A Sermon on Relationships and Divorce – October 7, 2018

For Sunday, October 7, 2018, the lectionary texts for the 20th Sunday after Pentecost in Year B include Genesis 2:18-24 and Mark 10:2-16. This sermon was preached at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Greene, Iowa.

I found this a tricky text on which to preach, so I’m grateful to lots of others for their help as I prepared. Here are the sources I found most helpful: Karoline Lewis in her Dear Working Preachercolumn (and her column from 2015), David Lose at In the Meantime, Bishop Mike Rinehart’s lectionary column, Fred Craddock et al. in Preaching Through the Christian Year (especially page 434), Leonard Vander Zee writing for Calvin Seminary, and finally James Thompson and David Howell’s columns on this text in Feasting on the Word.

Here’s the sermon:

Have you ever heard of a “Gotcha question”? A gotcha question is a trick question someone asks a politician to try to trip them up, trying to get a soundbite to use against them. I watched part of a political hearing recently, and there were all kinds of verbal gymnastics to try to trick someone into making a particular statement he wasn’t willing to make.

Jesus’ enemies do this to him all the time, usually with questions about Jewish law. A few weeks ago [ok, so it was almost a year ago. Time flies when you’re having fun!] we heard them ask about whether it was lawful to pay taxes to the Roman emperor. Answering yes would drive away his followers, and saying no would give his enemies an excuse to arrest him for rebellion. Jesus broke open their trap by answering, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”

Today’s gotcha question for Jesus is, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Divorce is still a hot topic today, but there’s more going on back then than we realize.

Deuteronomy 24:1 says, “Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her…he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house.” It goes on from there, but the plain answer is yes, divorce is lawful and there is a legal procedure for it.

However, it gets more complicated. At the time, there was an ongoing debate between different rabbis over what grounds a man needed to divorce his wife. Deuteronomy says it’s if he finds “something objectionable about her.” Well, what does that mean?

The followers of Rabbi Shammai, said “something objectionable” means adultery. It’s ok to divorce your wife if she cheats on you. But the followers of Rabbi Hillel said “something objectionable” could be anything. His famous example would be if she burns dinner, that’s valid grounds for divorce. As a rabbi himself, Jesus would have known about this debate. It’s a good gotcha question, trying to get him to take a side.

But there’s more. Remember John the Baptist? The verse right before our reading says Jesus is by the Jordan river, where John used to preach. John had gotten arrested for criticizing King Herod for divorcing his wife in order to marry his brother’s wife. He’d been killed. If Jesus says the wrong thing, he too could be arrested. Gotcha!

Instead of weighing in on the divorce issue and falling into the trap, Jesus goes deeper, to the purpose of marriage. He goes back to the basic human need for companionship, back to the second chapter of Genesis in the garden of Eden.

From the beginning, humans are created for relationships. Genesis 2 tells us God molded the man, Adam, out of the dust of the earth, and placed him in the garden, in the good creation. Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

It is not good to be alone. And yet, for so many people today, loneliness is an everyday reality.

Earlier this year, a survey found that 46% of US adults report sometimes or always feeling lonely. The most lonely group is people between 18 and 22, and almost a third of adults over 65 feel lonely. That’s not how God intended us to live.




We are designed for relationships. One scientific study found that being lonely has as detrimental an effect on your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. In January this year, Britain actually appointed a Minister for Loneliness.

Loneliness is a result of a sinful world. Dependence on one another is at the heart of a relationship, but thanks to our sinful nature, we put ourselves first. Sin breaks our relationship with God, and our relationship with others. Sin breaks relationships.

The good news is that Jesus came and died to restore our relationship with God. He showed us a new way to live in relationship with others as God’s children. Part of God’s call for us as church is to build and support relationships. That’s why we have fellowship time. That’s why ministries like WELCA started. It’s part of why we deliver meals to the homebound in our community.

Our ultimate relationship is with God, but God also intends for us to have relationships with other people. Young or old, male or female, married or single, we all need relationships. We need to be part of a community.

I invite you to think about how we can build community, how we can reach out and support the people around us who are lonely. Let me know if you come up with any ideas to try. What can we do as a church? What can you do as an individual?

Many people are called to marriage, which can help with loneliness, but the Bible is very clear, especially in Paul’s letters: not everyone is called to marriage and that’s ok. If you are called to marriage, it’s a gift. Marriage is intended as a life-giving relationship where two become one.

Marriages are also affected by sin, by our human “hardness of heart,” as Jesus puts it. No one gets married thinking you’ll get divorced. You’re making a life-long commitment, a sacred covenant. The marriage relationship is intended to reflect God’s relationship with us. But just like in every relationship, sin gets in the way. Sometimes it can be overcome, sometimes it can’t. Sometimes it’s more one person, sometimes it’s both.

Divorce is wrong. It’s a tragedy. It’s the public breaking of a public vow made between spouses. It’s a failure, a betrayal of trust. Divorce goes against God’s intention for creation.

But hear this: Divorce is not the problem. In fact, divorce is more likely to be the solution than the problem. By the time divorce happens in our context, the relationship has already been damaged beyond repair.

There are very good reasons to divorce. When one or both of the people in a marriage have failed to live up to their vows, divorce might well be the best option. It’s a better option than staying in an abusive relationship. It might be a better option than living with a partner who is unfaithful.

Divorce is never a good thing, but it might be a necessary thing. By the time divorce happens, it’s a recognition of the reality that the marriage covenant is no longer in force.

Our context today is very different than Jesus’ context. Marriage is much less of an economic transaction, and much more about love and mutuality. Unmarried women are treated differently in 21st century America than in first century Palestine. For instance, did you catch that in the entire conversation between the Pharisees and Jesus, it’s about the man divorcing the woman?

When Jesus is alone with his disciples, he addresses the woman’s role as well. That’s so far off the radar of the men questioning him that it never occurs to them. Again, Jesus goes back to God’s original intent for marriage to be a mutual relationship, two becoming one.

One other clarification: Genesis talks about God deciding the man needs a helper as his partner. That word “helper” does not mean servant. It doesn’t mean there’s a “weaker sex” or something like that. That word helper is the same way God is described as Israel’s helper. Marriage ought to be a mutual relationship.

Part of Jesus’ concern may even be protecting women and children from being cast out of their home. Marriage provided economic protection, so the husband wouldn’t have the right to just cast his wife onto the street.

Jesus is consistently concerned with those put in the weaker position. He’s concerned with the vulnerable and the outcasts, the widows and orphans. He cares about those judged by society and those wounded by unhealthy relationships.




To drive home his point, Jesus takes the little children in his arms and declares the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Children are the vulnerable ones, the ones without power in their relationships. Think about what the disciples imagine Jesus is trying to accomplish. He’s trying to bring in God’s kingdom.

If you think of God’s kingdom in terms of power and place, children are not helpful. They can’t march or organize, plan or lead, they can’t provide financial support. As soldiers in the Lord’s army, they’re useless. They have basically nothing to offer. And that’s Jesus’ point. All a child can do is rely on grace and receive.

When the religious leaders try to trap Jesus with the law, he responds by setting an impossibly high standard, then declares the kingdom of God belongs not to those who do everything right, but to those who can’t do anything at all.

The kingdom of God belongs to those without power. The hurt and broken, the ones who are too young or too old, the ones whose marriages have failed, the lonely, the ones who are too busy or don’t know enough, these are the ones Jesus invites into God’s kingdom. These are the ones at Christ’s table. Thanks be to God.
Amen