Sermon by Reverend Dr. John W. Mann | October 6, 2024

Mark 10:2-12

My parents were married for close to 70 years. When they were approaching their 60^th wedding anniversary, we asked them how they wanted to celebrate that milestone. My mother said, “I’m not celebrating anything. If I would have had the means, I would have divorced your father a long time ago!” Okay, let’s not sugarcoat it; tell us what you really think.

One time somebody asked Jesus for his views on divorce. In his time and place the Law of Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce against his wife. Grounds for divorce were whatever the husband wishing to end the marriage decided they would be. Jesus said that writing a certificate of divorce was a concession to human stubbornness and not God’s intent. That was a radical view on divorce, in that he implied both parties to a marriage were equal partners. The common view was that women were what men owned. A woman went from her father’s ownership to her husband’s ownership.

Jesus said, “The two shall become one.” He said that if a man divorces his wife and marries another, he commits adultery against her. Again, a radical opinion. The common understanding of the law was that for a man to commit adultery, he had to have sex with another man’s wife. A man could have sex with any number of women and if they were not married, he was not committing adultery.

When Jesus said, “I came to fulfill the law,” he was changing the commandment on adultery and from a property code into a moral code. He was elevating the status of women. Women are not interchangeable pieces of property.

Up until I was around forty years old, that’s about as far as the story went. Divorce was not something of which I had any first-hand knowledge. I thought, who am I to preach to people on an issue that many of them know more about than I do? 

When I marry people, and they repeat after me, “For as long as we both shall live.” I see the look in their eyes that says, “I mean what I am saying.” Statistically, some of them will end up in divorce court. But every single person who stands at the altar and says, “I do,” means, “I do with all my heart plan to beat the statistics.”

I know I did. Marriage is a forever thing. When you hit those low points, you work to bring them up. When you hit rough spots, you work to smooth them out. But what happens when the day comes that you realize that the marriage is too low and too rough and it’s time to call it quits? It’s just about the worst feeling in the world. And from everyone you know who has gone through it, you know that you’re about to travel down a long road through a living hell. There’s no way around it, there’s no easy way over it.

There’s an old saying that goes, “experience is the best teacher.” From my experience of divorce, I learned more than I ever wanted to know on the subject. I learned a whole new set of feelings. I learned what it feels like, to feel like a failure. I thought I knew what failure felt like. My sophomore year in college I had to go back and retake some classes that I flubbed up my freshman year. That experience was my yardstick of failure. But that feeling didn’t even come close to measure the depth and breadth of this new found sense of failure.

A broken marriage isn’t a class you can retake. There’s no do over. When you fail in marriage, you flunk out. And so a little message runs through your mind on a regular basis, reminding you, “You are a failure. You failed. You couldn’t make it work.” On the heels of failure comes a whole carload of relative emotions. Guilt, shame, and anger in the front seat; grief, self-pity and fear in the back seat.

I learned I was not alone. Many people said, “I know what you’re going through.” And they did. They had been there. Very few people offered any kind of advice, especially the ones who had been through divorce themselves. And that was just as well because there’s not a whole lot to be said, other than, “I’m so sorry to hear that.” Words of comfort and consolation are appreciated. “You’re in my thoughts and prayers.”

I learned that the greater the emotional trauma, the longer it takes to get over it. When someone dies you hear things such as it will take three years to get over the death. But that’s not true. Like death, divorce is something you never “get over.” You can heal, you can recover, you can rebuild your life, but you always carry something of the event with you. Like physical trauma leaves a scar, emotional trauma scars the heart and soul. It heals, but not like it way it was before. Sometimes it heals stronger.

Even though I stand up here on a weekly basis and talk to folks about life and faith, and I share stories of my life and faith, I am for all intents and purposes a private person. I have always tried to maintain professional and personal boundaries, in order to stay healthy and to preserve a healthy perspective. Divorce broke through all those boundaries and made me feel exposed. It’s like one of those dreams where you’re back in high school or standing in front of a group of people and suddenly you realize you’re wearing only your underwear. It was a feeling of danger and vulnerability.

And underlying all the feelings, in and through them all was the feeling of profound sadness. Sadness and grief. Something that was once more precious than gold, was now lost forever; broken beyond repair. And I knew that the only way to get through it, was to allow all the feelings and emotions to run their natural course.

During it all, divorce, like any profound event that shakes us to the core of our soul, God offers us a choice. The choice is simple: will we, or will we not, perceive and take hold of God’s reality?

Being a person of faith doesn’t deny the reality of our lives. If we experience being broken, God sees us as broken too. What God offers is an alternative reality.

If you are broken, God offers healing.

If you are in turmoil, God offers peace.

If you hurt, God offers comfort.

Wherever you are in life and whatever you feel, God is with you. God does not take away your pain and suffering. God shows you the way through it and when you get to the other side of it, there is the alternative. Once I gained the perspective of time and healing, I jotted down some ideas about positive steps through a situation such as divorce.

1. Feel the pain of it, but don’t feel sorry for yourself. Self-pity helps us to see ourselves as victims. If we are victims, we can end up victimizing ourselves.
2. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. People want to help in a tangible way.
3. Say thank you as much as possible.
4. Take positive steps. Don’t wallow in it. Get rid of any destructive habits. You must be responsible for your recovery. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get out of the house. Run, exercise, read, go to a movie.
5. Develop other interests. Life goes on and you need something beside yourself to talk about. Ask other people how they are doing.
6. If you need something, say so. Don’t assume that people can read your mind.
7. Nurture your spirit. Pray, go to church, volunteer; do what you need to do to feed your soul. Find community.
8. Maintain your friendships by being a friend. People still need you as much as you need them.
9. Dare to dream. Dare to hope. As long as you have life and breath, life is not over. It won’t always be as bad as it is today. It might get worse before it gets better, but it will get better.
10.  Develop your sense of humor. If you don’t have one, get one. If you don’t think you need one, you really do. Learn how to laugh, even at yourself.
11.  Learn how to forgive. Forgive and forget. Allow God to work some good in you. You really can’t forgive unless you are willing to forget. Remember the past as a way to inform your present journey, not as a heavy burden in your present life.
12.  Move on from the past. Find the door to your past and close it. Cover it with a wall of bricks and mortar, plaster over it, paint it and hang some pictures on it. For all intents and purposes, allow God and the life God makes possible for you, to define your present moments.
13. And probably most important of all, remember this: On the third day, he rose again from the dead. There is a resurrection. Our God is a God of second chances. As many second chances as it takes to finally live in the reality that Jesus Christ is risen, and so are you.

That’s the core of our faith. God doesn’t keep us from dying. But as many times as we experience death in all its forms, that’s how many times God offers us the experience of life beyond the grave. Our lives are not defined by death, our lives are defined by resurrection and life. Amen.