Sheffield Cathedral – Trinity 18 – 04.10.15
Readings: Genesis 2.18-24; Hebrews 2.1-11; Mark 10.2-16
There is in the Bible, some wonderful picture language about God and the relationship between God and humankind. The Bible is in fact full of stories to help us understand the mystery of God a little better. Often it is through stories more than anything else that the deepest truth hits home.
Jesus knew that well. As you read the gospels, notice how Jesus tells stories: ‘There was a man on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho . . .’; ‘A sower went out to sow . . .’; ‘There was a man with two sons . . .’; and the list goes on. But it is not only in the gospels where we find stories that convey profound truth.
For example, in the The Old Testament reading set for this morning – though not included in our service – is a story from Genesis chapter 2. It is one of the stories about the creation of humankind, of man and woman being made to be partners, pledging themselves to each other to a life of commitment through the good times and the bad: Partners throughout life’s ups and downs.
The story gives us a glimpse of God’s ideal for those who enter into a loving relationship with each other. Their commitment, made in the eyes of God, is for life.
Now of course, this is not a perfect world. Relationships and marriages break down for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes it becomes impossible to carry on in a relationship even though that commitment was made to one another in the sight of God with all sincerity. And, in the case of marriage, divorce becomes the only remaining option. That is something very difficult to bear for those in the failing marriage and for those closest to them, most of all to children involved.
But God knows and understands our weaknesses. God knows our frailties. God knows what it is like to be human from the inside. God knows when love has grown cold or even died. The Eastern Orthodox Church in fact has a clear theological understanding of the death of a marriage. It is a tragic reality.
God is a God of grace and mercy who does not call people to continue in a life of misery and despair when that is all that remains of a relationship; when love and kindness between two people has died and replaced by cruelty and recrimination. We can be forgiven. Divorce is not God’s ideal, but neither is it the unforgiveable sin, even though attitudes and the experiences of some within the Church might – even now – lead us to believe otherwise.
Now you might be saying to yourself, ‘OK, but what about those words of Jesus that we just heard in today’s Gospel – he had some pretty strong things to say about divorce there? How are you going to get around that?’ Well, it’s not so much about getting around that teaching; more about reflecting on just what was taking place which provoked that response from Jesus.
The Pharisees tackled Jesus directly on the question of divorce. Perhaps they were out to trap him. Perhaps they were making genuine enquiries. Whatever their motive, divorce was a contentious issue then as it is now. So Jesus replied to the Pharisees, as he so often did, with a question of his own.
He asked them what did the commands and laws handed down by Moses have to say about it, pushing them back to the heart of their faith in the books of the Law. Their response was to tell Jesus that is was possible for a man to divorce his wife, according to the law of Moses, if she was guilty of some indecency.
What we need to remember here is that in the time of Moses women were regarded as a men’s property, open and subject to all sorts of abuse. The law about divorce was thus an attempt to limit the ill-treatment of women by men. Of course, it only applied one way, but what it meant in essence was that a woman could be divorced for indecent behavior but could not be dumped just because a man had become a bit fed up with her. Divorce was not God’s ideal but, in a broken world, it was a law intended to at least offer some protection to women who had no rights in law.
By the time we come to Jesus’ day however, the religious leaders fell more or less into two camps on the divorce issue. The one camp interpreted the law very strictly, seeing indecency as synonymous with adultery and the only grounds for divorce; the other camp interpreted indecency very broadly: So much so, in fact, that a man could divorce his wife for little more than burning the dinner. God’s ideal for the relationship within a marriage had become lost. And it was into that context that Jesus spoke about divorce.
Jesus reminded the Pharisees of that ideal by quoting from that story in Genesis 2 to which I referred. In a nutshell, the point Jesus was making is this: God’s ideal is not for divorce. The laws that exist are because of our weaknesses, and because we get things wrong. Not all relationships can be fixed. But that is no reason to rubbish the ideal. Just because God still loves us even when we fall, it doesn’t mean God wants us to fall.
In all sorts of other places in the Gospels, Jesus makes similar points when he speaks about the type of people that God wants us to be and of the relationships God longs for us to share in. Jesus constantly points us to the ideal of God’s laws even though we will never manage to keep them all perfectly.
We are not supposed to commit murder. Well, most – perhaps all of us – will manage to keep that one. But Jesus also said that if any of us call our brother or sister a fool, it is like committing murder in our heart. In that sense, I guess we are all murderers. We are not supposed to commit adultery – perhaps we will manage to keep that one as well. But Jesus also said that if we look at someone with lust in our eyes then it is like committing adultery in our heart. In that sense I guess we are all adulterers.
We are wonderful, unique, yet imperfect people living in an imperfect world and as such will inevitably fall short. God’s ideals will always be just out of reach; over the horizon of our best endeavors. But that is no reason not to strive for those ideals. The problem so often with our society, with the Church, with ourselves is that when we fail to meet the ideals we simply rubbish them. Cynicism creeps in.
So divorce becomes easy and matter of fact because everyone else seems to be doing it. We start working fiddles because everyone else is on the fiddle. And perhaps we do that for the simple reason that it is easier to criticize the ideal and explain away our actions than it is to accept our own shortcomings. Because to accept our own shortcomings means that we must also recognize our need for God and for God’s forgiveness.
And yet, God always forgives when we are willing to ask for it. A fresh start is always possible. The past can be over and done with. There is no need for us to crucify ourselves with guilt if we have fallen short of the ideal that God calls us towards.
When Jesus spoke to the Pharisees about divorce, there was an underlying principle that reaches into every part of our life as Christians. And it is quite simply this. We do our best and trust God for the rest. We are on a journey to a place where we will become the people that God wants us to be.
We will sometimes get lost; we will often make mistakes; there will be accidents and even disasters along the way. Some relationships will fail and even die. But on the journey God never, ever, leaves us. The laws and rules of our faith are like reference points on the road map, there to ensure that we never lose sight of our final destination towards which God draws us ever onwards.
In a messy world where things go wrong, God does not expect the impossible from us. What God longs for is our faithfulness, but understands, loves, and forgives us even when we fall. We are called only to do our best, and trust God for the rest.
Revd Ian's blog 