Sermon from June 10, 2001
Some years ago, a young woman came to me and asked to be baptized. As we talked, I discovered that she and her two children were living with a man, who was neither her husband nor their father. After she told me that, she then said without any prompting on my part, "I know that what I am doing is wrong. I don't suppose I should be baptized." That was the easy part.

My resonse to her was to say, "Could you separate from the man, while you decide about marriage?" She explained that on her income she could not afford housing adequate for her and her children, except in a neighborhood where it would be dangerous for her children to be left alone after school, as would be the case while she worked. She was especially concerned about her elementary school son.

The man she was living with afforded her and her children a safe place to live in a better neighborhood, and he had a very good influence on her son. In fact, she said that one reason she feared moving out of the man's house was her son's mental health. He had threatened suicide before, and she was afraid that if this man was no longer in her son's life, he might become suicidal again.

I asked if her family could take her in. She said that her mother could not for health reasons, and her siblings could not, because they had no room. The whole family knew about her situation. Then, she looked at me and said, "What should I do?" She could have gone all day without asking that question.

The church has money for short-term help but not long term. I did not know an alternative situation to tell her to go to. I asked, "Why don't you get married? Do you love the guy?" She did love him, but he was not ready to get married. Keeping his options open, no doubt. I hated that converstaion. I hated the question she had asked. I hated the answer I had to give. It looked to me like a choice between two evils.

I said to her, "You have to choose, but for the time being it looks like you need to stay where you are. Would you keep coming to BVBC?" Yes, she would do that. Would the guy come with her? Would he be open to preparation for marriage advice? Well, no, he probably wouldn't come to church, but she would ask; and, no, he probably wouldn't be open to premarital advice. She continued to come to BVBC for a while.

I felt like a failure. I did not need to tell her that her behavior was sin. She agreed. I did not have the resources or the wisdom to help her get out of the relationship. I could only hope that she would keep coming to BVBC, her only lifeline, as far as I knew, to consistent Christian influence. Then, she stopped coming. I lost track of her entirely.

That episode reveals how risky and difficult it is to step into the circumstances of people who have built significant parts of their lives without reference to God. The human wreckage is often very great. That episode reveals also how necessary it is to step into the circumstances of people who have built significant parts of their lives without reference to God.

This story also serves as an early alert to the difficult human situations in which Mark ten must be heard. This chapter addresses the pivotal human uses of sex, money and power. Using those divine gifts without divine guidance exposes people to grave consequencese, both material and spiritual. We begin today in Mark 10:1-5.

Let's first put these verses in their proper context. In Mark 8:31-10:53 Mark develops his theme of a suffering Messiah by repeating a threefold pattern three times in these chapters. Here is the pattern.

Jesus' prediction of His suffering and death is always the first part of the pattern. The second part is always some inappropriate, uncomprehending response on the part of His disiciples. The third part of the pattern is always Jesus' reply to the disciples' response in which He challenges, encourages, and teaches them what it means to be followers of a suffering Messiah. Then, a story or series of episodes follows, which reinforces what the disciples need to learn.

The key to the third part of the pattern comes in Mark 8:35. Jesus lays down there the radical principle of what it means to be followers of a suffering Messiah. "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it." In that statement He completely inverts the values of ordinary life. In chapters eight and nine, as we have seen, Jesus applies that inversion of values to specific areas of human experience. He continues to do so in chapter ten.

Conventional ways of thinking hit a wall when Jesus said He was a Messiah, who was doomed to die. In His replies to the disciples' inappropriate, uncomprehending responses to that prediction Jesus says in effect, "Now that I have your attention, let me remake your mind by showing you how the kingdom of God really works." Every inversion of values He makes offers a bracing alternative to conventional ways of thinking. The episode that opens chapter ten applies that bracing alternative to marriage.

Verse one says, Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Please notice. The journey south has begun. Jesus leaves Galilee for the last time. The Messiah, who is doomed to suffer and die, goes to Judea, but instead of turning west and taking the road upward to Jerusalem, He turns east to the region across the Jordan. There we hear of a familiar scene. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.

Another familiar scene reappears in verse two. Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" It is difficult to know what the test was. Were they seeing whether He would say divorce is lawful and accuse Him of being indulgent, or would they be looking for him to say it is unlawful and then accuse Him of being in contradiction to the teaching of Moses? Remember: this is a test. The Pharisees are not looking for truth. They are looking for any stick with which to beat and berate Jesus.

Jesus' answer, as deft as deft can be, takes the stick right out of their hands and goads them to a deeper perception of reality. His subtle answer also poses a double-edged challenge to our culture's degraded view of marriage and also to the Church, as it seeks to offer our culture a better vision of what it means to be human and a better vision of what it means to be free. His answer begins with a question of His own.

"What did Moses command you?" he replied. The Torah permeated the mind of Jesus. If Jesus truly came to show Jews a new way of being Israel and a new way of being human, He sought to do so in a way that built on the foundation of the Torah. Quotations from the Torah come readily to His lips. Reflections on its revelation of God shape His consciousness of human life. All who wish to be spiritual leaders among the people of God need to be immersed in the book, as was Jesus Christ. The answer to the difficult issue of divorce begins with a consideration of scripture.

They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away." The passage in question is Deuteronomy 24:1-4. It implies that divorce and marriage might occur for any reason. The Pharisees seemed to be on solid ground, whatever may have been their motives for testing Jesus. Then, Jesus takes one of those giant steps that mark Him as a spiritual genius. He makes a statement that undermines everything the Pharisees were trying to do. His statement goes behind the obvious to more fundamental issues of human life.

"It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. Let me try to show you how disconcerting Jesus' statement can be. I want to ask, "Yes, but Moses wrote it nevertheless, didn't he?" "Does Jesus mean Moses was wrong?" "If Jesus says that Moses was wrong, does He not call into question the religious authority of the Old Testament?" "In any case, if hardness of heart justified divorce in the mind of the great Moses, does not hardness of heart still justify divorce?" Hold these questions; they have a bearing on important matters later on. Jesus tells us next what justified his accusation of a hard heart.

We will consider verses 6-9 on their own merits next Sunday. For now, I want to read them and point out how they further undermine the Pharisees' trickery. Jesus said, "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.'"

Once again, Jesus roots what He says in the Torah; only this time He goes back before Moses to the creation of humanity itself. He goes back to the divine intention for the creation of man into male and female. He quotes Genesis 1:27 about the creation of man into male and female. Then, He quotes Genesis 2:24 to express the divine intention for the man and woman.

Then, in verse nine Jesus draws His conclusion from this evidence. "So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." Jesus so effectively neutralizes the Pharisees' test that Mark says nothing more about it. Here is the trap the Pharisees now find themselves in.

If their intent is to show that Jesus contradicted Moses, Jesus confirms Moses but points out that he granted divorce due to the hardness of heart of the children of Israel. If their intent is to show that Jesus is indulgent, Jesus disabuses them of that notion by taking them back to the creative intentions of God, which called for the union of one man and one woman for life. The implication is that if the Pharisees agree with Moses, they might be showing a hard heart toward God's intention for marriage.

The question now arises, How does this text affect us? We, who submit ourselves to the authority of Jesus Christ, accept as authoritative His interpretation of God's original intention for marriage. The union of one man and one woman for life constitutes marriage as the divinely ordained destiny for male and female.

Being followers of Christ commits us to the permanence of marriage. For all the difficulties married life may bring, we treasure the integrity of the union itself, because we believe God intends the union to be permanent. We also look for ways to help couples ease those difficulties. The church provides extensive preparation for marriage classes to give couples a good start on their lifelong journey. The church encourages marriage and family conferences along the way to help couples deepen their commitment to each other. The church points to professional counseling to help couples work through difficulties that arise, when they are having trouble resolving themselves.

We will stick by our convictions, and we will seek to provide all the help we can to strengthen couples. And, yet, divorce happens. What God has joined together comes apart so often that many people believe that the union of one man and one woman for life is dead and done for, an anachronism that we need pay no more attention to. Today, fewer than one in four of all the households in the U.S. have a husband and wife living together in marriage (Investors' Business Daily, May, 01). What are we Christians with our allegiance to Jesus Christ to make of this?

For starters, we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma. We are committed by the teaching of Jesus Christ to the permanence of marriage. We are committed by the teaching of Jesus Christ to people, whose marriages have become most impermanent. On one side we have God's creative intentions, and on the other side we have the hardness of human hearts that cares little for God's creative intentions. On one hand we serve a Lord who calls on us to lose our lives for Him and for the gospel. On the other hand we minister to people for whom personal happiness at any cost is the great overriding theme of their existence, irrespective of what God's intentions are supposed to be.

Here is the nub of the matter. Shall we say to people whose marriage has fallen apart, "We don't want you here"? Shall we say to them, "Well, you can come here, but we will treat you like second-class citizens of the kingdom"? Shall we say to them, "You can never again marry"? Is hardness of heart a grounds for remarriage? It was for Moses. No, it does not square with God's intention for creation, but neither does a great deal else. The question of remarriage must wait another two weeks, but everything else I have mentioned needs a response today.

A decade ago, this congregation made a decision to open its arms to single men and women, including those who had gone through a divorce. We said, "We want you here." We specifically said to divorced people, "You are going through a most difficult time in your life. It will not be easy to come into a congregation of couples and feel comfortable. But we will do what we can to ease some of that difficulty and to make you feel like you belong here." I don't think we have ever looked back at that decision with regret or with second thoughts.

Is divorce a sin? Of course it is; it violates God's intention for His creation. Is it the worst sin there is? No. Is it the unpardonable sin? No. Can it be forgiven? Yes. Have you who are divorced ever confessed to God that your divorce was a sin against Him? Why not? Will He allow you to remarry with His blessing? We will talk about that on June 24. Do we always know how best to treat you, if you have gone through a divorce? No. Does any of us know whom to blame for your divorce? No. Is it any of our business to find out? Seldom. Do we think you can recover and get on with a new life? Yes, especially, if you submit to the authority of Jesus Christ in your life.

When that young woman walked out of my office many years ago, leaving me to feel like a failure, I knew that I was seeing just the tip of the iceberg. I knew Christian ministry had become tougher and riskier than ever. I knew I did not have nearly enough answers, nearly enough wisdom for what lay ahead.

I knew I would go forward to face whatever came my way. The gospel of salvation is not for people who do not need rescue. I just know that I want BVBC to be a place of refuge that welcomes in people whom sin has damaged, not an impenetrable fortress that keeps them out – all the while never ceasing to aspire to realize together our Father's original intentions for marriage and family. Can we be that kind of church? The answer to that rests in part with us pastors. I suspect the more determinative answer rests with you, the congregation, and the way in which you make this a place of refuge.