Pay Attention To The Context
Sermon
Sermons on the Gospel Readings
Series II, Cycle B
A lot of confusion could be eliminated by paying attention to the context of our theological and ethical statements. Many Christians are filling themselves with anxiety about the imminent return of Jesus. They are reading books presenting frightening scenarios about the end of history and the great judgment of God on one's eternal destiny. The authors of these scary books are getting rich playing on the misplaced fears of their uncritical New Testament readers.
Many are distressed that these writings take bits of scripture and turn them into bizarre plots. Further, those who are caught up in these books and movies are distracted from any serious discipleship in this world. In the first chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples of Jesus are left looking upward after their Lord has ascended up to his heavenly destiny. The text suggests God was upset when they stood with their necks bending skyward, searching for Jesus. So the text says God sent two angelic figures to tell them, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" (Acts 1:11a). Then and now, God is not pleased when our focus is on a heavenly escape from the pains or the responsibilities of this world. Getting scared silly over a future godly intervention into human history comfortably avoids the claim of Jesus to devote ourselves to caring for human need in the hear and now, especially the least and the lost.
If we take the New Testament statements about the near end of the word into context, we find such notions were common in the biblical world. Quite likely, some of these notions were voiced by Jesus. Later, Paul wrote about his expectation of the imminent return of Jesus to inaugurate the day of judgment. However, these notions soon moved from a living hope for early Christians, to become an embarrassment and a faith crisis. Jesus didn't return, and his followers decided to prepare for the long run, indicating that the context of life always has a way of qualifying and nuancing our theology. Today, these early Christian hopes have been translated into a conviction that what God began in Jesus ultimately will be completed in him. Those who are caught up in this "left behind" frenzy would improve their mental health if they would consider the context in their handling of the New Testament.
Divorce -- A Cultural Quagmire
Divorce is a modern embarrassment. Its rising frequency in modern American society is troubling to both conservative and liberals alike. We are accustomed to perusing the Sunday newspaper and admiring those whose announcement of their golden wedding anniversary appears. Our sense that marriage is not a lasting matter for many today is not only a feeling we develop from "paying attention," but is also a reality backed with figures and statistics. Divorce, uncommon to anyone living before the 1950s, has now become distressingly commonplace.
Along with this trend comes a certain destabilization of adults and children. Divorced parents fuss over custody arrangements, continuing the emotional tangles that provoked the divorce. It is not uncommon to hear of a disgruntled, divorced parent kidnapping the children and fleeing into hiding; or much worse, reports of homicide and violence against the former mate and the children. The effect on the children even in the best divorce arrangements seems to bring an initial and possibly a lasting emotional scar upon them.
The context for this upswing of American divorce is rather easy to spot. One is the secularization of our society where a decreasing number of parents and children are involved in a synagogue, church, or mosque; and despite the intense efforts of the church growth movement, the percentage of people belonging to any religious community has declined relative to the whole populace. Mega-churches, dotting our cities and suburbs, are signs of our times; but their huge memberships (can we trust their membership figures?) have made little impact on the declining percentage of people involved in any religious tradition. Just as the missionary slogan prompted by John R. Mott in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries -- "The Evangelism of the World in our Time" -- failed, so have our church growth efforts. Faith commitments are not won by catchy mottos, slick easy-listening music, the latest electronic gadgets, an avoidance of the social ills of our time, and a careless use of scriptural passages. Detachment from our religious communities and traditions lessens the consideration of divorce as a serious issue. This is an undeniable context.
A second contextual reality about divorce is economic: the increase of women in the workplace has given them a freedom from marriage keeping them in bondage to marital abuse. The downside of this allows marriage to be held more casually than before, not because the religious communities have become soft on divorce, but because women may now more easily leave undesirable marriages and still survive economically. We aren't becoming arch-conservative grouches to observe the abuse of this freedom. Suddenly marriage-divorce-marriages, once known only in Hollywood, began appearing in other American places. Pastors, rabbis, and imams began dealing with brides insisting on waltzing down the aisle in that white dress for the second or third time, complete with veil. No one is happy about this contextual outcome.
The positive outcome is clear -- women are no longer caught in marriages where they and the children must live under abuse and neglect. Even if the initial marriage decision was questionable (however, how can any marriage decision be fully rational and guaranteed to bring love and compassion?) it offers a way out of such distress through divorce. In some urgent situations, we now have systems in place for women fearing violence allowing them to be put in a safe situation, and sometimes moved to a new location. However, economic support for many divorced situations is still quite meager in many cases. Federal and state welfare has been trimmed in recent years, even while the wealthy live in financially-secure cocoons. Many of the available jobs are inadequate minimum wage positions. All is not well in this picture; however, we have made some gains over the previous options open to women when a marriage goes smash.
Jesus And Divorce -- The Context
Our lection for today is from Mark 10 and seems to be a general teaching of Jesus on divorce. Whether this lection goes back to Jesus or not, taken out of context, it has served as an important role in church teaching: "What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder" (10:9). Historically, most church traditions use this to underscore their negative view on divorce. Taking a cue from this lection, the churches said that any remarriage after divorce involves people in adultery.
Today, there are still some churches that adhere to this hard line, making it difficult for anyone to seek divorce. Some include banning divorced people from receiving the sacraments. Other church traditions have softened their understanding of divorce, allowing it in cases when the marriage has been irreparably broken by a long history of psychological, emotional, or even physical abuse. Not long ago, divorced clergy were not acceptable to many traditions. Now there is often no essential restriction upon their continuing the ministry as an ordained clergyperson.
We have also seen another advance in the church's thinking about divorce. Not only has much of the church begun to sanction divorce under proper circumstances, but it has also faced up to the context of the New Testament teaching about it. In our Mark passage, and in a parallel passage from the Gospel of Matthew, it becomes clear that Jesus is not speaking about divorce in general. Rather, Jesus is setting himself against the injustices of the divorce system of his day. Then it was quite easy for a husband to divorce his wife for any reason, even a very trivial one. All he needed to do was write out an intention of divorcing his wife, give it to her, and their divorce became actual.
What Jesus was upset about was the abusive power this system gave to the husband over against his wife. The wife had little or no such rights. She was at the mercy of her husband's moods and whims. There was no obligation upon the husband to remain in the relationship "for better or for worse." Certainly Jesus could understand a marriage reaching the point where love and respect had departed long ago. We have no word of Jesus teaching about this issue; yet we can imagine him refusing to insist on keeping a destructive marriage together. There is no doubt of his standing against a system that put the wife into financial poverty and cultural alienation. Therefore, Jesus, in this context and this context alone, said that divorce was simply not an option.
This is the real context of Jesus' teaching about divorce. It is not a blanket teaching as the churches have sometimes understood. Rather, it is a marriage ethic insisting that a husband and wife enter into marriage with the same rights and protections that were granted only to men at that time. To condone divorce or to refuse it is not the point of our lection. Instead, it holds out a high understanding of the husband/wife relationship consistent with the gospel, a relationship grounded in mutual justice and care. The role of today's churches calls for holding this view of marriage within the social, cultural, and justice arrangements in our time. Paying attention to the context moves us from a tight and unjust legalism, inflexibly condoning the misery of decaying marriages, to a concern that both husbands and wives are affirmed and given equal rights before God and humanity. Here is one more instance that dealing with the context of scripture, rather than its simplistic and plain meaning, puts us in touch with the real meaning behind the Word of God.
Many are distressed that these writings take bits of scripture and turn them into bizarre plots. Further, those who are caught up in these books and movies are distracted from any serious discipleship in this world. In the first chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples of Jesus are left looking upward after their Lord has ascended up to his heavenly destiny. The text suggests God was upset when they stood with their necks bending skyward, searching for Jesus. So the text says God sent two angelic figures to tell them, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" (Acts 1:11a). Then and now, God is not pleased when our focus is on a heavenly escape from the pains or the responsibilities of this world. Getting scared silly over a future godly intervention into human history comfortably avoids the claim of Jesus to devote ourselves to caring for human need in the hear and now, especially the least and the lost.
If we take the New Testament statements about the near end of the word into context, we find such notions were common in the biblical world. Quite likely, some of these notions were voiced by Jesus. Later, Paul wrote about his expectation of the imminent return of Jesus to inaugurate the day of judgment. However, these notions soon moved from a living hope for early Christians, to become an embarrassment and a faith crisis. Jesus didn't return, and his followers decided to prepare for the long run, indicating that the context of life always has a way of qualifying and nuancing our theology. Today, these early Christian hopes have been translated into a conviction that what God began in Jesus ultimately will be completed in him. Those who are caught up in this "left behind" frenzy would improve their mental health if they would consider the context in their handling of the New Testament.
Divorce -- A Cultural Quagmire
Divorce is a modern embarrassment. Its rising frequency in modern American society is troubling to both conservative and liberals alike. We are accustomed to perusing the Sunday newspaper and admiring those whose announcement of their golden wedding anniversary appears. Our sense that marriage is not a lasting matter for many today is not only a feeling we develop from "paying attention," but is also a reality backed with figures and statistics. Divorce, uncommon to anyone living before the 1950s, has now become distressingly commonplace.
Along with this trend comes a certain destabilization of adults and children. Divorced parents fuss over custody arrangements, continuing the emotional tangles that provoked the divorce. It is not uncommon to hear of a disgruntled, divorced parent kidnapping the children and fleeing into hiding; or much worse, reports of homicide and violence against the former mate and the children. The effect on the children even in the best divorce arrangements seems to bring an initial and possibly a lasting emotional scar upon them.
The context for this upswing of American divorce is rather easy to spot. One is the secularization of our society where a decreasing number of parents and children are involved in a synagogue, church, or mosque; and despite the intense efforts of the church growth movement, the percentage of people belonging to any religious community has declined relative to the whole populace. Mega-churches, dotting our cities and suburbs, are signs of our times; but their huge memberships (can we trust their membership figures?) have made little impact on the declining percentage of people involved in any religious tradition. Just as the missionary slogan prompted by John R. Mott in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries -- "The Evangelism of the World in our Time" -- failed, so have our church growth efforts. Faith commitments are not won by catchy mottos, slick easy-listening music, the latest electronic gadgets, an avoidance of the social ills of our time, and a careless use of scriptural passages. Detachment from our religious communities and traditions lessens the consideration of divorce as a serious issue. This is an undeniable context.
A second contextual reality about divorce is economic: the increase of women in the workplace has given them a freedom from marriage keeping them in bondage to marital abuse. The downside of this allows marriage to be held more casually than before, not because the religious communities have become soft on divorce, but because women may now more easily leave undesirable marriages and still survive economically. We aren't becoming arch-conservative grouches to observe the abuse of this freedom. Suddenly marriage-divorce-marriages, once known only in Hollywood, began appearing in other American places. Pastors, rabbis, and imams began dealing with brides insisting on waltzing down the aisle in that white dress for the second or third time, complete with veil. No one is happy about this contextual outcome.
The positive outcome is clear -- women are no longer caught in marriages where they and the children must live under abuse and neglect. Even if the initial marriage decision was questionable (however, how can any marriage decision be fully rational and guaranteed to bring love and compassion?) it offers a way out of such distress through divorce. In some urgent situations, we now have systems in place for women fearing violence allowing them to be put in a safe situation, and sometimes moved to a new location. However, economic support for many divorced situations is still quite meager in many cases. Federal and state welfare has been trimmed in recent years, even while the wealthy live in financially-secure cocoons. Many of the available jobs are inadequate minimum wage positions. All is not well in this picture; however, we have made some gains over the previous options open to women when a marriage goes smash.
Jesus And Divorce -- The Context
Our lection for today is from Mark 10 and seems to be a general teaching of Jesus on divorce. Whether this lection goes back to Jesus or not, taken out of context, it has served as an important role in church teaching: "What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder" (10:9). Historically, most church traditions use this to underscore their negative view on divorce. Taking a cue from this lection, the churches said that any remarriage after divorce involves people in adultery.
Today, there are still some churches that adhere to this hard line, making it difficult for anyone to seek divorce. Some include banning divorced people from receiving the sacraments. Other church traditions have softened their understanding of divorce, allowing it in cases when the marriage has been irreparably broken by a long history of psychological, emotional, or even physical abuse. Not long ago, divorced clergy were not acceptable to many traditions. Now there is often no essential restriction upon their continuing the ministry as an ordained clergyperson.
We have also seen another advance in the church's thinking about divorce. Not only has much of the church begun to sanction divorce under proper circumstances, but it has also faced up to the context of the New Testament teaching about it. In our Mark passage, and in a parallel passage from the Gospel of Matthew, it becomes clear that Jesus is not speaking about divorce in general. Rather, Jesus is setting himself against the injustices of the divorce system of his day. Then it was quite easy for a husband to divorce his wife for any reason, even a very trivial one. All he needed to do was write out an intention of divorcing his wife, give it to her, and their divorce became actual.
What Jesus was upset about was the abusive power this system gave to the husband over against his wife. The wife had little or no such rights. She was at the mercy of her husband's moods and whims. There was no obligation upon the husband to remain in the relationship "for better or for worse." Certainly Jesus could understand a marriage reaching the point where love and respect had departed long ago. We have no word of Jesus teaching about this issue; yet we can imagine him refusing to insist on keeping a destructive marriage together. There is no doubt of his standing against a system that put the wife into financial poverty and cultural alienation. Therefore, Jesus, in this context and this context alone, said that divorce was simply not an option.
This is the real context of Jesus' teaching about divorce. It is not a blanket teaching as the churches have sometimes understood. Rather, it is a marriage ethic insisting that a husband and wife enter into marriage with the same rights and protections that were granted only to men at that time. To condone divorce or to refuse it is not the point of our lection. Instead, it holds out a high understanding of the husband/wife relationship consistent with the gospel, a relationship grounded in mutual justice and care. The role of today's churches calls for holding this view of marriage within the social, cultural, and justice arrangements in our time. Paying attention to the context moves us from a tight and unjust legalism, inflexibly condoning the misery of decaying marriages, to a concern that both husbands and wives are affirmed and given equal rights before God and humanity. Here is one more instance that dealing with the context of scripture, rather than its simplistic and plain meaning, puts us in touch with the real meaning behind the Word of God.
