On the Question of Divorce

Homily for October 6, 2024
The Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost
Mark 10:2-16

This past August, the following appeared in the New York Times…

In the four years since she began driving solo across China, Su Min, age 60, has become an internet sensation known as the “road-trip auntie...”  A retired factory worker with a high school education, Ms. Su left behind an abusive marriage… and finally struck out on her own…  She has driven to the foot of Mount Everest and camped on the beach in the tropical province of Hainan…  To her surprise, [the videos she posted] went viral.  Women across the country said they saw themselves or their mothers in her story and cheered her on…  She has been featured in an ad campaign about female empowerment and inspired a forthcoming movie starring a famous Chinese actress.  But one key step in Ms. Su’s emancipation eluded her:  She wavered on whether to file for divorce, worried about how it would affect her family.  Until now. Last month, Ms. Su officially began divorce proceedings. (NY Times,August 22, 2024)

The article goes on to explain the many barriers that Ms. Su and many Chinese women face when trying to divorce:  how judges can force couples into mediation that, studies show, disadvantages the woman; how judges frequently ignore claims of domestic violence; how divorce in China still carries a stigma; how the Communist system prioritizes marriage over women’s welfare because, they say, marriage promotes social stability.  

And I want to get back to Ms.Su and her divorce, but first, today’s Gospel lesson from Mark chapter 10.  In today’s Gospel lesson,

Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”  He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.”  But Jesus said to them,“Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you.  But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’  ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’  So they are no longer two, but one...  What God has joined together, let no one separate.”

This passage is difficult because,whether or not we ourselves are divorced, we know people who are divorced; and we have all experienced the grief, the heartache, and the ripple effects on children and others from a divorce.  And to hear Jesus himself say, “What God has joined together, let no one separate” – is difficult.

I’ve heard it said about scripture that context is everything.  Here’s the context in which I read today’s Gospel passage:

First:  Note how the Pharisees use the question of divorce to “test” Jesus. In Mark, “testing” is something only Satan and the Pharisees do (1:13; 8:11; 10:2; 12:15).  Theirs is neither a friendly interaction, nor is it “pastoral;” that is, minus a specific couple and their particular circumstance, the Pharisees come to Jesus with a hypothetical situation, merely to test him.

Second:  Among Hebrews in the first century, there were two main schools of thought in regards to divorce.  The scholar Shammai and his followers held that a man could divorce his wife only in the case of adultery.  Shammai’s colleague Hillel, on the other hand, said a man could divorce his wife for any reason, most infamously suggesting that he could divorce her even for burning dinner.  Divorce was a “live” issue in Jesus’ time, and it could be that the Pharisees were hoping Jesus might take a side.

Third:  In 1 Corinthians chapter 7 (7:10), thought to have been written fifteen to twenty years before Mark’s Gospel, the apostle Paul writes:  “To the married I give this command – not I but the Lord – that the wife should not separate from her husband… and that the husband should not divorce his wife.”  This passage from 1 Corinthians suggests that there was an early tradition that held that Jesus himself taught his followers that married couples ought not divorce.

Fourth:  In Matthew’s version of this story, Jesus says something slightly different from Mark: “Whoever divorces his wife,” Jesus says in Matthew, “except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery” (19:9).  Jesus’ statement in Matthew mirrors the school of Shammai, who said that a man could divorce his wife only in the case of adultery.

Fifth:  One might think, given today’s passage about divorce and then also about little children coming to Jesus, that Jesus espoused what today we might call “family values.” But elsewhere in Mark, Jesus rather “blows up” the family.  For example, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Jesus asked in chapter 3 (3:32-35). Or again in chapter 10, “There is no one who has left… brothers or sisters or mother or father or children… for my sake… who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age… and in the age to come eternal life (10:28-30).  When asked about divorce, why does Jesus respond with “What God has joined together, let no one separate”?  Is he really upholding the nuclear family, or is there more going on?

Lastly:  I’ve heard it said that in this morning’s passage Jesus protects women, who (the reasoning goes) would be in a precarious position were they divorced and not attached to a household.  Recent scholarship questions this line of reasoning, saying (in effect) that it doesn’t give women enough credit.  These scholars point to examples such as the woman who in Mark chapter 14 had enough resources to purchase an alabaster jar of “very costly ointment” and to pour it out on Jesus’ head (14:3).  They point to Mary and Martha who appear to have had their own home, a home large enough in which to host guests.  These scholars point, too, to Lydia who, in the Acts of the Apostles, was “a dealer in purple cloth” and who likewise had a home large enough to host Paul and Timothy (Acts 16:14-16).  Women, these scholars say, did not need Jesus’ protection, thank you very much.

I myself am divorced – you know where I land in regards to Jesus’ words about divorce in this morning’s Gospel lesson.  But I’m curious as to where you might land.  And I wonder – as kind of a test case – [I wonder] how you imagine Jesus might respond to Ms. Su, if she were to ask him about getting a divorce. Consider what you know about Jesus; consider what you know about the Scriptures; consider your own lived experience and what you have seen in those around you in regards to marriage and divorce. What do you imagine Jesus might say to Ms. Su?  Or perhaps, What do you imagine Jesus might say to you – or your son or your sister or your friend – who may be getting a divorce?  

In his epistles, Paul cites two teachings he has received from the Lord: one is on divorce, the other is on the Eucharist:

I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.”  In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this,as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”  For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. – 1 Cor 11:23-26

The question of divorce is important, for our relationships and how we live with and love others determines to a large extent our experience of being alive.  I hope that, as we consider Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel lesson, we do not lose sight of Jesus’ love for us, of his sacrifice for us, and how – wherever we might land in regards to Jesus’ teaching on divorce – we stand in need of Jesus and his saving grace.  And we are charged with remembering him and proclaiming his death until he comes again.

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