Sermon prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA
for the 8:30 AM contemporary service, 10/8/00
by Gregory S. Kaurin,
Associate Pastor for Spiritual Care & Development
Texts: Genesis 2:18-25 and Mark 10:2-16
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Beginning of service:
There is something painful that has touched all of us. In many ways, it is more painful and more difficult than death. Most of us have been personally affected by it. Divorce. I heard some months ago that the divorce rate among clergy has now passed the general populations. That is a sad statistic.
Of the six pastors I have worked with during and after seminary, one took a vow of celibacy, three were or are now divorced. That leaves two. But I have to say, the two best sermons I have ever heard were from pastors who had each gone through well-known and painful divorces. They could speak of the pain and the need for healing and redemption.
To protect our marriages, we are to watch for signs of trouble. Here is a marriage in trouble: [show 60-second movie clip from The Whole Nine Yards]. There is some humor, but it gets close to reality. You saw painful digs, money used as a weapon, robbing each other of dignity. They were hanging unforgiven debts over each other’s heads. There was pent up passive and self-righteous aggression.
Today’s focus is on divorce, but if you are single or happily married, don’t believe for a second that this message is not for you. It’s important for all of us. We are Christians—in the world, including broken families and divorce—we are right in the middle of it. But we are called there to be different and to do our best to uphold the sanctity of marriage, the sanctity of family and all our relationships.
We do that by picking up pieces, healing each others’ wounds, and standing firm on the second greatest commandment: To love our neighbors as ourselves.
The sermon:
The study guide that we made for this worship service begins by asking the question, how do you generally feel about divorce?
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a) neither good, nor bad, just a part of society |
b) a good option in dangerous situations |
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c) a necessary evil |
d) just plain wrong and sinful |
1st) Is it neither good nor bad, but just a part of society?
Divorce is a part of society, but that doesn’t mean it’s an acceptable part. It shows that something is wrong in society and our families. And our other little divorces from friends, family, and others shows that the wrongness is in all of us.
2nd) Can divorce be a good option in dangerous situations.
A well-known German pastor, by the name of Martin Luther, commanded wives to be obedient and couples to tolerate each other. This same pastor, 475 years ago consoled and helped a young wife leave her husband who was abusing her time and again.
Jesus said, “What God joins, let no one put asunder.” But it is clear to me that it was not the woman, and it was not Martin Luther, that ended that marriage. She may have left the man who was her husband. But, no matter what may have preceded, he broke the wedding vows the moment he hit her.
What Martin Luther and the young wife did was to salvage something very good and dearer to God than the marriage: her life. Marriage was made for God’s people. God’s people weren’t made for marriage.
3rd) Is divorce a necessary evil?
Most, if not all, divorces are not necessary. Most could have been avoided by one, the other or both. All divorces are a product of sinfulness. The outcome of some divorces might be better than what would have otherwise resulted. But divorces are a part of the destructive force that tries to tear down what God builds up.
4th) Is divorce just wrong and sinful?
In our opening scripture from the 2nd chapter of Genesis, the man met the woman, and the second greatest commandment took shape for the first time: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” As yourself. Her burdens are yours, yours hers. Cling to her, she to you. The two became one. And then Jesus added in our gospel lesson, “Those whom God has joined together…” [Let no one separate.]
Jesus was right. Divorce is legal, both then and even more so now. But that does not in anyway rationalize it into a good or honorable thing. Our marriages have fallen from that first marriage in Eden. We keep looking for more and better apples; always worried that something/one else might be better than what we have. Divorce comes from the hardness of our hearts and the softness of our resolve. Divorce is not a legal action that absolves us; it is a curse that condemns us.
I have a dictionary of quotations. It was interesting that when I looked up ‘divorce’ it said to ‘see marriage.’ That’s what Jesus did. They brought a question about the legality of divorce. Jesus referred them to the sanctity of marriage. A question on divorce? Look to marriages.
So, let’s turn to marriage for a bit, to its less romantic side. I firmly believe that it’s how we deal with the unholiness of marriage that protects its sacredness.
Ever since I was a kid I always found it kind of funny that, paging through our green Lutheran worship book, the Service of Marriage is immediately followed by the Service for the Burial of the Dead.
Al Bundy, a character in a sitcom, was picking out his grave plot. His wife, Peggy, was talking about how important it will be to have adjoining plots. And Al says, “Huh-uh, Peg, the preacher said ‘Till death parts us.’ After I die, I get to date again!”
John Dryden, a British poet, wrote an epitaph that they didn’t allow him to use for his wife’s grave. It read: “Here lies my wife; here let her lie! Now she’s at rest and so am I.”
To balance that, Nancy Astor, an American-born British politician once announced, “I married beneath me – all women do.”
I could go on all morning with these pessimistic quotes about marriage. Some might suggest that statements like these are indicators of how little people regard the sacredness of marriage and why there’s so much divorce. I’m not so sure. How good or bad marriage is not necessarily defined by its level of conflict. Someone once said that the idea of two people living together without ever having a cross word “suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep.”
Sydney Smith was a British priest in the 1800’s. He defined a good marriage. He said that “it resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.”
I think there are two key things that husbands and wives, families and friends must all do. First, we must be open, willing, and glad to accept each other’s humanity. I always tell my brides and grooms that we are not looking for a perfect union. But a confessing union. It’s the heart of our union with each other and with Christ.
Second, we must hold onto a certain resolve. We are called to love our neighbors, through words and actions. It’s sad, but here are the people closest to us, but we get into the habit of treating them with less courtesy and dignity than the fellow next door. We must resolve that this person, this spouse, this family member, or this friend is a nearest neighbor.
The only thing that can save any of us, or makes us tolerable to be around is patience, confession, and forgiveness and humor. Holy marriage is not a perfect union. Holy marriage is a confessing union, full of forgiveness, patience and humor. That is the relationship we have with God. We depend on his resolve to be our God, to forgive us, and I thank God for his boundless patience and good humor.
But we’re not done. We’ve talked about what Christianity, the Bible and Jesus say about divorce and marriage. But there is something much more important. What about the ones in and around divorce? What do Christianity, scripture and Jesus say about the people?
Jesus embraces them. Where there is blame, he offers forgiveness. Jesus did not come for the happily married. He came for the broken, angry, lonely, guilty, and hurting. Christ came for the struggling, separating, divorcing and divorced.
And we, the Church, are his body. If anyone, whether single, separating or divorced, ever feels pushed away by the Church, then we have failed in our core values and calling. The greater blame falls on us. Because it is here that they belong, where they are promised healing, forgiveness, new life and hope. Not because we are so healthy, but because we all depend on that same forgiveness and acceptance. The sins and faults that result in divorce and broken families are in all of us. We are in this together.
And through us, Christ is in it, too. And for that reason alone we will manage to hang together, human and fallible but resolved to heal and rise again, together.
Divorce is dark. But so was death and God broke that tomb open. He split it open with the light of Christ and the Word of Life. People rise up from the darkness of divorce, still loved, accepted and just as holy as all the forgiven saints before them.
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