Mark 10 1-12

I as surprised to learn during seminary that seminarians who married one another had the same rate of divorce as regular, secular society. I was under the assumption at seminary that since we were all Christians, there would be a lot less divorces than in the overall society. I can tend to be a bit of an idealist at times, but I was shocked to learn the rate of divorce between seminarians that meet and marry is no different. I think I’m still shocked by that.

Divorce and marriage has always been an issue for humans. From the Old Testament to the New Testament and ever since, people have been getting frustrated and angry with their spouses. It has been happening for thousands of years. So at the outset, let me say that having a divorce in your personal history is not, repeat not, any kind of an exclusion from the kingdom of God or from this church. I would guess most of us view divorce as a tragedy; whether it was the right thing or not doesn’t matter-a tragedy occurred. This church is a place for the wounded of life, I’ve never been married but I’m wounded in my own ways. So if you are wounded from divorce, know that you are among friends. The reason I bring this up is that today’s passage includes Jesus specific teaching on divorce and marriage.

I desire us always to be seeking excellence in our lives before Christ. One of the ways we show excellence in our commitment to Christ is in the midst of our marriages. But we are also all sinners, and sinners hurt each other, even in the midst of a marriage. Let’s take a look at our passage for today and take some time to reflect on God’s Word. Our passage begins in Mark 10, verse 1. Please stand…

Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.

Some of the Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

“What did Moses command you?” he replied.

They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”

“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “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.’ So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and married another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

Let’s pray.

We’re looking at Mark again this week. We’ve been working our way slowly through Mark, which is how I like to preach. To me, its crucial that people know their Bibles. Knowing Scripture gives us a basis for our beliefs, for our lives. As a society, we simply don’t know our Bibles the way we used to 50 years ago. So I always try to center my sermons on Scripture; so that we know the words that bring us life, the words that God gave to us so that we would know Him, and love Him, and have life in Him. This is why I preach through books and letters rather than jumping from topic to topic. I think that’s a fine way to preach, but it doesn’t really help people to know their Bibles. So I preach a little differently than many people do these days. But I’m okay with that.

We’re definitely making progress through Mark. Starting chapter 10 out of 16, that’s pretty good. Next chapter, 11, Jesus will enter into Jerusalem. Jesus and the disciples are nearly to Jerusalem, but they aren’t there quite yet. Chapter 10 is mostly teaching, rather than part of the trek to Jerusalem. The teaching starts with a discussion on marriage, but it eventually goes into a deeper issue of the intent of the Jewish Law and the actual practice. Actually, the teaching is initiated by the Pharisees again, who are still trying to find some part of His teaching that is heretical or wrong so that they can denounce Jesus, so they can have some reason to dismiss Him as a nut or a revolutionary. Instead, Jesus takes the OT admonitions and goes to the heart of the matter. Jesus did say that not a jot or a tiddle of the Law would pass away, but Jesus wanted the people back then, and us, to grow beyond external controls on our behavior to internal controls on our behavior.

We were talking about this in the Romans Bible study a few weeks ago, talking about sin and freedom in Christ. Part of what Paul is trying to impress onto the Romans is the external controls of religion have been thrown off because of our freedom in Christ, but they should be replaced by internal controls because of Christ, because of the Holy Spirit. This is what Jesus is talking about. There are external controls that allow the Jews to divorce their wives, but should followers of Christ do what is allowed, or should they seek the very best options for their lives? That is what Jesus chooses to address rather than the question posed by the Pharisees. Let’s take a look at the text.

Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.

Some of the Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

“What did Moses command you?” he replied.

They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”

This is true. Deuteronomy 24:1ff “If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the Lord. Do not bring sin upon the land of the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.”

Marriage in the Old Testament, as in the times of the New Testament could be seen as a contract. Marriages were arranged between families, and a divorce was a serious affair that effected more people than just the two people involved. Just like now. Family groups were involved, maybe even financial implications were involved. Moses doesn’t lay this out as an option, he just says when it happens, this is how it should happen. God wants His people to know this is a serious thing, not easily done and women are not easily thrown away to an uncertain future. Securing a legal document, making sure that the man cannot change his mind on a whim, either way, in the divorce or taking her back later…all these steps make it clear that divorce is not entered into lightly. Moreover, it doesn’t say in Scripture that this is okay; it was simply permitted by Moses, placed rules around the process of divorce.

So the question Jesus asks is a good one. What did the Lord command the people concerning divorce? And the response isn’t what Moses commanded. Perhaps a proper response should have been to quote Genesis 2:24 “for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Combined with “Thou shalt not commit adultery and Thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s wife…” But this isn’t their response. Their response is about what is allowed, rather than what is commanded. This is a direct result of having a religion of rules, and a mindset of following rules rather than a personal relationship with God, and wanting to do as He commands. When we love God, when we love Jesus, we want to please Him, we want to love Him through the way we live our lives. Jesus question is what did Moses command you? And the answer doesn’t match up. They were so used to figuring out what was allowed rather than what was pleasing to God.

Their answer was that Moses allowed them to divorce their wives through the process of filling out legal paperwork and giving it to her, and sending her on her way. And while that was correct, it wasn’t an answer to the question. God’s commands are about how life is to be lived well before Him, honor your father and mother…do not steal or commit adultery, do not covet or kill…do not worship idols or take the Lord’s name in vain. These are some of the commands. But what is allowed?!? Why would we ask that question unless we wanted to push the boundaries of a rule based relationship with God? And who wants a rule based relationship with God? Not me. I want to have an honor and love based relationship with God. So I try not to push the boundaries, because I recognize the boundaries are for my protection, not God’s holiness or temper. Jesus seeks to move these Pharisees, as hostile as they were, to a deeper understanding of God’s will for their lives and ours.

This goes to the heart of the matter. Pushing the rules is not what we are called to as disciples, as servants of God. Instead, we are called to demonstrate His effect on our lives. Marriage is many things; it is the culmination of feelings of love for our spouse. But it is more than that. As I was saying to Liana and Rob recently, their love led them to the place of marriage. But ever after it is their marriage which sustains their love, it is their marriage which holds them in place as their feelings of love ebb and flow. Feelings come and go, especially over the long haul, which is what a marriage is. A marriage is the culmination of love, it holds in place those lives as their feelings ebb and flow. More than that, a marriage is a daily choice. I told them, and I tell you who already know, that there will be times when marriage is a daily choice to love the other person. When times are tough, the arguments have been fierce; when the past has been dredged up and thrown in each other’s faces, then love and marriage become a choice.

It is the choice to stay with someone who is irritating, it is the choice to stay with someone despite their bad habits, it is the choice to stay. I recognize there are some things that no one should have to endure, abuse being high on that list. And I think abuse of the marriage vows is a tragedy. I recognize sometimes it is simply not possible to stay in a marriage, but if the marriage can possibly stay together, I think it honors Jesus if we try as hard as we can to make the marriage what it was intended to be…a place of love and honor, a relationship based in love that we can minister to the world out of. The trouble with marriages is that they bring together two fallen and fallible people. A marriage has the potential to be wonderful, but it also has the potential to be messy and full of pain because of our actions.

Above a culmination of feelings, and above a daily choice, a marriage is a commitment. It is a commitment to put your marriage relationship above all others, to invest your time and energy into the relationship, to hold that relationship in honor. It is to be committed to the other person, to seek their best, because that makes the marriage better overall. When the two people get married there is no longer two people, but one marriage that they are a part of. The wants of the individual are sublimated to the whole marriage. What that means in real words is that when people get married something new exists. Love is a private affair, someone once said…If I love you, how is that your business? Love can be a private possession, but a marriage is something else. It is a public commitment to the other person, to be for them above all else.

You can see how if we are committed to our marriages, trying to make them be as good as they possibly can be, trying to reflect Christ to our spouse and to the world through our marriages would lead us to the place where we wouldn’t ask the question about what is possible to do without making God eternally angry with us. It shouldn’t come up. There are reasons to end a marriage, absolutely. But we cannot be people who are cavalier about ending marriages. Like I said earlier, every divorce contains tragedies. People shouldn’t have been treated by their spouse as they were. So if there is a divorce in your past, for whatever reason, God is still for you and loves you. If there was some sin on your part in the ending of the marriage, then it is important for you to admit that sin before God. But that is true with every sin, from divorce to lying to stealing to jealousy and back stabbing and whatever else we can think of to do. It is important that we repent whenever we feel we have let Jesus down in the way we have lived. We live always before Christ, to his glory, not just in our marriages, but in all ways. Which is why I was so surprised about that statistic about seminary students who marry one another. Obviously tragedies occurred, and even they couldn’t hold it together. Sin effects us all, wise or unwise, powerful or weak, rich or poor. We are all in need of God’s grace and we throw ourselves into His arms of mercy and love.

Clearly people back then were divorcing their wives and marrying another woman, for whatever reason. Usually these were selfish reasons. People, usually men, thinking it would be just fine to divorce their wives and go after someone else. It wasn’t okay. Being divorced would usually devastate a woman, even though they could remarry. To be a single woman in that society was a difficult position. It was to be without legal rights, to be without a way to make money outside of begging. To do that to someone on a whim was callous and sinful.

Here we are again toeing the line between living as sinless a life as possible because of Jesus, for His glory, and our deep and totally necessary dependence on His grace and forgiveness. I will not reinterpret Jesus words. I have not authority to do that, ever. What Jesus says is fairly clear. What is messy is life. The good thing about God is that through Jesus He entered into our lives, messy as they are. He offers a different road, a different path than the one we have been on. Society would have us believe that if a marriage gets tough, its okay to leave. There was just a billboard put up by a divorce lawyer in Dallas that said in effect, “Life is too short not to get a divorce…” Public outcry got the billboard message removed, but unfortunately the message did express a commonly held sentiment. Hey, if the marriage is tough, it’s fine to get out.

I would hope that this would be a church that fights for healthy marriages, a church that fights against what society says is fine because God says there is a better way. We pin our hopes and our eternity on God’s better way. Not easier, but more significant. We are not called to be run-of-the mill people. We are called to be disciples of the King. God calls us to live for the best, to live for Him. We are called to pursue righteousness, to sustain a drive within us toward excellence, to please God with our lives. We can do it in God’s strength, with His Holy Spirit sustaining us.

Let’s pray.