A sermon preached by The Reverend Canon Dr. David Anderson at St. Jude’s Anglican Church, Oakville, on the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Sunday, October 6, 2024.
I speak to you in the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
The problem we have this morning is that before I begin, we have already heard the word ‘divorce’ in our Gospel reading and many of us will already have had a whole sermon we have heard in the past run through our minds. We will have heard these sermons in many different contexts. Some we have heard from the pulpit. Some we will have heard from family members and friends. Some will have experienced the agony of divorce in their own lives, or the lives of those we love, and very many messages about the tragedy of divorce will be on our minds. The pain of these messages has in some cases have been launched at us. Some of the experiences that we have endured will make it difficult for us to hear anything else than the messages which have only served to increase suffering. I mention all of this because I recognize the challenge before us is to be open to hear a word of grace as we contemplate the complexities of the exchange that occurs in the passage we have heard. This morning, we are touching on a sensitive topic that may raise painful memories. I think its important to acknowledge that from the start.
This morning’s Gospel reading comes to us from a section of Mark’s Gospel where Jesus is leading his disciples toward Jerusalem. In this context, Mark has Jesus to speak to us about how to follow Jesus and live a life that finds its way towards what God desires for humanity. To put it succinctly, what God desires for us is that we flourish, that we become all that God intends us to be as God’s own beloved children. God desires the very best for us because God loves us. Jesus is not asking us to live as spiritual superstars. Rather, in this section of Mark’s Gospel Jesus speaks to us about the mundane matters of life such as family, how we use our money, and how we live our lives in community. In all of this Jesus invites us to live well in all the places of our ordinary, everyday lives.
Throughout his ministry, Jesus has consistently asked his followers to use what they have in service of the most vulnerable. The good life that Jesus calls his followers to involves loving our neighbours. He calls our attention to children, the poor, the stranger, and all those who live their lives on the margins. Given the way that divorce worked in the ancient world (and still does today), certain people are disproportionately more vulnerable to harm—especially women and children.
The Pharisees that we hear about in today’s Gospel reading are trying to set a trap for Jesus. Their question here is a little like the question that they asked Jesus about paying taxes to Caesar. They are trying to get Jesus into trouble. Divorce is only spoken of in one other place in Mark, and there it concerns the matter of a particular case of divorce. It involves the divorce of Philip from his wife Herodias. You might remember that John the Baptist was ultimately put to death in a large part because he stubbornly pointed out that Herodias was divorced from her husband so that King Herod could marry her. When John pointed this out one too many times, he was silenced by being beheaded. We have to wonder whether the Pharisees also had this fact in mind as they set this particular trap for Jesus. Similar to their question about paying taxes, they wished to get Jesus into hot water with the Roman officials and their collaborating friends. Perhaps they wanted to see Jesus suffer the same fate as John. Or, perhaps, Mark just wants us to see the harm that is done to vulnerable people when divorce is weaponized against the vulnerable, arguably an echo of the kind of violence routinely perpetrated by those with power.
Let’s notice that all this talk of the pitfalls of divorce for those most vulnerable seems to stand in contrast to the way that our Gospel reading concludes, with a healing practice Jesus extends to women and children. Women and children were always the ones on the vulnerable edge of the discussion about the legalities of divorce. Despite the disciple’s rebuke, Jesus lays his hands on the children. Elsewhere in Mark, the laying on of hands accompanies Jesus’ healing ministry. Jesus is continuing to point our attention towards the vulnerable little ones in their midst, standing on the edge of the previous discussion. Women and children, those who are most often harmed when divorce happens, are blessed by Jesus.
I think it is also worth noting something else Jesus does in the midst of this discussion. We might easily miss this, but once we notice it, it is quite striking. The Pharisees pose their question in an abstract and, we might say, hypothetical manner. Their question begins, “If a man …” They pretend that they are not speaking about anyone in particular, just ‘a man’ (Mark 10.2). But Jesus knows the question is not an impersonal matter. There are always real people involved. So Jesus makes the question personal. “What did Moses command you?” he asks (v. 3). The Pharisees reply with the impersonal hypothetical once more, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her” (v. 4). But Jesus won’t have their obfuscation. “It is because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you” (v. 5). Jesus insists that we remember that we are talking about the lives of real people in very real and complex—not to mention, heartbreaking—personal circumstances.
We all know that real life is messy. We know that in our lives we get caught up in things that are part of the broken reality of the world in which we live. The sin and brokenness so prevalent in our world touch our lives. In many cases it is unavoidable because it is the world in which we live. Sometime this happens within the context of our relationships so profoundly that divorce is in fact the best option that is available to us. In many cases this actually saves the lives in the most vulnerable situations.
When this tragedy happens in our lives, or in the lives of those we hold dear, what are we to do? What we should not do is heap more brokenness on the situation with judgement, guilt, or shame. What we should not do is what the disciples sought to do to the little children when they tried to come to Jesus, and when the disciples tried to drive them away. Instead, we who are also broken and vulnerable in our own ways—yes, that is all of us—are invited to be healed by Jesus. Jesus welcomes us and touches us in our brokenness. I know many people among us this morning have found healing for their broken hearts after the trauma of divorce.
Unfortunately, many of these same people have suffered from an approach to Jesus’ words that make what Jesus says here into legal principles that have codified structures that have simply been unjust towards the vulnerable. We all know the stories of people who have in the past suffered sanctions against themselves in our own church when divorce—or remarriage after divorce—has occurred. We must reject such legalisms that add harm to already painful situations.
Jesus is not about abstract principles or legalities. Jesus is simply trying to point us to the inbreaking of the kingdom of God that brings liberty, justice, peace, and flourishing to the lives of real people. Jesus is interested in our healing and health. Jesus wants to point us towards greater equity and radical hospitality towards those who are most vulnerable or oppressed. We must always consider the trajectory of Jesus’ words. We must look in the direction that Jesus points, towards God’s future for us in the fullness of the kingdom of God. We must always therefore be asking how current social structures need to be disrupted and challenged today.
I’d like to point to a couple of examples. This past Monday we had the opportunity for reflection on National Truth and Reconciliation Day. Here in Oakville, St. Jude’s is very happy to be a signatory and participant in the Debwewin Project, a local effort to help us remember our responsibilities as treaty people. We also reflect on our relationship with this land’s first peoples, The Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, who were removed from this land where we flourish, and left landless until they were welcomed to the lands adjacent to Six Nations. Peter Schuler, an Elder of the Mississaugas of the Credit has said, “By exposing the truth, we can get comfortable with being uncomfortable and try to make Canada a better place. What better place to start than your own community?” He says, “If we want to understand who our neighbours are, if we want to undo racism, I think we need to know the truth, as unpleasant as it may be, as uncomfortable as it may be.”
To that end I am inviting you to an evening for our St. Jude’s family where we are going to screen the film, The Doctrine of Discovery, a film produced by our own Anglican Church of Canada. I know that you will find the film thought-provoking, and so we will have the opportunity for discussion following the film. That is happening on the evening of Wednesday, October 16, at 7PM, in our Victoria Hall.
As another example, let me lift up the economic disparities that exist in our community. Here at St. Jude’s, we have robustly embraced our opportunities to join with what God is doing to bring relief to some of our most vulnerable neighbours. We feed hungry people. We grow hundreds of pounds of fresh produce in our garden program each summer. We produce and deliver hundreds of healthy meals every month, all with very little food cost to ouselves because our partners provide the ingredients. Those ingredients are transformed into healthy meals by volunteers who cook in our kitchen. Those meals are distributed through food banks, homeless shelters, and to people’s doors through our various programs and partners. The group of us known as the Tomato Ladies regularly visit a homeless shelter in our community, and bring a very special meal to the people who live there, putting tablecloths on the tables, going the extra mile, and bringing basic human dignity and love to people who haven’t felt that care for a long time. All of these are the hands of Jesus blessing his children.
If you are part of the St. Jude’s community, even if you never work a hoe in our garden plot, or cook a meal in our kitchen, or deliver or serve a meal, you are part of this work, because our life together is what sustains this ministry. I think we can all feel proud (in the proper sense) of what we can be part of. That said, none of this happens on its own. It does take all of us working together.
At the beginning of the summer, I wrote a letter to St. Jude’s parishioners asking you to pray about your participation in our work through your financial contributions to the parish. A couple of weeks ago, we had a parish meeting where we opened the books on our financial position at the end of the first half of this year and discussed the accumulate deficit thus far. As we begin the final quarter of this year, the good news is that by working together we have reduced the projected deficit for the end of the year. That forecast, however, still forecasts a deficit in the amount of approximately $100,000. I mention this because we all need to know that deficits threaten the good work that we are called to do. We cannot afford to ignore that reality. Please consider what you can do. Every gift, no matter how small, matters because it takes us all working together.
Today’s Gospel reading reminds us what is truly important. As we follow Jesus on his road, we see that Jesus reaches out to the vulnerable with healing. God desires that all people flourish and enjoy God’s love and grace. Let’s have the courage to go where Jesus leads us, to do our own part, which always comes together in miraculous ways to do more than we can ask or imagine.
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