Marriage is not a test.

It’s a bit risky to preach on this text in a church where we don’t really know each other. After all, questions about the nature of marriage and who can rightly marry are at the forefront of a lot of the disputes in the church at the moment, and this text is one that’s argued over.

So I want to step back for a moment and look at a little detail in the beginning of the gospel text.

The New Revised Standard Version (Teaching about Divorce)

Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

The Pharisees didn’t ask because they wanted help to understand what was right on divorce. They didn’t ask for advice in their pastoral support for couples who were struggling in marriage. They probably didn’t even ask because they didn’t think they knew the answer. In all the many Jewish traditions of teaching and thinking there was none that barred divorce completely - the debates were all around the permissible grounds for a man to divorce his wife. Likewise, there was no way in law for a wife to divorce her husband.

But this was still a live and controversial issue. St Mark mentions that Jesus is in the area of Transjordan. Now that’s where John the Baptist had recently been arrested and then killed because he denounced the ruler, Herod’s, marriage to his brother’s former wife, who’d divorced her husband under Roman law so she could marry Herod. It could well be that they were hoping Jesus would be drawn into that dangerous territory, to say something they could report to Herod and have him, too, taken out of the picture, or at least driven out of their area.

So Jesus, as usual when the Pharisees try to test or trap him, turns the question back at them and only later, in the house with his friends, does he teach about marriage and divorce.

People, not an issue

Now the first thing I want to pick up from this story is that point; that when we make someone’s position on a particular issue a test case, when we ask for clear, snappy public answers on complex questions, we’re all too often siding with the Pharisees. And I fear that we’re being drawn into this as a church on issues around marriage, and particularly whether same-sex couples should be able to marry on equal terms to a man and a woman. Because behind this one question are many other questions; questions about how we interpret and give authority to scripture; about how the church relates to our culture, and the values and insights around us; sometimes about the whole nature of tradition, of church membership, of how we approach discipleship.

And what is all too easily forgotten is that these are not abstract questions of doctrine and ethics, but at the heart of the lives and relationships of real people, often seeking to do the right thing both by their love for God and their love for one another. So if we’re going to take the words of the gospel seriously, then let’s start by refusing to make this a test case for where we stand on all sorts of issues.

It’s not about who can marry

Now to step back again from those debates, let’s remind ourselves that this question and Jesus’ answer weren’t about who can marry each other. The question was about whether a couple can stop being married, not whether they can get married. And when he was with his disciples, Jesus was uncomfortably clear about this - though he didn’t spell it out in public, he was clear that marriage was a deep union of lives that was not meant to be torn apart again.

Jesus took his friends back to the beginning; to that wonderful account of creation where we see that even when the first human, Adam, can walk in the garden with God, living in peace with nature, he still isn’t complete until he has another like him yet different, Eve, to share his life. Humans are made to live in relationship with one another as well as with God. And not everyone finds or needs the particular companionship and relationship of marriage, that coming together of two who are the same yet different for life. Jesus didn’t marry, after all.

But for those who are called to marriage, to a depth of committed relationship, Jesus says that we are entering into something that is meant to shape and to take our lives. We become joined as a new kind of human life. And whenever a couple are married or enter a civil partnership, whatever the combination of male and female, then our starting point should surely be that this is the heart of Jesus’ teaching on the subject. That a couple are called to choose love for each other, and to stick with it, to put one another first day by day and year by year.

In a fallen world, this is not always possible. And I’ve known relationships where, sadly, divorce has been the best outcome for the wellbeing or even the safety of one or both of a couple. In a world where hearts are still hard, Moses’ permission still has its place. And the church’s support and care through the pain of that process is our expression of God’s continuing care and support, his love for imperfect people with flawed relationships in a messy world. But as a church we’re called to help couples who are considering marriage - any couples who are considering marriage - to be clear that they are resolved to make this love last and work. And we are called to pray for, help and encourage married couples to keep growing in love as they have promised, seeking the best for one another before each seeks the best for him or herself.

Truth and grace

In this, like just about everything else in life, we try to hold together two things. Truth and grace. Both matter deeply. We hold dear the will of God that marriage be faithful, life-giving and life-long. And we hold equally dear the precious truth that when it doesn’t work that way, when the best of will and intention cannot make it so, then God’s love does not let us go.

So we work and pray to promote and celebrate life-long marriage - and if we include same-sex couples in that then we extend to them the same call to faithful love that Jesus spoke of in men and women. We love and support those for whom marriage does not become a way of life, and those for whom it doesn’t work out.

And we never, please, forget that when we speak of these things we can’t say it’s all about principles; for here we touch on the heart of people’s lives. Let’s do it with love.

Amen.