Pentecost 19B (2)

19th Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

When it comes to preparing a sermon, there are definitely some Bible verses that are easy to talk about, and there are some that make me uneasy. Some of what the Bible tells us is just plain hard to hear. Today’s verses, specifically the Gospel, is one of those verses. Divorce is a hard thing to discuss. It’s affected many people in this room. My family is touched by divorce in several ways. In fact, just this week I learned that 2 different couples that we know from before we came to Hickory are considering divorce or have begun the process. Divorce is painful, and its effects are felt deeply by those involved, and it is felt well beyond the walls of the home that has been broken.

But the subject of divorce is not unique to our time or our society. Clearly God’s people have been wrestling with this since at least as far back as Moses…as Jesus indicates in his answer to the Pharisees. But notice where Jesus directs their attention. He doesn’t talk about reasons to get a divorce, or if one reason is sufficient to justify divorce, while another reason isn’t. He doesn’t go into that at all. Rather, he takes them to the very beginning of the issue: the source of marriage. And that goes all the way back to the Creation story in Genesis.

I’d like everyone to turn to page 203 in the green hymnal. This is our Marriage rite. I want to focus on the top of page 203. Please follow along with me as I read the words at the top of the page:

The Lord God in His goodness created us male and female, and by the gift of marriage founded human community in a joy that begins now and is brought to perfection in the life to come.

Because of sin, our age-old rebellion, the gladness of marriage can be overcast and the gift of the family can become a burden.

But, because God, who established marriage, continues still to bless it with His abundant and ever-present support, we can be sustained in our weariness and have our joy restored.

This is followed by an address to the couple:

[name] and [name], if it is your intention to share with each other your joys and sorrows and all that the years will bring, with your promises bind yourselves to each other as husband and wife.

Now skip to the bottom of the page. The couple then kneels, and the pastor says:

The Lord God, who created our first parents and established them in marriage, establish and sustain you, that you may find delight in each other and grow in holy love until life’s end. Amen. (LBW, pg 203)

When we bring a couple into this space to bind them together in Holy Matrimony, we do not give them the false idea that marriage is just all happy times and good emotions. We don’t lead them to believe that there will be no conflict or fighting or hard times. Look at that second sentence: SIN is present in this world, and it can OVERCAST the joy of wedded bliss! Problems will arise. Conflict WILL happen. Couples are GOING to fight. It’s not a question of “if” but a question of “when” and “how”, and how the conflict will be resolved.

Look again at what Jesus says here in the Gospel: “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. 6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” [ESV (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mark 10:5–9.]

In 2021, when fewer and fewer people are coming to church, I find myself wondering if those who’ve drifted away from God - and therefore have drifted away from His Holy Word - have forgotten how we are to think of marriage? “So they are no longer two but one flesh.” I don’t think our increasingly secular society thinks of it like this any more. I have a personal example that I think spells this out perfectly.

After Wendy and I had been dating for a while, she was invited to join the spouses’ group for the squadron where I was working. The other spouses welcomed her with open arms, even though we weren’t technically “engaged” yet. (Although I knew pretty early on that I was going to marry her!) One day my boss started to question me about this, and whether I was going to “pop the question”. I don’t remember exactly what I said, although I probably told him “yes”…but the whole scene was overtaken by what he said next. He didn’t ask me if I “truly” loved her, or anything along those lines. Rather, he told me “make sure you keep your bank accounts separate.” When I asked him why, he said, “so that if things don’t work out, you don’t have to figure out what’s yours and what’s hers.”

I hope you can imagine - I was absolutely stunned. Here’s my boss, basically telling me to plan for failure. To expect failure. Now I don’t know whether he was a Christian or not, and I’m not passing judgment on him or his faith. But in this particular discussion, it’s clear to me that he did not think of marriage as “they are no longer two but one flesh.” And isn’t this fairly typical of the message that we get from the world around us? Watching celebrities and their lives, seeing popular television shows, blockbuster movies - divorce is just part of society. Marriage seems temporary. Marriage seems like something you do for a while, then you move on. Sometimes they even portray it on the big screen like it’s an antiquated idea…something you just don’t need to do any more.

Look at the first line of the 2nd lesson today: “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? [ESV (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Hebrews 2:1–3.] Let’s take this one piece at a time.

“We must pay closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” As I look around at the world around us, it seems clear that there are many who WANT to drift away from the Word of God; they seem to be very intent on ignoring God’s Word, to achieve that very end. They WANT to get away from God. These are the same people you hear shouting nasty insults about the Christian faith - that it’s oppressive, that it’s patriarchal, that it’s antiquated, that it’s for people who don’t believe in science. There are a host of other insults that I’m sure you’ve heard before, but you get my point. I don’t think people who think and say these things have any interest in seeking understanding. They don’t want to listen to us when we try to explain. They just want to get away from it.

But that’s our nature. That’s what sin is, right? That’s what the first sin was. Man and woman didn’t want to do what God told them - they only had one rule. ONE. “Don’t eat the fruit from this ONE tree. You can eat any other fruit. You can touch the tree and do anything else with it, just don’t eat its fruit. Just don’t do that.” And we couldn’t abide by that one rule. We couldn’t stand that God restricted our behavior. And that sin still persists within each of us. That sin still tempts us every day throughout our lives.

But God HAS given us rules. He HAS given us His Word. Not to oppress us, but to protect us. To guide and teach us, so that we can enjoy what He created in the way He intended. Let’s look at the next verse: “Since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution” - this is simple. God keeps His Word. When He says He’s going to do something, He does it. Any time He told the people that He would punish them, He did. Every single time. And let’s not forget: angels/messengers did not give the Law to the people; God gave it Himself. “It was first spoken by God (Exod. 20:1; Deut. 5:22) and was then given to Moses on tablets of stone.” [R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of the Epistle to the Hebrews and of the Epistle of James (Columbus, OH: Lutheran Book Concern, 1938), 65.]

Verse 3: “how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?” We’re talking here about God’s Law. God’s Law demanded obedience. That’s the story of the Old Testament, isn’t it? When the people obey God’s Law, life is good. When they disobey and turn their backs on God, God gives them what they want - distance from Him, and they discover how awful life without God really is.

But as the scholar Lenski puts it, “The expression is not: ‘on rejecting so great salvation’ it is: “on neglecting,” ... just letting it lie, remaining indifferent to salvation, the one supreme thing that every sinner needs.” [Ibid, 66] What have these people done with this “unspeakably great” gift? They don’t want it. Why? Perhaps it’s because the pay-off doesn’t come until later. That’s just my own speculation, which likely isn’t fair to them, but it would make sense. Much of our sin revolves around instant gratification, doesn’t it? I want ______ right now, but the God’s Word says I should wait. I don’t want to wait. I want it now.

Maybe even disturbing than those who don’t want to follow Christ - do we who believe in Him neglect our salvation? Wouldn’t that be an awful thing? Is that even possible? When I read this, I couldn’t help but think about this great gift I have been given…and what am I doing with it? Am I sharing this Good News of all that God has done for us? Am I spreading the Gospel outside the walls of this building? I make a little effort here and there, but I’m not sure I’m doing enough.

Jesus points the Pharisees - and us - back to the Creation story. You may remember that the creation of male and female described first in chapter 1, on the 6th day. And on each day in Chapter 1, “God saw that [what he had made] was good.” Except after the 6th day, after man and woman were created, “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” [ESV, Gen 1:31] And that’s the end of Chapter 1. So now in Chapter 2, for the first time - in verse 18 - we see the words “it is not good.” This is not saying the creature is not good. Here God recognizes that the mortal He has made in His own image is alone. It is this state of being alone that is not good. God has given His creature food and drink and animals and even work. But this creature does not have another of his own kind. Our English translation uses the phrase “helper [fit for him]”. That’s not a bad translation, but I don’t think it gives us the whole picture. Other translations are helpful here. Listen to some of the other renditions: “perfectly suited partner”, “companion who corresponds to him”, “a helper who is right for him”, “a helper as his complement”; here’s my favorite: “a helper [one who balances him—a counterpart who is] suitable and complementary for him.” (AMP)

There’s no indication from this text that this companion was intended to be inferior. But she is different. As the late, great Robin Williams said, “this new creature is actually better - she’s not just a man; she has the extra ‘wo’: she’s a wo-man.” Man and woman were created different for a reason. One is not better than the other. We were designed to complement each other. We are simply different. And vive la différence!

Man being alone was “not good”, and God recognized this. I want to offer you a commentary on this passage: “At the conclusion of the six days of Creation, God finishes, but there is something more to be done. …[Creation] is very good, but its goodness lacks the supernatural, sanctifying rest of the seventh day. Nature is perfect on its own terms, but God adds a supernatural possibility. Now, …God breathes life into man’s nostrils. The breath of life does not set the cosmic stage. Instead, it infuses life into space and time, providing the forward push of human history. The man feels the need for the more suggested by the architecture of the cosmos that leans toward the seventh day. Adam lacks ‘a helper,’ and alone he cannot ‘be fruitful and multiply.’ The situation is ‘not good,’ but this is not because creation is flawed. Instead, the ‘not good’ evokes the existential loneliness of the first man, and in this way, the phrase expresses the sense that creation is ‘not enough.’ God creates a world that is complete in itself, but because He intends to transform it into something greater, we experience life as unsettled by a restless anticipation of the future.” [Reno, “Genesis”, pg 72]

What God created is indeed good, but God is making something better. But like many things with God, we’re impatient. We don’t want to wait till later. We look at what we have and we wish we had more…or better…or newer. Our human hearts seem never to be satisfied. Here’s how that author completes his thought: “At every point, we come up against the limitations of reality, and rather than appreciate the finite goods we truly enjoy, we rebel… We gaze upon that which God creates with a dissatisfaction that we cannot understand and cannot justify, but nonetheless feel to strongly to deny or set aside. The atmosphere of felt incompleteness is not unique to the Genesis 2 creation account. It runs throughout scripture. The sense of incompleteness is a function of the substantial purpose of self-donation that God has in mind ‘in the beginning.’ Things exist for the purpose of being brought into the Sabbath rest of fellowship with God. For this reason, the scriptural witness is structured by a movement from very good to better still. All finite existence is complete and good on its own. But when that existence is brought into relation to the infinite existence of God, it becomes supernaturally incomplete; it becomes palpably ‘not God.’ For this reason, creation years to be more than itself—to be no longer itself, alone, and without fellowship with God. … Because we sense what we can become, we regret what we are not.” [Reno, 72-73]

God made a human being, and then He made another, different human being to complement him and accompany him. “And the two shall become one flesh” - as they came together and walked together in faith, they grew closer together. But it was never intended that there would be only 2 people in this relationship; God was in the middle of them, so as they grew closer to each other they also grew closer to God. This is the model for marriage that Jesus lifts up. Who would dare break that apart? Divorce undoes what God ordained. Divorce breaks apart a bond that God intended to be life-long. It should not be considered lightly, and it should not be decided upon quickly or easily. Jesus tells us that this marriage bond is a serious and deep bond. It *should* be hard to break.

What God has made, and the order He created has a specific purpose. When we deviate from that purpose, things tend to go poorly for us. Just turn on the news. The more we drift away from God, the more chaos and conflict we see. Today’s lessons remind us of the unity and the community that God wants us to have…that He created us to have…that He blessed us with. If we look to these blessings, and the teachings and guidance we have in His Word, we can see what God wants for us. And we can see what God has planned for us. No, we won’t have perfection until Christ’s return. Until then, let’s focus on what He has given us, and where He is with us - in His Word and His Sacraments (which we will share in communion with one another shortly). And then as we depart, let us not neglect the gifts we have been given. Let’s nurture and grow them in our own households, and in our relationships, for those who are married or considering marriage - to look to that bond as the model for God’s plan for all of us to grow closer to Him. And let’s reflect that in our lives that the world around us may see God in us and through us. If we can do that, even a little, then we will not have neglected our great gift, but we will have celebrated it. And that brothers and sisters, will certainly please God.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.