St.Mildred's Church, Tenterden, Kent.
October 8th 2006
Sermon by The Reverend Canon David G Trustram MA,
Vicar of Tenterden, at the 9.30am Service
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Mark 10: 2 ‘”Is it lawful for a man to
divorce his wife ?”
One day, as Jesus was travelling towards Jerusalem
with his disciples, he was asked about marriage, divorce, adultery and
family life. The passage we have just heard is an uncomfortable
one for many people - especially for those who have been through the wounding
trauma of divorce and family break-up. It is uncomfortable for some
of you here in church today, and also for me, as we have had divorces in
our family circle too.
It is uncomfortable because Jesus, our Lord and Saviour,
is here so unequivocally against divorce.
There are some things we need to realise about this passage. Jesus here is giving us an ideal, the highest possible standard to aim for. Indeed, this is how it was, he says, ‘in the beginning’, in other words, in Paradise, when God first created man and woman. This was before The Fall, Adam and Eve’s disobedience, which allowed sin and pride and separation to enter our world.
Jesus allows that the reality is different in a fallen world. He asks, ‘What did Moses say about divorce ?’. ‘He allowed it’, they said. ‘It was because of your hardness of heart that he allowed it’, Jesus replied. But he did not disagree with them. Moses did allow divorce, and we know that Jesus accepted the Law of Moses as divinely inspired by his heavenly Father.
So in this very passage we have a coin with two sides – the ideal of marriage, but also the reality of divorce in a fallen, sinful and hard-hearted world.
We know from other passages that Jesus was more than grudgingly accepting of people with failure in their lives. He was deeply compassionate as well as highly idealistic. He did not dismiss the Samaritan woman who had had five husbands. He refused to condemn the woman caught in the act of adultery. He allowed his feet to be bathed and anointed in Simon’s house by a sinful woman with a bad reputation, commending her that ‘she loved much because she had been forgiven much’. For Jesus there was always the possibility of redemption, forgiveness and the hope of new beginnings.
We also need to realise that divorce in Jesus’ time was vastly different thing from nowadays. If you look at the verses in Deuteronomy 24, the ability to divorce is very much the prerogative of the man. If he is not pleased with his wife, he may accuse her of some impropriety, and dismiss her from his house. He is then free to marry someone who pleases him more. If this was how divorce was, no wonder Jesus rejects it – so would we all.
Of course, some modern divorces are like this, but many of the ones we know about are agonised and agonising choices, where husband and wife have made the greatest efforts to love each other and stay together. But it has just not worked. It proves more loving in the end to face the truth that the marriage is over. Such times are indeed times for repentance and sorrow, but they are not beyond redemption, forgiveness, and the hope of new beginnings.
I would like to commend all of the older couples here today, and also our widows and widowers who have given us wonderful role models of sustained marriages, no doubt with your own ups and downs through the years. I often think of one gentleman who said to me, ‘I’ve been married to Janet for 59 years, and, do you know, I love her more every day.’.
All of us – in our marriages and close loving relationships - let us also model the value and joy life-long commitment. I am not given to political allusions in my sermons but one of our political leaders said this week, ‘Let us affirm the value of marriage, not because it’s about legality, or even because it’s about religion, but because it’s about commitment’. We are beginning to see a generation for many of whom marriage is not on the radar at all.
Let us highly value the ideal of marriage – it truly is a sign of God’s kingdom, God’s perfect world. But let us also stay alongside the wounded and saddened people whose marriages have not worked out.
Perhaps the biggest danger in our rush-around world
is the failure to nurture marriage. I’d like to end with this modern
day parable, which I sometimes use at weddings, to warn people that often
we rush through life looking for things
Once upon a time there were a husband and a wife who lived together in reasonable contentment, but often their hearts felt restless. Then one day they read in an ancient book that there was a certain place on earth where they would find their supreme happiness and their greatest joy. So they left their home behind and set off on a great journey to find that wonderful place. They travelled over continents and sailed over oceans. Then at last they came to that special place where their supreme happiness and their greatest joy would be found. With trembling hands they opened the door and stepped inside. They were astonished, for they found that they were standing back in their own home. They realised at last, after all their restless wanderings, where their supreme and happiness and their greatest joy was found. And they embraced one another tenderly, and gave thanks to the good Lord who had stilled their restless hearts and opened their eyes.
Amen
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Marriage should be honoured by all
(Hebrews 13:4)
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This page published by Nick
Hudd on the
Feast Day of Edward the Confessor, King 2006