God WITH Us
RCL Year B • Sermon • Submitted
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I want to do something different this week in my sermon than I have ever done before. I want to tell you the ending of my sermon because I do not want anyone to feel like this topic of divorce is something that alienates you from God’s love. God loves you and walks with all of you no matter what. Whether we have been divorced or not. Whether we have been affected by a divorce or not. God walks beside us in all the times in our lives in which we have brokenness. And God rejoices when that brokenness leads to healing and wholeness. If you are in a place of healing and wholeness, know that God rejoices with you this day and always.
That is the end of my sermon. Now let’s move to the beginning. And I have two things to say to start. 1. I may have complained about the story of the Syrophoenician woman as being my first Sunday preaching but I have to say it was far easier than this! 2. Can I just say that I really don’t like the Pharisees for asking this question and Mark recording it so that I’d have to preach on it 2,000 years later when marriage and divorce are very different from what it was then? Thanks for that.
I am a child of divorce. My parents divorced when I was going into 8th grade. I was definitely old enough to know what was happening but I didn’t really get the whole ins and outs of it. It wasn’t until later when my mom told me that she would share with me all about it and all I had to do was ask. And one day I did. It was during that conversation that I learned how broken a relationship my parents had. It was that brokenness that led to their divorce and it was the ending of that relationship that caused healing. It took a long time but it came.
I share that with you because I believe that this question of divorce that the Pharisees are asking of Jesus is for Jesus a question of relationship. That’s the hardship of the Pharisees asking and Jesus answering. So many times someone like the Pharisees will ask one question and Jesus will answer with a different idea or answer. I say that because as I said I believe this is a relationship question for Jesus when the Pharisees asked a legal question. They want to know if it is lawful and they want to see if Jesus agrees or disagrees with Moses about the validity of the certificate of divorce. They want to know if Jesus supports Mosaic Law or not.
Jesus’ answer is what I mean by he doesn’t always give answers to the questions people ask. Jesus doesn’t talk about Moses or the law at all, instead he goes back to Genesis. Which is why it is so good that we heard from the creation story today also. God does God’s best to find a companion, something or someone to have and earthly relationship with Adam. The whole reason for Eve was for Adam to have a companion, someone to be in relationship with and to complete what Adam was missing. That is what made Adam happy and that is what then made God happy. God was pleased that Adam was complete.
A lot happened between Genesis and Moses and the people in the wilderness but let’s sum it by saying that the goodness and wholeness between Adam and Eve and God didn’t stay good and whole. We have continued that cycle and we have done our best to be whole, but we live in a world where there is brokenness. Brokenness between us and God and among one another. That is the whole point of the 10 Commandments. 3 of them are how we are to be in right relationship with God and 7 of them are how we are to be in right relationship with one another. That was God recognizing our need for a way to live in community within and among our brokenness. That extended also to the other laws that Moses gave to the people. Which included the certificate of divorce. It was given because it was a way to help people move out of the brokenness of that relationship and hopefully find healing after.
The problem is that it became a legal question and it became viewed as God’s approval of divorce. It lost the idea that it was a way to help the brokenness that existed. Jesus is trying to show them that God doesn’t care about the piece of paper that says they’re divorced, God cares about the the brokenness that has happened and walks along people in that brokenness and wants wholeness to come out of it. So just a we grieve what it means when people get divorced and how that is an end to something God grieves too. God grieves that brokenness continues in our world. But God also grieves and walks alongside those of us that lie and the brokenness that creates. God grieves and walks beside the person who feels they have to steal becuase they see no other options.
That doesn’t mean that any person, including the person who has a divorce is somehow separated from the category that we are all God’s children and we all live broken lives in a broken world. God doesn’t want brokenness, but God also won’t let that brokenness do anything to stop the love of God as found in Christ Jesus to be fully present in our lives.
It is that focus on relationship that is solidified in the story of the children being blessed. These family members want Jesus to bless them, because it was custom to have a great rabbi bless children. Jesus makes these children the center of his attention instead of pushing them away. Remember how we talked a few weeks ago about how children could not produce anything; they were not productive members of society? Yet Jesus says that we must welcome children to welcome Jesus and thus welcome God. And we talked about how we can replace child for any member of society then or now that is considered worthless. Not only is Jesus blessing them by laying his hands on them but Mark specifically says that he took them up in his arms.
Jesus is embracing the least. Jesus is taken the broken and the lost. Those who need God’s love the most and welcoming them into his open arms. Jesus may have some difficult words for us to hear about divorce, but he also in the very next moment embraces and welcomes into the kingdom the least of the world. Those who are broken and need healing. Those who are willing to rely on God in the midst of their brokenness; willing to lay aside all notion that they can fix this brokenness on their own and let Jesus fill them with love and grace and forgiveness.
Being a child of God is just that. Letting God take our brokenness and turn it into wholeness. It doesn’t matter what brokenness we have or bring with us this day, God sent Jesus to wipe away the stain of that brokenness and to fill us all with love, peace, joy, happiness and wholeness. God embraces us all, takes us up into God’s arms and blesses us our whole lives long. Every part of us. The broken and the whole. That is what a crucified and risen Jesus does for this whole world. Thanks be to God. Amen.