Our Sunday Message

What God Has Joined Together, Let No One Separate: Mark 10:2-16
Rev. Dr. Kenneth A. Corr
October 8, 2006
Eighteenth Sunday of Kingdomtide

  “What God has joined together, let no one separate.” What is it in the human psyche that feels a need to separate, to divide, to differentiate, to segregate? We do it. The disciples did it. The Pharisees did it. This story is really not about marriage and divorce. Look at it again. And yet, unfortunately, this text is often used as a way of condemning the divorced, isolating them, differentiating between God’s will for marriage and human failure in marriage, identifying the divorced as different, separate, and divided from the community. They are defined, labeled, and diminished. But this text is not about marriage and divorce. It is about this human proclivity to divide, separate, and differentiate. Look at it again.
  The Pharisees came to Jesus and asked this question to test him. They did not want to know his thoughts about marriage and divorce. They wanted to find a way to condemn Jesus, to label Jesus, to separate and divide Jesus from the crowd, to reduce his influence. Jesus was not a teacher from whom they had come to learn. Jesus was a threat that they wanted to eliminate and destroy. And so they asked the question.
  Mark says that it was a test question. We can understand it as a trick question. “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” In ancient Judaism, no one debated the issue of divorce. Divorce was allowed in the Law of Moses. But the debate centered on the grounds for divorce.
  In first century Palestine, there were two opposing schools of thought on divorce. Shammai was a very conservative rabbi and insisted that divorce was allowed only on the grounds of adultery. Hillel was a more liberal rabbi and insisted that divorce was for any reason that the man found disagreeable in his wife. The debate between these two was so strong that they both developed schools to teach their perspective. There was the conservative school of Shammai and the liberal school of Hillel.
  The question is not about marriage and divorce. The question is an attempt to separate Jesus into one of the two camps so that they divide him from his followers.
  Jesus knew what they were doing. He refused to answer their questions about how to divorce. Instead, he said, “What God has joined together, let no one separate.” Jesus refused to be labeled, separated, and divided by this trick question of the Pharisees. In fact, notice in the text that when he was finally alone with the disciples, they asked him again about this matter. It was as though the disciples were saying, “What did you say about divorce?”
  No one is for divorce. I have never known a divorced person who said that divorce is a good thing. But sometimes divorce is necessary. Some couples can’t make life work together; some wounds can’t be healed; some offenses can’t be reconciled; some issues can’t be resolved; some marriages can’t be saved. That is not a good thing, but it is a reality. When there is the heartbreak of divorce, it is not healing and helpful for the church to continue to use the divorce to separate, isolate, label, and discriminate against the divorced. That is exactly how the Pharisees were using this question. The question is not about marriage and divorce.
  Mark continues his narrative with this beautiful story of Jesus and the children. At least, that is the way that we like to imagine the story. We have all seen the pictures of Jesus holding and blessing the children. That is what we want to see, but that is not how Mark is using this story. Mark has carefully conflated this story with the story of the Pharisees trying to divide, separate, and differentiate Jesus from his audience.
  Mark is illustrating how the disciples did exactly the same thing with Jesus and the children and Jesus does not like it. “When Jesus saw this, he was indignant.” It is a word that means “to feel pain.” It cut him to the very core of his being to see the disciples separating, segregating the children from him.
  I am guessing that the disciples meant well. Maybe they thought Jesus was tired and needed some rest, although the text does not say that. Maybe they thought Jesus was not interested in blessing children, although the text does not say that. Maybe they thought Jesus needed to be about adult business, although the text does not say that. Or maybe, they didn’t value children and decided that Jesus would not value children either.
  “Don’t stop the children from coming to me,” Jesus said. “Don’t decide who is valuable and who is not in God’s eyes. Don’t separate people in your hearts and think that I share your prejudices. Don’t be like the Pharisees who need to separate people in neat categories so that they can be labeled and diminished. What God joins together, let no one separate. Instead, those who enter the kingdom will become like children.” Children have not learned to divide people into categories.
  We all do it. Someone came to me for counseling. They were not members of this church. The first thing that they wanted to know was, “Do you believe the Bible is true?” Before I could help them, they needed to label me.
  Why do we do that? Conservative or liberal, pro-life or pro-choice, gay or straight, Baptist or Methodist, right or wrong. How many more labels can you name? We do it as a way of deciding who is valued and who is not valued and I believe that every time it happens Jesus is indignant.
  “Don’t decide who is valuable and who is not in God’s eyes,” Jesus seems to be saying. “Don’t separate people in your hearts and think that I share your prejudices. Don’t be like the Pharisees who need to separate people in neat categories so that they can be labeled and diminished. What God joins together, let no one separate.”
  The family had just moved into a new town. It had been a long, tough year. The mother had been sick. The father had lost his job, trying to take care of his wife and the children and the home. Jamie was in the 2nd grade and was having some learning difficulties. But the father had gotten a new job and they had moved into a new town.
  It was Jamie’s first day of class in her new school. It was mid-year and the children already had their seat assignments. Mr. Santos was the substitute teacher that morning and no one agreed to give up their seat for Jamie at his encouragement and so Jamie took a seat alone near the back of the classroom.
  By mid-morning, Mr. Santos noticed that no one had even tried to speak to Jamie and that she was sitting with her head down on the desk. He said, “Class, how many of you noticed that I am new?” Most of the hands in the class went up. “Your teacher asked me to help out today and I was a little scared when I came to your classroom this morning. How many of you have noticed that I am different from most of you?” This time, no hands went up. He continued, “I am Hispanic and I speak a little different from most of you. My skin is a little darker than most of yours and I am a little different. It is not easy being different. I am feeling a little lonely. Have any of you ever felt lonely?” This time, every hand went up and Mr. Santos noticed that Jamie raised her head off of her desk. He said, “I noticed that when Jamie came into class this morning, no one wanted to give her your seat and I was wondering if Jamie would be willing to come and sit next to me so that I will not feel so lonely?”
  When Jamie was an adult, she became a school teacher. She once admitted that she never saw Mr. Santos after that day and sometimes she wondered if just maybe, he was Jesus.