Genesis 2:18-24, Psalm 8 Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12 Mark 9:38-50

A priest I know very well — actually a person dear to my heart and to whom I have made life-long vows — always begins his sermon with this prayer: Your Word, O God, and your Word only be that which we sing and speak, be that which falls on our ears and lives in our hearts…

How do today’s readings “…fall on our ears and live in our hearts?” How do we react to a gospel text that may evoke such a variety of emotions? My guess is that what we hear may differ substantially, based on our own particular experiences. No one of us has been untouched by the decisions of two persons to make a life-long commitment to each other. Some of us have made just such a commitment. Some of us have had long and faithful marriages. Others of us have heard words about marriage and hoped for it, and yet have not come to a day of making such a commitment. Some of us have gone through the process of bringing an end to the promises of marriage. Or, we may be a parent who rejoiced at a child being married, or wept with a child being divorced. We may have been a child when our parents came to us with the painful news that they were separating. And some of us, hearing words about the meaning of two persons coming together, may have longed to have a loving relationship with a person of the same gender honored with the same kind of blessing the church bestows upon a man and a woman.

Many emotions evoked by these words today: profound joy at promises made, sadness, guilt, and anger as relationships ended, yearnings for what may never have occurred – all these emotions suggest that marriage and divorce are subjects at once tender and terrifying. And so more so than on most Sundays, I imagine there are all kinds of conversations going on in our head and our hearts.

A number of years ago, a friend of mine was relating the challenges that she and her husband were going through as they were ending their marriage. They had tried counseling, and then mediation, but now they were going to court as adversaries. As my friend’s attorney was explaining to her what the judge might or might not do, she asked him whether some kind of creative resolution could be achieved. His response was to say that the court was not the place for creativity. Had there been a creative resolution, they would not now be facing one another before a judge. The court was not a creative place for conversation or resolution.

Society has its legal rules, as does the church, for whom and how persons can be married, and what the consequences are when those marriages come to an end. But are the legal rules – be they civic or religious- the best framework for discussing the profound meaning of marriage and the profound meaning of divorce?

Perhaps the Pharisees thought so. They enter into a legal discussion with Jesus, a test of his knowledge of the law, according to Mark. Jesus knows what is recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy, and he knows they know it too: according to Jewish practice, a man could divorce a woman by serving her with a certificate of dismissal.

But then Jesus goes beyond legal terms to give a description of human fulfillment: of two human persons who unite themselves one to another. Jesus invites us beyond the courtroom into a larger space – a room defined by God’s intention for the well-being and fulfillment of persons. It is the same room we heard described in the psalm and echoed in the Letter to the Hebrews: this room, this created order, where we have been placed and made little less than angels, and where it is intended that we are to live in peace with each other.

How ironic, then, that we in the church have taken words like those Jesus addressed to the Pharisees, or the subsequent words that he spoke about divorce and adultery to his disciples, and made them legalisms ourselves, imposing them upon persons in such a way that creative conversations and resolutions are thwarted.

I am not for a moment suggesting that we can dismiss these texts, or pretend that Jesus is calling us to less than radical commitments in our relationships with one another. Instead, I am suggesting that we hear these texts in the spacious context of the larger room – the community of both accountability and compassion that the church is meant to be. We are called to be accountable to one another, and there are times when the pain caused by the breaking of relationships must be named. Another friend of mine once shared with me a painful story of having had an adulterous affair with a fellow member of his congregation. He was telling me about it two years after it had occurred, and he took full responsibility for his part in it. But he went on to say that as it was happening, it was clear to him that a number of people in the congregation knew about it. Yet no one, layperson or clergy, ever loving confronted him or the woman, to name the truth and the hurt that was being caused. Yes, he acknowledged, had someone done so at the time he might have reacted in anger and denial. But at the same time, he knew they would have been right.

To be in a place that allows for creative resolution means being in a place where honest and sometimes painful conversations can take place. It means being in a place where people can speak of the pain of divorce – either the pain it has caused them or others. It means being in a place where marriage can be celebrated as a profound and joyful commitment, even as we know and love those who still long for such relationships, as well as those who are quite fulfilled in living their lives as single persons.

For our particular tradition, it also means creating a place where we recognize that some marriages will end in divorce, and that remarriage can be an honest and life-giving step into a future that God intends. It means being in a place, much like the place where the Episcopal Church has been for the last 30 years, of struggling with conversations about whom the covenant of marriage is meant to include; weighing the words of Jesus with our own life experiences, and coming to the understanding that the goodness of God’s intentions are also manifested in same gender relationships.

Ultimately, it means being in a place where we acknowledge all the time the radicality of Jesus’ call to discipleship, even while we acknowledge our own inability- in so many areas of our lives – to live in the way that God desires.

When we acknowledge those things, without judgment against one another, but aware of our own fallibility, then we become not only a community of accountability, but also one of compassion. As was the case last week, the demanding words of discipleship are heard in a particular context. No sooner has Jesus called the disciples to accountability in the area of human relationships than he turns and welcomes the most vulnerable into his arms, young children. He welcomes those who have no status or standing. They are not married. They are not divorced. Their status is determined more by their need – their need of support and love, of protection and care.

With his words and his witness, to us and to children, Jesus creates the place where we can risk being honest and vulnerable, aware of our needs, and ultimately, more open to the call that Jesus is making to us and the compassion embedded in that call. As we meditate on the meaning of marriage and divorce in our own time and context, we are invited to be responsible adults. That is, we are invited to be accountable, recognizing the consequences of promises made and also of promises broken. And, we are invited to be like children. That is, we are invited to be welcomed into the embrace of the One who is always calling us to a deeper level of wonder, calling us to accept the love that will not let us go – the gift, ultimately, of the God who will never divorce us.

Amen.

A Sermon for St. John’s Episcopal Church
Charlestown, Massachusetts

Preached on The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
By the Rev. Thomas N. Mousin
October 7, 2012