Unqualified to Preach

October 7, 2012

19 Pentecost, Proper 22 (Year B)
Mark 10:2-16

There’s a subject that can’t be avoided this morning, given our Old Testament and Gospel readings.  Or maybe two subjects – marriage and divorce.  I tried to avoid them – believe me.  I even thought about preaching on the this morning’s Collect, the great last hope of Episcopal preachers, but it actually ended up bringing me to the same place.  More on that later.

Who knows what’s going on in any given marriage at any given time?  And how to talk about divorce when you know there are people in the room for whom that subject is nothing but painful?

            And yet we need to talk about both of them, if only to clear the air.  We need to deal with the assumption by many people that marriage should be easy and that they are alone in finding it difficult if we have any hope of strengthening the couples in our midst.  And we need to deal with the discomfort and pain of divorce so that we can be a community that provides love and healing to those in its shadow.

            I don’t think the Episcopal Church does especially well with marriage or divorce.  We’re decent at pre-marital stuff.  Couples meet with clergy for months sometimes, taking personality tests, analyzing family systems, talking about their hopes and dreams.  Couples are eagerly supported by their parishes, which are excited about this fresh new start.  And we are very good at weddings.  We have a beautiful service, full of great theology and heart-felt prayers.  But the wedding is only the beginning of the process of marriage, just like signing that divorce paper is only the beginning of the process of divorce.  And I think the Church backs off a little too far.  We don’t offer much that specifically supports people in their marriages.  And we don’t do enough to help people grieve and heal after divorce.  And yet even while I know this about the Church, I have never felt particularly qualified to do much to change it.

            Before Holden and I got married, we went through a pre-marital class at St. Paul’s in Old Town.  (I can tell this story because Holden is running in the GW Parkway race this morning.)  At St. Paul’s, they have so many weddings that they do their pre-marital stuff in groups over a weekend.  So we spent a weekend with a group of 15 or so other couples hearing about finances, talking about family systems, working with a counselor to think about conflicts that might arise.  It was that last piece that I remember most because it went so dreadfully.  The counselor was talking about how to argue constructively, using “I” statements, avoiding blame, working on really listening to what is at the heart of what your partner is saying.  And then he asked for a volunteer couple that could model the process.  I volunteered us because, in my head, Holden and I were good at this process.  We didn’t fight much, largely because Holden is a pretty easy-going person who isn’t easily provoked.  So I figured we could model our excellent constructive disagreement style and provide a great example for the others.  The counselor asked Holden to pick the subject matter to talk about, suggesting that he pick something small.  That was where the trouble began.  If there is one thing I’ve learned in my 11 years of marriage, it is that whether something objectively seems small to one person really has very little to do with its emotional outcome for the other.  Holden started talking, using “I” statements, about picture hanging.  He thought he was on pretty safe territory.  He wanted to hang lots of pictures on the walls, and it frustrated him that I wouldn’t let him until I felt sure that everything was in exactly the right place.  And about one minute into our constructive disagreement, it turned destructive. I began to argue and blame and cry.  Because the issue for me was so much bigger than picture hanging.  We had bought a fixer-upper house in Old Town together, but I was still living and working in Atlanta and so could only be there on the occasional long weekend to be part of the fixing up.  He was doing the hard work of fixing up the house, thinking he was making progress for us, but it was killing me not to be part of the process in the first house I had ever owned.  It was the first place that was mine in a real way and I wanted to be involved in all of it.  The pictures were just a tiny piece of something so much bigger.

            I’d love to say that that’s all magically turned to pure bliss in the decade since, but, like for every other couple, new issues, or old issues with new faces, arise all the time.  We still let little things become big things, or maybe miss the big things that underlie the little things.  We still have our moments of misunderstanding and one-upping and blaming.  We still hear what we want to hear instead of listening a lot of the time. 

            And so who am I to be up here preaching about any of this?

            But that’s exactly the point, I think, of this morning’s reading from Mark.  That’s exactly where Jesus wants me to be, wants all of us to be.  Recognizing that we can’t do this, that relationships are hard, and sometimes they break, and that we have to turn to God to have any hope at any of this.

            The Pharisees this morning came up to Jesus to test him.  They were feeling good about themselves, knowing they had all the answers about what the law of Moses had to say about divorce.   Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and divorce his wife.  Period.

            But Jesus knew that even though that was the accepted standard, it wasn’t up to snuff for what was possible in the kingdom of God.

            Marriage in those times was much less a romantic choice and more of an economic joining together of families.  The Torah allowed for divorce but only men could decide to divorce their wives.  The practical results for women were often devastating.  Many women and children were shunned by their families and communities and left destitute and vulnerable.

            Jesus knew that wasn’t good enough for God’s kingdom.  Women wouldn’t be out on the streets begging in a world where we really love God with all of our hearts and minds and souls and really love our neighbors as ourselves.

            And so Jesus turned the question around on the Pharisees.  Instead of talking about divorce, Jesus switched the subject to God’s intention for marriage, based in God’s statement to Adam that “it is not good for man to be alone.”  God’s perfect plan involved a joining that would create one flesh.  I don’t think Jesus meant his statements about divorce, and about remarriage after divorce, to be words of judgment and condemnation, though that is often how we hear them.  But just look at the way he saved the woman caught in adultery from being stoned, and used the Samaritan woman who was married 5 times to spread the Gospel message to her community.  Their relationship problems were what brought him to them in love.  That’s why I think Jesus’ words in our Gospel this morning were intended to shake the self-satisfaction out of the Pharisees.  Jesus held up an ideal of perfect love, respect and care and forced them to look at the imperfections in their own lives and relationships that lived just below the surface. 

            I think that’s what Jesus is calling all of us to this morning.  To get uncomfortable as we look carefully at our relationships and compare them to this image of two people joined into one flesh. 

            Who knows what the particular issues might be in any given relationship.  It’s like what Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.  The fact is that we are all human.  And our relationships are human and imperfect.  Anyone who has been in any kind of relationship knows how easy it is to get caught up in misunderstandings, to protect our own interests, to not pay enough attention, to get distracted by work and kids and who knows what else, to let temptations take control.  Divorce is just one outcome of all that other stuff that is inside every single marriage.  And while women are just as able to divorce as men now days, and while divorce doesn’t have the same social stigma attached as it once did, the painful legacy of divorce is just as strong for the people affected by them. 

            And so these readings make us uncomfortable because we know that what we’re giving isn’t good enough for God’s kingdom.  We know that we haven’t lived up to the image Jesus holds up, in our relationships or in any other area of our lives.  Jesus shakes us up right along with the Pharisees so that we can get past our pretense that we have everything sewn up into neat little boxes.  This morning Jesus confronts us with the messiness of our lives.

            And he pushes us to expand our vision.  The Pharisees thought they were on the inside because they knew the rules and followed them.  But it isn’t staying married that gets you God’s favor, or getting divorced that makes you lose it.   God’s love isn’t about rules or right action at all.  And thank God, because if it were, where would any of us be? None of us are living up to the standards of God, but we are still all within the sphere of God’s infinite love and forgiveness.  Which is a long-winded way of describing God’s grace.

            I think that’s where our Collect for the Day fits in, and so I’ll conclude with that:

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.