In today's Old Testament reading we heard one of the two creation stories from Genesis. The first version says that God created the world in a very orderly progression over six days. On the first day, God created light; on the second, sky, and so on. This is where we learn that God did it, and saw that it was good. And according to this version of the story, human kind was created at the very end, on the 6th day, after all rest of the world, including all the animals. Not only that, but God created both sexes, male and female, at the same time. God made us to live in community.
Then there's the another creation story, the one we heard today. In the second story, creation happens a little more haphazardly. According to this version of the story, God created a man from clay, and put him all alone in the Garden of Eden. But before too long, he notices that something's not good, something's missing. So the man goes to sleep, and God takes a rib and creates a woman to be his companion. God made us to complete each other.
Together, these two stories teach us that God created us to live in relationship – with God, and with one another. Now, the bible isn't clear about how men and women are to relate to each other. The first story says that men and women were created at the same time, a matched set. The second story says that woman was created after man, and even after all the other animals on the earth, to be a helper. But what is clear from both versions of the story is that we are made whole, we are made complete, through our relationships – our relationships with each other, and our relationship with God.
The reason I bring this up is to give you a little background on today's Gospel lesson. The Pharisees are still out to get Jesus, and they devise a trick question. "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" Now, both Jesus and the Pharisees know that as a practical matter, Jewish law permitted a man to divorce his wife if he "finds something objectionable about her." But that was a pretty vague law, and there were two schools of thought about what that meant. Some believed a man could divorce his wife for practically any cause – for example, for simply burning dinner. It was a first century version of no-fault divorce. Others felt that it could only be justified for only the most serious of offenses.
But Jesus realizes that regardless of what the law says about divorce, it is not how God intended us to live. God intended us to live together in wholeness. Divorce, no matter how justified, causes us lots of pain, bitterness, and sorrow, and it harms the weakest and most vulnerable members of society, the women and children. And so, rather than get drawn into a no-win quarrel with the Pharisees about the legalisms of divorce, Jesus turns the tables and goes back to God's original intention for marriage. He points out that divorce is a result of human weakness and brokenness, while God's desire is for men and woman who are married to live "as one flesh" with one another. Instead of settling for brokenness, Jesus tells us that God's desire is for us to live in wholeness.
But the fact of the matter is that we are broken. The fact of the matter is that, regardless of God's desire, we do not always live in wholeness. Divorce and broken relationships are a fact of life, and the bible recognized that long ago, just as we do today. In the United States today, 45% of marriages end up in divorce within 15 years. If this congregation is typical, and I believe that it is, about every 3rd person sitting in this room has been, or will be, divorced in their lives. Something happens, and the marriage is in trouble. The relationship that we all intend to last forever comes to an end. The two who have become one flesh are torn apart, and we have nothing but pain and bitterness where we once shared love.
That's a pretty grim outlook. So you might well ask, "What about those of us who can't work it out? What does Jesus have to say to us?"
This is where we look at the rest of the story, at the others who came to Jesus that day. The story says that there were two groups: the Pharisees, who came to trick Jesus, and the children, who came for his blessing. And it is from the children that we learn that, through Jesus, we can work through the pain of our brokenness. Jesus' welcomes and restores us, just as he welcomed and restored the children. And as we have heard over the past several weeks, they are the most lost, the most broken in society.
The children of Jesus' day probably were not the clean faced, adorable children we heard singing at the beginning of worship today. They probably looked more like the children waiting for the doctor in a pediatrician's office or at a homeless shelter – dirty, runny noses, hungry, crying and whining that just won't stop. And so, naturally, the disciples tried to send them away. But Jesus tells us that it is to such as they that the kingdom of heaven belongs. It is to the broken and the sickly, to the divorced and the abused, to the cheated and betrayed, to the hungry and unloved that God comes. And this is how we, who are children of God, are to receive the kingdom. Not as adults, who control our own destinies, and who have the power to make or break relationships with others. But as children, who depend on God and seek a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, that we become part of the kingdom.
Perfect human love is beyond us; we cannot return to the Garden of Eden. But the perfect love of God is all around us. Christ blesses us and invites us to live in wholeness with him in the kingdom of God.
Thanks be to God.
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