Mark 10 Follow-up

I've already done two blogs on this last Sunday's Gospel reading. So it might seem a bit extreme to do another one, but this is a challenging text for many. I wanted to share a few things that came up in some of my text studies and from my opportunity to listen to a sermon on this text. I should say right away that what comes now might be seen as words of caution about ways we address issues within this text, or seen as simply my reactions. I don't mean this to be critical or suggest some ideas in my text studies or the sermon I heard were bad. They weren't. But they did, many of them, raise a new issue for me, which is why I want to put it out there so others can be aware of this too when they approach these texts in the future. If anything, this blog may show just how difficult the task of teaching and preaching can be, as it illuminates some nuances we ourselves don't see that may change the impact of the entire message for our hearers. So I'm primarily talking here as a hearer.

If you missed it, the text and my initial thoughts can be found here.

The first thing I want to mention is the decision to draw in other texts, particularly the woman caught in adultery in John 8. In one of the text studies and the sermon I heard, this was drawn on for a word for forgiveness. What was good about it, was that to a person in adultery Jesus removed the condemnation from her. He freed her with forgiveness, and the relevance is obvious. In this text Jesus calls those who divorce and remarry adulterers. The use of this text is to say Jesus forgives adulterers. That is good. But my one word of caution, which was not addressed either time this text was drawn on was Christ's words "Go and sin no more". The implications of that word (which comes within his whole declaration to this woman) may seem easy in the situation of being "caught in adultery" (i.e. stop sleeping around) but what is the implication when the adultery is done with a new spouse? The application of this text, while it can be used for forgiveness, can also open a whole new bag of worms, or at least heighten the issue of what does one do with a new spouse when Jesus calls that adultery. Since I'm guessing most sermons don't go that path (mine admittedly likely would not have) we ought be careful not to force ourselves into it with this text or worse yet, heighten the issue without addressing it.

Another key question that came up, that I did not really talk about in my blog but that came up in both my text studies, and the sermon was the reaction of married couples, or the way it applies to them. I mentioned in my blog I was married, but my parents divorced mainly to indicate how in my life I heard it first. But left it at that. But this is a real issue, because those divorced felt the impact of this text far more than those married. Even worse is the situation where the married laud this over those divorced. It becomes our triumph of the law over those adulterous divorcees. At the least you have people like myself who feel immediately distant from the text and at the worst it becomes the button of pride by which one separates oneself among others in this world or even this church. Here are some of the things that came up in response to this:

One idea was that those who think themselves better immediately are met with Jesus' next words about receiving the kingdom as a child. Thus setting oneself as higher is the wrong thing to do, it is precisely about looking outside oneself towards Christ. Those divorced are in a position where they cannot look at their marriage/family to claim holiness, they already must look to the cross. But so it is in fact to we who are married. Any pride is met with these words on receiving the kingdom as a child. It is as Mary sings in her magnificat
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
    he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
⁵² He has brought down rulers from their thrones
    but has lifted up the humble.
My reaction is I really like this idea. I like that it lets one draw on the entire gospel, but also because it distinguishes our actions in regards to marriage/divorce with receiving the kingdom. It makes it clear that we don't simply talk about the cross as a fix it for this sinner or that sinner. It is not to level the playing field by bringing everyone up to the same holiness of their own, it is bringing everyone into the holiness and righteousness of Christ alone. I thought this was a good use of the entire Gospel lesson for Sunday. My only caution would be that if one does this, it should take more unpacking than simply saying it as a footnote to the married ones. It needs its own time, which could take away from the whole of the sermon or begin to feel like two different sermons, so don't use 1-4 sentences and move on, find a way to really work it in naturally to the larger point one is preaching on the text.

The next way to address those married I believe came from both text studies (but maybe just one) and was also used in the sermon. This method is based on using the law to also target those married. The text brought in here was Jesus' words from the sermon on the mount that looking even lustfully at another is an act of adultery. Thus saying you who are married are not excused. And this is true, sin comes from within, and such does name even married couples as adulterers. Here is what I heard when this was used each time though: it's adultery either way, so why not divorce when you want to? By equating the two because they are both named as adultery, we undermine the action of divorce. I don't know if to those divorced this softens the blow to them, but to one not divorced it actually softens the prospect of divorce. Now I admit, that may simply be the heart of a sinner talking, trying to justify an act because one has already done the idea so to speak. But that is what preachers deal with; sinners. We need to be clear when doing this that married people being adulterers is not an excuse for adultery in divorce. What this means is we need to be sure that when we are using the law we're not simply saying lust is the same as divorce, rather lustful people also need the word of forgiveness and new life that divorced people need. Every time I heard this used it seemed off handed, a quick "well looking lustfully is adultery", like that settles it. But saying it simply carries no sting but instead sounds more of an equation of the two rather than the law cutting to the heart. The task should be why the good news of the Gospel for the divorced wife is the good news the married wife needs as well. For then she sees not pride over the divorced woman but rather looks for the balm for her own broken life.

Another way that came up in the sermon was that being married does not equal a good marriage. I liked this method, because it instantly caused me to reflect. My one thought is that we should not simply note examples that would lead our hearers to think divorce is preferable, such as abuse. That stifles honest reflection for those who aren't considering or in extreme situations that lead to divorce but are still not being good spouses. We should say that not just abuse, but even things like selfishness - moments we try to act as two not one - are also included. That if Christ responds with the creational promise and act of marriage, then divorce is not the only means by which we try to put it asunder. Similar to what I spoke of last week, that divorce is our attempt to change a reality God has caused, and remarriage is adultery precisely because we cannot undo that, then it is simply a part of many ways we in our marriage try to undo what God has done.

This leads me to the final piece I'd like to bring up. This came from one text study I sat in on last week, and I thought about it some more this last weekend as I sat in at a wedding. Jesus goes back to creation - to a promise of what God does in marriage. While unlike the Catholic church the Lutheran church does not see marriage as a sacrament, I think we ought to learn from them when we are so willing to declare it merely a covenant of people, merely a civil act. To Luther marriage actually belonged to one of the three estates - family. It was established by God, and I would dare to say that means not only the institution itself was established, but so is each marriage. We need to recover the creational promise, namely that there is a divine act in marriage when God joins two together into one flesh - to where each husband should say as Adam that his wife is now 'flesh of my flesh'. That is the reality God creates in marriage. And what was brought up in text study, is that at marriage we don't hear that as law, we hear that as a good word. When the pastor declared this last weekend the couple husband and wife, the words "What God has brought together let no one separate" is a word for the sake of the spouses. When you get married you rejoice in those words, there is joy in that God has done something, and we can declare to the world that it cannot be undone. It only becomes a law to us, a word we violated, a condemnation when we seek to undo it. It is only a word against us when we act against it. We claim that promise up until the point when we want to be free from it, when we want to undo what God has done. When we are holding on in marriage, sometimes barely we need that word to sustain us. When we are through with marriage, we are through with the promise. It becomes a law precisely when we want the act of coming together (and therefore separating) to be an act of humans alone.

I bring this up, because then we are speaking about something common within the Christian life, bigger than divorce, bigger than even those married (since a greater challenge is not simply this Gospel applied to the married, but to the single). What is really at work is God giving us words to sustain us, and we one day despising that word. That to those like children who need a blessing, those who like divorced need forgiveness, those who like newly wed need God's action, we turn to God for a word from him. But then, just as quickly, just as easily at some point we find ourselves thinking we no longer need his promises or his actions. And what ends up is thinking we no longer need the cross. Once one has been forgiven, or converted, or baptized sometimes the thought is "I got it from here", Christ gave me a second chance and I'm gonna make the most of it kinda mentality. Like an alcoholic who is sober for three months and believes he no longer needs AA or a sponsor, we think we don't need the baptismal promise or the redemptive cross. We did once, but not now. We turn a promise into a law, by moving from what God does to what we do, and it finds us wanting. Whether we want control like a growing child fighting for responsibility, or we want to be free from baptism and our Christian calling to live a way that seems the better option, this is a common occurance. Divorce is but a single moment in a lifetime of stepping away from God's promises, either not wanting them holding us back from the life of sin we could live or not wanting to have to rely on them to receive the kingdom (like a child?). The only caution here is the temptation to not talk about divorce because of how sharply we feel the bite of the text. I don't mean we should do that, but I do mean that when the text is narrowed in so much sometimes what is helpful is not trying to draw everyone into that specific realm of adultery or broken marriages but to look at the larger experience of sin and grace that this falls in. Divorce becomes the illustration provided by Christ himself, to a sin one need not be divorced to partake in. Because then the impossibility, the harshness, the firm words of Christ, the certain need for a place for forgiveness becomes the means by which we all cry out for a Savior, and all of us walk away not trying to equalize our sin, but seeing how we need, even still, always, Christ himself.