Divorce and Questions of the Heart
A “dialogue” sermon on Mark 10:2-16

As far as I can tell, Jack Benny was the first to quip that while murder was an option he and his wife had considered, divorce never was. I’ve heard a number of couples say the same thing. It’s said in jest and usually draws both a laugh and a knowing nod.

Excuse me, but: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Where do babies come from? When do you know you’re in love? What is the meaning of life? Who made God?

Questions. Ever since I was a boy I’ve had questions. Not those questions, necessarily, but other questions, ones like: How come she doesn’t have to wash the dishes? Why do I have to go to church every Sunday? Where does it say that in the Bible? What do you mean, you don’t love me anymore? Who am I?

We all have questions, all our lives. The Pharisees and other religious leaders of Jesus’ day had questions, too. In the Gospel of Mark, in the second chapter alone, we hear them questioning Jesus over and over again: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (2:7) “Why (do you) eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (2:16) “Why are (your disciples) doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” (2:24). And from today’s gospel: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce a woman?” (10:2)

From the get go, the Pharisees were asking questions, about divorce and all kinds of other actions and behaviors. But these were not questions that build up relationships, not questions that nurture and sustain life. No, these were dishonest questions, testing questions, questions with some kind of ulterior motive behind them. These were questions not of the heart, but of hard-heartedness.

The official view of the Catholic Church—that divorce is not allowed—remains uncompromising. Annulment rates, however, have skyrocketed in the last several decades. In 1968 fewer than 400 annulments were granted in the United States; in 2004 there were nearly 54,000. (The Vatican’s Statistical Yearbook of the Church, cited by Kathleen Falsani in Huffington Post, June 29, 2007.)

It’s hard to get a handle on the current state of marriage and divorce in the United States. The Census Bureau no longer keeps these records and other statistics present conflicting data. But there IS some information. Surprisingly, according to the Barna Research Group (www.religioustolerance.org), Evangelical Christians exhibit the highest divorce rate at 36% while atheists and agnostics show the lowest rate at 21%. Regardless of which study you choose, there is one undisputed conclusion: divorce is a fact of life. Some see the staggering divorce rates and the lessening of stigma associated with it as a great tragedy and evidence of how far we have fallen away from the Christian principles we claim. Others view these same things as a sign of liberation, an honorable way out when staying in a bad marriage is no longer tenable.

Statistics are abstract, of course, and sociologists may argue about the whys and wherefores of divorce trends over the past fifty or so years. We may shake our heads at the sorry state of things, but when divorce gets up close and personal the pain of it is very concrete. My friend Inez became a divorced woman after a 42 year marriage. Soon after her husband married a woman only a couple of years older that the daughter they had raised together. My own son called me when his marriage was dissolving and we cried together over the phone. And for as long as I live I will remember the feeling I had as I walked out of the courthouse after my marriage had been declared “permanently and irrevocably dissolved.” That was very, very concrete.

So what are we to make of today’s gospel lesson? On the surface it seems clear enough, and this encounter between Jesus and the Jewish leaders is in fact the basis for the Catholic Church’s teaching. But I wonder. Is divorce a moral failure? If it is a sin, is it one from which you can be forgiven? Or maybe you have asked, if you have been through a divorce yourself, how long will I hurt? Will anyone ever love me again? Is healing possible?

Questions. We all have questions, all our lives. Rainer Maria Rilke, a 20 th-century German poet, made questions famous. Like us, Rilke lived in a broken, war-torn world, an age of profound change and anxiety. And like so many of us, his personal life was full of sadness too. His older sister died in the first week of her life. When Rilke was born, his grief-stricken mother tried to remake him into her dead child, even dressing him in her clothing. His parents divorced when he was nine. Through all the sufferings he endured, Rilke devoted himself to questions. Not hard-hearted questions, but questions of the heart.

There are several things to notice about today’s lesson. First of all, the Pharisees are not asking heart questions. As Tom said, what they really want is to trap Jesus into saying the wrong thing. Secondly, if you go back and read Mark’s gospel beginning in chapter one, and you might notice that Jesus has been in Galilee and regions to the north since John (the Baptist) was put in prison. (1:14) And why was John put in prison? We get the answer from Matthew (14:3): Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, for John had been saying to him: “It is not lawful for you to have her.” John was saying, in effect, You can’t take your brother’s wife! Husbands and wives are not expendable. In God’s reign, we don’t treat each other that way!

John was thrown into jail for speaking this truth, and Jesus left the region. And only now, in chapter ten, after all the miracles and healings and teachings you’ve been hearing about for months, only now does Jesus return to Judea. Which means that now he is in Herod’s jurisdiction. Sure enough, here come the Pharisees “to test him,” hoping, no doubt he will give Herod’s henchmen reason to seize and imprison him, too.

Divorce was a fact of life in Jesus’ day, just as it is in ours. The arguments surrounding divorce were not about if; they were about why. One school of thought held that infidelity was the only just cause for divorce; another contended that a man could divorce his wife if she displeased him for any reason: she burned the roast, she gained ten pounds, she had annoying habits, she was less appealing in some way than someone else.

Jesus, as he always does in his wranglings with the Pharisees, refuses to be drawn into the legalities of this side or that and goes straight to the heart of the matter. What is God’s intention for marriage? Well, Jesus cites Genesis, rather than Deuteronomy. Our Prayer Book tells us that Christian marriage is “intended by God for…mutual joy” and “for help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity….” (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 423). So we Episcopalians say that God intends for married people to take heart and to seek joy together – no matter how tough times might get, no matter what. Right, Eyleen?

Right. It’s a fact that marriage is work. Hard work. Joseph Campbell even calls it an ordeal. We do annoy each other, the in-love feelings do fade, and sometimes marriages do fall apart, in spite of our best efforts to keep them intact. Jesus’ words about marriage are like his words about forgiving seventy times seven, praying without ceasing, loving our enemies. These are impossibilities toward which we strive, knowing we will fail, yet trusting we will be loved and forgiven anyway.

Today marks the beginning of our stewardship season. In the coming weeks we will be hearing about the needs of this parish and about stewardship of our time, talent and treasure. But more important than any of that, more important than paying the bills or selling the rectory or serving on committees or going on a mission trip or attracting new members or even showing up at church, more important than anything of these, important as they are, is stewardship of our relationships—with spouses, partners, children, parents, friends, colleagues, people we disagree with, fellow church members. The question is: HOW are we DOING as STEWARDS of our RELATIONSHIPS? Our care of those entrusted to us is our first and primary calling. And while we will never get it all right, we will never fully resolve all our differences, we can pray for the softening of our hearts toward each other, asking for God’s help and forgiveness.

HOW AM I DOING AS A STEWARD OF MY RELATIONSHIPS? Sounds like a question for us to pray about. Sounds like a question to live out and to live into, a question of the heart. The poet Rilke said this about questions:

“...I would like to beg you…to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves… Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer” ( Letters to a Young Poet, letter #4, 1903).

May it be so. Amen.

- The Rev. Eyleen Farmer and the Rev. Tom Momberg
All Saints’ Episcopal Church, October 4, 2009

In this Gospel account, Jesus was interrupted.

For more on the interruptions of life, go to http://fathermom.wordpress.com