Marriage, Divorce and St Francis

Sermon on Mark 10:2-6 for St Francis' Day, 2021

Mark 10:2-16

This is a section of Mark’s Gospel where Jesus is being very stark and challenging as the disciples follow him towards his death in Jerusalem. He is trying to prepare them for what they will face there. Not glory. Not power. But shame and suffering and grief.

So he says things that make them uncomfortable. And if you were feeling uncomfortable reading the Gospel passage, then there’s a good chance you are getting his point.

There are a few reasons why we feel particularly uncomfortable about this passage. You might think of others

1/ Firstly, we have all been touched by divorce, and it is always painful. And this passage can feel like rubbing salt into the wound. It maybe even seems like victim-blaming.

2/ Secondly, this passage has been used in unjust and harmful ways. And we can’t help bringing to mind the history of interpretation of a passage when we are trying to understand it for ourselves.

3/ And thirdly, marriage and family life have always been central to human identity as cultures and as individuals. Jesus is here challenging the marriage attitudes and practices of his day, and those of our day too. This is bound to make everybody squirm. And as we stay in Mark it isn’t going to get easier. Next week’s passage is on money! The easiest way to offend Australians, in my experience, is to challenge their attitudes to marriage and money!

So, as I looked at Mark’s Gospel this week, I was really tempted to preach on something more cheery – like the book of Job. 

But the discomfort we feel is the reason why we need to stick with it. So… let’s face this discomfort together and consider what Jesus might be leading us into as he led the disciples to Jerusalem. Let’s look at those three areas of discomfort again:

1/ We have all been touched by divorce, and it is always painful. I assume that everyone here has either been through a divorce themselves or has a close friend or family member who has. My family is reasonably typical, I think. I am one of six sisters and brothers, and between us we have seen the end of five marriages. These were all painful and continue to be painful.

And then when I think of friends whose marriages have ended: always painful. And it isn’t just the divorce itself that is painful. There is deep pain in the years of tension and maybe abuse that are endured before a person finds the courage and support to leave a marriage.  

Jesus addresses this pain in what he says here.

⁶ But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ⁷ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, ⁸ and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh.¹

He is saying, “Don’t think you can make divorce easy just by providing simple legal solutions.” Divorce is never easy. If two people become one flesh in marriage, then the end of that marriage will be as painful as losing a limb.  

Those of us who have been through this wrenching process need to be honest about the pain - with ourselves and with God – and when we can, it is also good be honest with each other about just how painful it was and is. When we are honest about our own pain, we become more compassionate with the pain of people around us.

2/ Secondly, this passage makes us uncomfortable because it has been used in the past in unjust ways. For centuries, many Christian countries based their divorce laws on this passage – particularly the focus on adultery. Often the only way to end a marriage was to find – or in some cases manufacture – hard evidence of adultery. Abuse, neglect and abandonment were not considered sufficient grounds for divorce, which meant that many people, especially the most vulnerable people – women without outside support – were trapped in homes where they and their children were abused and they had no recourse to the law.

In Australia now, our family law system is far from perfect, but we can be grateful that increasing levels of respect for women and children in Australia have led to changes in the law that give vulnerable people more options.

But then we read this passage and worry that it might take us back to more oppressive times – that it might remove those options – at least, for Christians. But is that really what Jesus is saying?²

Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; ¹² and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.

Jesus is saying that if someone wants to leave their marriage in order to trade up, then having the legal protection of a divorce does not change the morality of their actions.

I am going to try to give my personal perspective on this without bitterness. I’m not sure I am going to manage it.

After my ex-husband left me, he took five years to initiate a divorce. He told me that the reason he had not done so earlier was that he didn’t want to damage my career in the church.

So, he didn’t mind causing me harm throughout our marriage. He didn’t mind leaving me destitute when he ended it, but divorce was where he hesitated!? There is something very strange in the way he must have absorbed the Christian message if he could find any logic in the thought that harm and abandonment are OK but divorce is not. And a church that enforces that illogical stance and punishes the victims of such marriages is not a church I would want to serve. The legal document is not the place to focus our ethics. How we treat people is what’s important. That is the point Jesus is making here. The people around him were concerned about doing the right thing by the law (God’s Law or the Law of Moses). Jesus reminds men that it is more important to do the right thing by their wives!

The path of Jesus is a path of love and compassion, not a path of legalistic nitpicking.

And my sense is that most Australians would agree with God’s assessment that marriage partners are not accessories or appliances that can be changed or abandoned when they go out of date or out of fashion. They are human beings to be respected and loved and nurtured.

Having said that, before we get judgmental, we also need to recognise that we have all failed to consistently love and respect the people closest to us. And Jesus is gentle and gracious with everyone who fails. God doesn’t look for perfect people to do the work of the kingdom. But God does call us all to love people and not to use them.

Mark reinforces this by going on immediately to talk about Jesus welcoming and blessing children. Not because they are cute. Not because of their potential to make a contribution to society when they grow up. But because their apparent lack of value and status points to the value and status they have just because they are human beings, made in God’s image, redeemed in Jesus.

Vulnerable adults can be abused or cast aside in divorce, just as little children can easily be shooed away. But not in the Kingdom of God! These little ones who are least valued are the very ones to whom the kingdom of God belongs! 

Scripture needs to be interpreted and applied with wisdom and with love, or it will sometimes do more harm than good. A just family law system that takes Jesus’ words seriously makes its highest priority the protection of vulnerable people.

Finally, this passage reminds us that Christianity is not a conservative force. Here Jesus is challenging his society’s attitudes to marriage and family. His words were shocking, and they were political. Remember that John the Baptist was beheaded for criticising King Herod’s marriage. 

In a similar passage in Matthew, the disciples respond to Jesus’ words by saying that maybe it would be better not to marry in the first place, if divorce is such a serious thing. And Jesus says, yes, choosing not to marry is a real option that more people should consider. That was shocking. Continuing the family line and the family business was one of the most important obligations of a man like Jesus – especially since he was the oldest son in his family. But he chose not to marry, and he invites others to consider not marrying.

As Francis of Assisi did.

He was helping to grow his family’s prosperous cloth business when he was called by God to question everything he had been doing. He misappropriated funds from the business in order to repair a church – which is not generally considered the best first step toward sainthood – and as a result was disowned by his father.

This released him from family obligations and allowed him to genuinely embrace every creature as a brother or sister – not just every human but every animal, every plant, even the earth and the moon. Choosing to remain single was not about rejecting sexual fulfilment. It was about rejecting the whole array of obligations that came with being part of a family, including the obligation to provide for the next generation. No marriage = no next generation = no need to be anxious about money.

Francis formed a very close platonic partnership with a woman called Clare who had been called by God in a similar way. Their choice not to marry did not keep them from loving companionship, or from leading a growing community of Christians together.

Jesus, Francis and Clare did not align themselves with old-fashioned family values, and Christians today are also called to critique the family values handed down to us – not to embrace them blindly. 

The Anglican Church, and our society generally, has come a long way over the past century towards making divorce laws just and compassionate. We needn’t be anxious that steps toward compassion might be steps away from obedience to God. God is always more compassionate than us.

But we do need to ask ourselves:

When we have power, are we using that power in the interests of those who are vulnerable? Whether that vulnerable person is our marriage partner, a child, or someone else we are able to help?

When we are vulnerable, and we cry out to God for help, do we find that God’s people judge us or support us?

I hope you have all been supported in your most vulnerable times. And if not, I hope you can find the grace to help us all to do better.

Amen

1. The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Mk 10:6–8). (1989). Thomas Nelson Publishers.

 The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Mk 10:11–12). (1989). Thomas Nelson Publishers.

2.