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Divorce Compassion
SERMON - 10.15am, Emmanuel Church, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Sunday 8th October 2006
Revd. Matthew Vernon
Mk 10.2-16.
You may know the joke about the 10 commandments.
Moses comes down from the mountain after speaking with God.
"O.k. guys," he says, "here are God's commandments. Do you want the good news or the bad news?"
"The good news,' answer the people.
"Well," says Moses, "the good news is I've got them down to 10.
"The bad news is adultery is still in."
It's important to laugh about religion and I like that joke,
• but adultery is a very serious issue.
Adultery and divorce are at the heart of this morning's Gospel.
It's an uncomfortable passage, isn't it?
According to Mark's Gospel, Jesus saw this issue in black and white.
It's uncomfortable because many of us have experience of divorce.
If not ourselves, then a relative or close friend.
It's also uncomfortable because Jesus' words clash with what many of us feel about divorce.
• That divorce is not the unforgivable sin.
• That sadly, relationships do breakdown and some marriages die.
• That people who have been divorced should be allowed to remarry.
Our faith is after all about forgiveness and second chances.
And it's often at times of crisis and distress that God meets us.
But I'm not going to go into the detail of all that this morning.
I don't intent to look at the theological arguments and Biblical evidence for allowing divorce and remarriage.
Other more learned people have done that for us.
And as a result many parts of the Anglican Church have concluded that remarriage after divorce is allowed,
• though sadly not yet here in Hong Kong.
I would just point out that Matthew's Gospel includes a shade of grey.
It's different to Mark's Gospel.
Matthew 5.32 has Jesus saying,
• "anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, cause her to commit adultery."
• Matthew gives us an exception to the rule.
What I will do is explore some background issues.
Two things:
• how we read the Bible
• and our spiritual attitude.
And I have in mind how compassion affects those.
That sounds very serious, so let's have another joke first.
A priest had lost his bicycle.
He was convinced that a member of his church had stolen it.
The advice from his bishop was,
• "All you have to do is read out the 10 commandments in church and when you get to "Thou shalt not steal" the culprit will confess everything."
So the priest read out the commandments in church.
It was when he got to "Thou shalt not commit adultery" that he remembered where he'd left his bicycle."
How we read the Bible.
If we believe divorce is possible, how can we square that with Jesus' words in today's Gospel?
We can because we don't have to read the Bible literally;
• because when we read the Bible we know that we have to interpret what we read.
To illustrate let's look at Genesis,
• where our first reading comes from this morning.
"Who is silly enough to believe that God, like a farmer, 'planted a paradise in the east at Eden'.
Or put in it a visible, real 'tree of life' and if anyone eats the fruit with his teeth they gain life. …
And when God is said to 'walk in the paradise in the cool of the day'
• and Adam to hide himself behind a tree,
I don't think anyone will doubt that these are figurative expressions.
They indicate certain mysteries not actual events."
Those comments are not my own.
They sound very modern,
• but they come from a brilliant 3rd century Christian scholar called Origen.
Origen believed that there are different ways of reading the Bible,
• that the Bible has different levels of meaning.
He was not alone.
In fact it was view shared by many Christians.
Origen spoke about 3 levels of meaning:
• literal, moral and spiritual.
A good example is the exodus –
• the people of Israel leaving Egypt.
At one level the story is about Moses and the people leaving Egypt.
We can also read it as a story about our redemption in Christ,
• as we do at Easter.
Thirdly, we can read it as a story about conversion from the slavery of sin to the freedom of grace.
Origen looked at the Gospels in the same way.
In the story of Jesus being tempted by the devil, the devil takes Jesus to a high mountain to show him all the kingdoms of the world.
Origen asks where is there a mountain high enough to view all the kingdoms of the world.
Origen thought that in the Bible there are things "absurd and impossible".
Origen didn't say the whole Bible is like that.
He believed many parts were historically accurate.
However, his approach includes interpretation.
This approach to the Bible leads us away from certainty.
Interpretation includes uncertainty –
• the possibility of another interpretation.
We may be wrong.
It's the beginning of compassion.
Another example from Genesis is the first verse of the Bible:
• "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth."
The original is in Hebrew.
The Hebrew letters are not divided into words.
The letters form a long line.
So even forming the letters into words involves interpretation.
It's possible to read the first verse of Genesis as "In the beginning when God was created."
Interpretation includes uncertainty –
• the possibility of another interpretation.
We may be wrong.
It's the beginning of compassion.
Which brings us to the second area to explore:
• our spiritual attitude.
Did you notice Jesus' words to the Pharisees in the Gospel?
"Because of your hardness of heart".
Did that resonate in your heart?
It's closely linked to our desire for certainty.
Or to be more precise our need to feel "I have the answers."
There's a strong tendency in each of us to feel we have the answers.
Whether they are conservative or liberal answers.
• Answers about certainty or uncertainty.
Feeling we have the answers feeds our ego.
It makes us arrogant, falsely self assured, and narrow minded.
In the spiritual life, the depth and mystery of God leaves all of us as searchers and seekers,
• always beginners.
Since we all have far to go, we look for answers that let our egos feel superior and comfortable.
Our ego is a "hungry ghost".
It requires constant food to satisfy its emptiness.
Have you noticed how the hot issues in religion are often certainty issues?
You know for sure whether you have done it or not:
• abortion; sex; adultery; homosexuality, divorce.
They are issues which we can feel "I have the answers."
The certainty of these issues means people can be found guilty and shamed.
Compassion is excluded.
Kindness is forgotten.
Humanity is lost.
But it's a mistake to feel you have the answers.
Spiritual growth comes through openness to other interpretations –
• an ongoing discovery of God's will and God's ways.
In fact, spiritual growth leads to realizing you have more questions than answers.
People led by the Spirit are led into ever deeper seeking and discovering –
• discovering the depth and mystery of God.
In the range of controversial issues like divorce,
• compassion makes us think we may be wrong.
The Bible may say one thing.
Church tradition may say one thing.
But as Anglicans we balance those with reason, new thinking, which you might call interpretation.
I'll end with some words that summarise all of this.
They're by Anthony de Mello.
"Certainty is the sin of terrorists, bigots and Pharisees.
"Compassion makes us think we may be wrong."
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