with Christ, is the ultimate fulfillment of Jesus’ teaching: “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” In other words, nothing can separate us from the love of God’s in Christ Jesus our Lord as the Apostle Paul concludes in his letter to the Romans (cf. Romans 8:39). 

This is good news for me, for you, and for the world in which divorces of all kinds, not just in marriages, tear the human family asunder. The union of our nation, for example, is at risk of being torn asunder given the political divides that we are currently enduring. 

Thus, in this climate of great divorces all around us, we are privileged to go out from this place to proclaim in word and deed God’s good news in Christ, that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Not our broken relationships at home and not severed relationships in the nation and in the world. For what God has joined together, no one and nothing, when it’s all said and done, will ultimately be able to tear that unity, that oneness asunder. Thanks be to God. Amen.