By the end of this week, I may be rethinking my policy on lectionary preaching. Being both naive and foolish, I am preaching on the gospel this week – Mark 10:2-16. Divorce.
I’ve been reading some material already, but much of it seems to be working very hard to say that Jesus did not really mean what he says or that we cannot expect such a standard for our lives. I understand that impulse. That is basically what the Social Principles say.
But here is my problem. The Lutheran reading – a I understand it – of the Sermon on the Mount is that it is in the Bible to convict us of our failures. We read the sermon and are left with a clear picture of our failure to live God’s will, which throws us to our knees seeking mercy. Such an approach to the Sermon on the Mount could be used to read this text as well.
But that is not how we perfectionist Wesleyans have traditionally read the Sermon on the Mount. The sermon is not an impossible ideal, but an attainable one with God’s help. It is not an instrument of conviction, but a guide that tells us when we have at last arrived at holiness of heart and life.
In other words – if we are being true to our Wesleyan roots – we preach the sermon because we expect to be able to follow its teachings as we grow in grace. Should we not – then – preach Jesus’ teaching on divorce the same way?
If so, how do you speak to the ears of those who are already divorced?
Any wise and experienced preachers who want to offer some advice?
I am a part-time local pastor serving 
The doctrine of original sin is surely more humbling to man than the opposite: And I know not what honour we can pay to God, if we think man came out of His hands in the condition wherein he is now.
Well for a start, don’t preach one reading as if it were the entirety of the gospel. I expect most divorced people are well aware of the pain (sin) in the process. Jesus didn’t stone the woman caught in adultary and he was the one person who could have done. Being wring can be forgiven. Preaching the hard texts is often a bug blessing. Pray to be a vessel of God’s message.
If I may correct the spelling of my iPod:
“Being WRONG can be forgiven” (Just in case you couldn’t guess).
You probably figured out “Preaching the hard texts can be a BIG blessing”.
Sometimes computers don’t know better than humans.
Many in the congregation are victims of domestic violence. One in four women will be victims in their lifetime. Without a Biblical discussion of leaving an abusive relationship, many women might be tempted to return or to feel that they were wrong or that there church has abandoned them. I just heard a woman do just that in a clergy conference and leave a victim who had left her marriage a fellow colleague in tears. In our mariage vows, we say in sickness and in health, but we don’t get to cause the sickness. An abuser doesn’t become an abuser when he gets married, he was always an abuser. If you preach without saying that domestic violence is not of God and is mind control (If you are old enough that’s like Patty Hearst testifying in favor of her kidnappers). Dv is much more than physical violence – and may be only mental or spiritual or financial or child or pet abuse. The only evidence based research says that batterers always batter again. That goes against our Christian beliefs in forgiveness but we forget Paul who said he did it again and again and the power of control – physical beating may end but emotional and other types of abuse may continue. Don’t leave victims in tears or feeling abandoned again.
Speak the truth in love…and they can tell if you love.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Blessings,
Mark
John,
I am also attempting to preach this text this week and I am struggling. How do I tell so many faithful congregants they are living in sin? How do I tell a woman living as a victim of abuse God said it was fine for her to stay in that situation? How do I tell a man its OK for his wife to hang out in bars and forsake the Gospel but must stay married? I am still praying about this text.
As a child I often wished my parents would divorce. Their yelling each morning was a wretched start each day. Being cursed with my mother’s name I would wake in fear and panic at the angry and frustrated voice of my father screaming for her to get up and fix his breakfast.
There were many parts to their complicated relationship but the outside view was of a fine Christian marriage and family.
Our congregations have members with similar wishes.
Perhaps our messages could include comfort for those enduring painful family relationships and generous portions of encouragement for everyone seeking to both heal and to love.
Thank you to all for the posts. They illustrate well the pain and brokeness that hovers around this. As challenging as that is, it underscores the importance of preaching this text. It is a word spoken into a raw and open place.
One move I’m working with is around the Old Testament language in the prophets that speaks of Israel as a bride. Why is it that Jesus took this position? Surely he knew of all the things we do – there is abuse and pain and evil in marriage. Why say that Moses’ teaching needs to be changed or made more strict. Part of it seems to me to be because Jesus is saying something about God, not earthly marriages. God is the one who did not send away the faithless Israel – even the adulterous Israel – but wooed the people back and forgave them.
I worry that this “spriritualizes” the passage and removes it from the issues that the language will open up. But it does seem to me that when I ask the question why Jesus insists on this that my choices are either that he is being legalistic – which would be odd – or he is making a comment on the character of God.
I’m still working with the text. So, we’ll see where that goes.
John, as I too wander this bramble patch in our humanity this week part of what I will be trying to share from this passage is that God’s intention for us is relationship, while our intention for us is selfish, self-centeredness. I also know that there really are three sides in any relationship and break up, mine/theirs/God’s – and only God knows the whole story. The first thing I’m going to try and say is this is not about judgement (mine or anyone else’s – cause that I believe is where the real sin in a break up worms into our soul’s) – but I’m not sure where I’m going to bring grace.
Blessings in your worship.
but I’m not sure where I’m going to bring grace.
I’ll just insist again that I don’t believe that to be “biblical” a preacher has to preach an individual text as if it’s the entirety of the Gospel message. I have certainly in the past used the technique of “This is a very difficult passage if we take it on its own….but let’s remember that the Gospel also includes the message of forgiveness (or grace or mercy or whatever you want to focus on) and that God actually wants to forgive us and change us into holy people.”
I think it’s perfectly valid and Christian to remember that the hard passages are always read with the Good News of forgiveness, amendment of life, etc., in the background. And I think it’s perfectly valid say that God does not ask victims to stay victimized and that he is also rooting for sinners to change.