St. John’s Episcopal Church
Tallahassee, FL
Mark 10:2-16
I don’t know if y’all know this,
but all the readings you hear
on any given Sunday at St. John’s—
or in any Episcopal church, for that matter—
are on a three-year rotating cycle called a “lectionary.”
We don’t pick ‘em.
They just are what they are.
And I don’t know if y’all know this,
but I have been preaching
for about eighteen years now,
which—eighteen years, divided by a three-year cycle—
means that for any given readings
on any given Sunday,
there’s a chance I have written
up to six sermons.
So imagine my surprise when
early last week
I read the readings for today,
and I thought,
“Uh-oh!
Marriage!
Divorce!
Adultery!
These readings are a doozie!
Better check my trusty ol’ sermon file
to see how I’ve handled this in the past.”
And I went to the file on my computer . . .
and I clicked on the folder for today’s readings . . .
good ol’ Proper 22,
Year B,
Gospel according to Mark
chapter 10
verses 2 through 16 . . .
and right where there should have been
around six sermons,
all lovingly, articulately crafted
over eighteen years of ministry
(none of which you have ever heard,
which means I could pass them off on you as brand new
and you’d be none the wiser) . . .
and I opened the file . . .
and I looked . . .
and there . . .
was . . .
NOTHING!!
I don’t know how,
but some way, somehow,
in nearly two decades of priesthood,
I have managed never to preach on these readings.
And I’m not about to start today.
Amen.
[Pretend to sit down]
* * *
Kidding, kidding.
All of that is true
and honestly, a lot of us preachers
don’t actually like to preach much
on divorce these days
because it’s a touchy subject,
and the truth is
that any number of people in our pews
have experienced divorce
for any number of reasons,
and what nobody needs
is to be beaten over the head about it.
So here’s what I want to do today.
What I want us to do today
is to pull the focus way back to the big picture
and get at the heart of what I think
Jesus is really trying to say.
And I want to do that
through the power of one little word.
That word is . . . helper.
To get there, though,
we have to go all the way back to the beginning.
So grab your bulletin,
and let’s read one sentence together.
Find the first reading—
the one from Genesis—
and I want us to read the first sentence together.
“The Lord God said,
‘It is not good that the man should be alone;
I will make him a helper as his partner.’”
Good.
Just to get all the flavor,
here are a few other translations
of the same sentence.
The King James Version says,
“And the Lord God said,
It is not good that the man should be alone;
I will make him an help meet for him.”
The New International Version says,
“The Lord God said,
‘It is not good for the man to be alone.
I will make a helper suitable for him.’”
The Message says,
“God said, ‘It’s not good for the Man to be alone;
I’ll make him a helper, a companion.’”
The Common English Bible says,
“Then the Lord God said,
‘It’s not good that the human is alone.
I will make him a helper that is perfect for him.’”
So what is absolutely clear
is that from the very beginning,
God believed it was not good
for us to be alone.
But what about that word “helper?”
That’s a tricky word because in English,
“helper” can mean all kinds of things.
Depending on how you use it,
“helper” can mean
something good like
a sidekick,
a supporter,
a companion,
a partner,
a friend.
But “helper” can also mean
a subordinate,
a subject,
a servant,
a slave.
And shamefully over the centuries,
that is exactly how some people
have chosen to interpret this passage,
as though Eve (and therefore all wives)
were made to be subservient to Adam
(and therefore all men).
But that is not what this word means.
The original Hebrew word
that we translated into “helper”
is the word עזר (ay’-zer)—
like “laser” without the L—
and that one little word
makes all the difference in the world.
The word עזר occurs
21 times in the Old Testament,
and in almost every instance,
it is used to refer to the kind of helper
that God is to God’s people.
Psalm 115:
“O Israel, trust in the Lord;
he is their עזר and their shield.”
Psalm 124:
“Our עזר is in the name of the Lord,
the maker of heaven and earth.”
Psalm 146:
“Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their עזר!
whose hope is in the Lord their God.”
See?!
The word עזר
means neither a sidekick nor a subordinate,
but a savior:
one who provides succor and strength.
So, it turns out,
God was not just trying
to give Adam someone
to cook his dinner for him
or help him plow the fields.
God was trying to save Adam . . .
to rescue him from a life
of loneliness and separation!
And at its best—
in its truest form
as God originally intended it—
that, my friends, is what marriage is.
Marriage is the rescue and reconciliation
of two people irrevocably into one
in such a way that banishes loneliness and separation.
At its best, marriage bears witness to love
in a way that mirrors the kind of union
that God desires with each of us.
That is why we say in our marriage liturgy
that “marriage is not to be entered into
unadvisedly or lightly.”
That is why we say
“until we are parted by death.”
That is why call the Church
the bride of Christ.
It was always, always, always
supposed to be about saving humanity
from a life of loneliness and separation
in the deepest, most beautiful way possible.
* * *
So honestly,
that changes everything about the garbage
the Pharisees and disciples throw at Jesus today.
First of all, they don’t care.
They’re just trying to trip him up
with a “gotcha” question
designed to get him into trouble.
They are not thinking
of עזר’s
or helpmates,
or God’s loving desire
that we should not spend this life alone.
Instead,
they have reduced God’s love to a law,
a covenant to a contract,
marriage to a millstone.
“Teacher, tell us . . .
is it lawful for a man
to divorce his wife?”
To which Jesus says,
“Listen up, dumb-dumbs.
You know full well
that as far back as the time of Moses,
it has been possible for a man
to write a certificate of dismissal
and divorce his wife . . .”
(which, by the way,
only the men could do,
and they could do it for any reason whatsoever
including if his wife simply burned his supper,
and in many cases it was a totally
one-sided, unjust, unfair practice)
“. . . and that path,” says Jesus,
“is always available to you.
But for the love of God,
just know that it was never
supposed to be that way.”
It’s like they’re saying,
“Hey . . . so, uh . . . marriage . . .
we can get out of that, right?”
And it’s as though Jesus is saying,
“Wrong question, idiots.
Wrong question.”
* * *
So what, then, is the right question?
Well, I think the right question is not,
“Is God going to hate me
if I’ve been divorced?”
Listen. People get divorced
for all kinds of reasons,
and God is not in the business
of hating his own children,
but of bringing new life and new possibility
even out of the hardest losses of our lives.
Instead, I think the question—
the big picture question
all the way back to the Garden of Eden—
is, “What does God want for us?”
What does God want for us?
And what God wants for us
is incredibly simple.
God wants for us . . .
to be loved.
So if you are one of the ones
fortunate enough to have an עזר—
a helpmate,
a soulmate,
a spouse who is
flesh of your flesh
and bone of your bone,
the best thing since sliced bread—
well then God bless you
and hold on tight,
because I don’t have to tell you
that any marriage worth keeping
requires enormous amounts
of work
and forgiveness
and sacrifice
and grace
and love
on a daily basis . . .
but boy is it worth it.
In the very best moments of your marriage
when you are able to be
vulnerable and real,
safe and secure,
fully you and fully loved by your spouse,
you know what that is?
That is
a reflection,
a representation,
a reassurance
of the love that God has for you
in our Lord Jesus Christ.
But to those of you
who have experienced divorce
or are maybe even experiencing it now:
God bless you . . .
and God love you . . .
because what you’re going through
is hard.
Nobody ever enters into a marriage
in the hopes that it will one day
come to an end,
and so whatever it is
that has brought you to this moment,
just know that you, my friend,
are loved beyond measure—
loved by us and loved by God—
and don’t ever let anyone
tell you any different.
* * *
But here’s the grace for us all.
To all of you . . .
to you who are single
and you who are married . . .
to you who are widowed
and you who are divorced . . .
whoever you love
and whoever you have ever loved . . .
know this.
Know that you have an עזר.
You—every one of you in this room—
have a true Rescuer with a capital R,
a true Savior with a capital S,
a true עזר with a capital ע . . .
the One who came to end
the plight of separation once and for all
and to reconcile us to God
and to one another
for ever and ever.
Each of you in this room
have a Lover of your soul,
and his name is Jesus of Nazareth,
the Christ of God.
Every love that you have ever felt
has been merely a reflection
of the love he has for you
and always will.
* * *
So . . .
Let’s work to keep our vows.
Let’s support one another in our marriages.
Let’s reach out in love to each other
in those times when life gets hard
and marriages unexpectedly come apart.
But most of all,
let’s give thanks today
that our עזר, our Jesus,
has brought us rescue and reconciliation,
and none of us—
none of us—
ever walk this earth
truly alone.
Amen.