2021.10.03 TESTIMONIES, NOT TESTS OF FAITH
“Testimonies, Not Tests of Faith”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring, Senior Minister
On the face of it, today’s gospel reading from Mark 10:2-16 appears to be a pop quiz--a test of Jesus’ faith--given to Jesus by some Jewish Pharisees, and this test is designed to trick and trap him into saying something that will embarrass him or divide his followers and conquer his campaign.
The passage also seems to be largely about divorce, and too often, it has been looked at over the centuries as the encapsulation of Jesus’ instruction on marriage and divorce.
As a result, Mark 10 has frequently been used by super-judgy Christians to shame those whose marriages have come unraveled, and for some to claim superiority over those whose marriages have never been on the rocks. Ask me how I know.
I’ve welcomed numerous Roman Catholics into the United Church of Christ on account of them being barred from the sacraments, because they had filed for divorce and failed to obtain an annulment from Rome.
I’ve counseled a tragic number of people--mostly women--through separations and divorces from abusive spouses with whom they have stayed married for fear that they would be damned to hell if they left.
I’ve also listened to more than one colleague describe being defroked by their former Christian denomination when they came out as lesbian or gay, and chose to live a more authentic life by acknowledging who they were and freeing their former spouse to move on with his or her life in a more holistic way.
Passages like Mark 10:2-16, in general, and judgy interpretations of them, seem to originate from people who have either never been through a rough patch in a marriage or who have never needed grace.
Judgy interpretations of Jesus’ teachings, in particular, tend to also originate from people who have failed to take into account the historical, literary, and social context in which his teachings have emerged.
Consider, for example, that when we look at today’s gospel reading within the larger context of Mark and the community out of which this gospel emerged, we discover that there was a whole lot more going on in Mark 10 than Jesus and the Pharisees debating the fine points of family law.
Today’s gospel passage is set in a particular place and time. Understanding its setting helps us understand what all the fuss was about, and why this passage, which seems to be about divorce, is actually about something MORE, and why this passage is coupled with a story about Jesus welcoming and blessing children.
II
Most New Testament scholars agree that the setting for today’s passage was somewhere outside of Palestine, yet within the confines of the Roman Empire--perhaps Syria or Italy.
The time period was most likely the sixth decade in the Common Era. This was a time when early Christians were being persecuted by the Roman Emperor Nero, who despised them because he thought of himself as a god, and they would not bend or bow to him.
So here we have a debate--not just between Jesus (who was a Jew) and the Jewish Pharisees--we have a comparison of and a commentary by Jesus on Jewish and Roman law about marriage and divorce.
The Pharisees asked Jesus whether it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. Every good First Century Jew knew the answer to that question. Of course, it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. All a husband had to do was write a certificate of dismissal and state seven times in the public square, “I divorce, thee. I divorce, thee…etc.” and the two were divorced.
That said, it was not lawful (according to Moses) for a wife to divorce her husband.
In the midst of this debate over Jewish law about marriage and divorce, Jesus reminds his audience about the Hebrew creation stories, and how God made human beings and called the first man and the first woman into a lifelong covenant with each other. Adam and Eve, presumably, are presented as the prototypical husband and wife. They separated from their parents, and were bound together for life. Amen.
Today women have a lot more civil and ecclesiastical rites--at least in some countries and faith traditions--so Jesus’ commentary on divorce--may seem unsympathetic or arcane to our ears.
But consider that in First-Century Hebrew culture, women were not permitted to divorce their husbands, but their husbands could divorce them--and literally set them out with the trash, leaving them destitute.
Consider, too, that marriage in First-Century Roman culture was typically arranged by the couple’s fathers. Women, especially wealthy women, may have had more agency in the decision-making process about their marital partner under Roman law than Hebrew law, but all women (Jews and Romans alike) were considered to be the property of a man, usually their father, husband, or brother. In Rome, women were first the property of their father’s, and then after marriage, they were the property of their husband’s. If they divorced they reverted back to being the property of their father’s, or if their father was deceased, they became the property of their eldest brother.
Even though Jesus makes reference to the possibility of a woman divorcing her husband, virtually no one in his audience would have known of such a situation. It was largely hypothetical.
In the Roman world, if a couple divorced (at either’s discretion), the woman was expected to return (with her dowry) to her father’s house.
But what if the woman was poor? What if her family had offered only a small dowry, and the dowry had been consumed. There would have been nothing to take back to her father if she divorced her husband, and her father may not have had the means to take her in and care for her. So Jesus' moratorium on divorce would have had a life-saving effect on many women in his audience, because the vast majority of women in First-Century Rome were peasants.
Seen in this way, Jesus’ instruction on divorce (in Mark 10) was the equivalent of a new kind of “social security” program that insured that even women whose marriages were a shambles, even women who had no children, even women who may have broken their marriages vows would have a way to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table, and the basic necessities of life--regardless of whether they were Jews or Gentiles.
III
I hope this heuristic on Jesus’ teaching about marriage and divorce brings some semblance of relief to those who have suffered the judgy-interpretations of Mark 10 by their churches, their neighbors, or even themselves.
Furthermore, I hope that this exegesis of verses 13-16 (in which Jesus welcomes and blesses the children) will underscore this point for you.
By coupling these two stories (the story about the pop quiz on divorce law and the blessing of children), Jesus, and the author of Mark’s gospel, and the theologians who created the Revised Common Lectionary mutually affirmed that Jesus repeatedly challenged super-judgy interpretations of the law.
The First-Century Jewish Pharisees and Nero’s loyal legion were eager to trap Jesus in a debate that would divide his followers and conquer his reform movement, but they were never successful in doing so; because Jesus knew their laws better than they did, and he understood and offered divine grace, which the world couldn’t give or take away.
Most importantly, Jesus taught that the key to salvation was not by way of judgy doctrine, but through a spiritual disposition that was humble, and vulnerable enough to receive God’s grace and blessings.
This is why Jesus said, in verse 15, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
Friends, receive and believe the good news of the Gospel: “[It is]...by grace you have been saved through faith,” [not by having a perfect marriage or living an error-free life];...this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God...” (Eph. 2:8-9)
Rather than studying for pop quizzes, or running around giving pop quizzes on Christian doctrine, Jesus calls us to testify to the good news of God’s grace and testify to others how that grace has brought hope and healing into our lives, so that they too might hear and receive it. Amen.