HARD AND HARDNESS

TUESDAY AFTER FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT 2015

Today is Mark 10:1-16 with Bishop Wright focusing on verses 1-12.

The text today is hard…it is about divorce. The mere mention of this word on a churchman’s blog gives pause. But we need to have a bit of courage to press into what for anyone touched by divorce is hard…touching that scar can be painful.

I am reticent to write about this. I find that this message is best given face to face so that people can see care and concern in my eyes…that they might see love and not judgment…but here goes.

Let’s take this in two stages: analytical and then more practically. Analytically we see from the passage that they set out to trap Jesus. What is the trap? Is it talking about divorce? Sort of. It is talking about divorce in the land of King Herod. King Herod who divorced his wife, and beheaded John the Baptist for being critical of that divorce. So the idea, the trap, is to see if they can get Jesus beheaded.

Continuing with the analytical—Jesus turns the question upon them, those that teach the Law, by asking, “So what did Moses teach?” They answer and Jesus then moves onto the issue—divorce is a result of hard-heartedness.

Which brings me to the practical. I am divorced. I did not stand up on my wedding day with that as the goal…I doubt many people do on their wedding day have divorce as the goal. Why did it happen? Jesus would say hard-heartedness and that is not a bad summary. And here is the crazy think Jesus is claiming…we all have hard-hearts and he is the person who is coming into this world to give us new hearts.

Yes his teaching on divorce is hard…what do you expect him to say…that it’s ok? He wants us to love each other. He does not want us to normalize something that we know from social science is based more on the wounds that we bring to the marriage from our past, and from the world that pushes in upon us, then it is from two people who started out in love. He wants us to be healed of the wounds that we bring into relationships that so often lead to brokenness. He wants us to come to him so that this kingdom may come. He is trying to draw us closer, vice drive us away…Peace.