Together - Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost (October 6, 2024)

Scripture Readings: Genesis 2:18–24 | Psalm 8 | Hebrews 1:1–4, 2:5–12 | ​Mark 10:2–16

“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’” (Genesis 2:18).
 
Our Scripture readings for this week are definitely difficult, touching on some pretty painful subjects for many of us, both here in this room, and also in our communities. They can be difficult for those of us who have experienced personally the pain of divorce… and also for those of us who have perhaps longed to experience marriage, but have not had those longings fulfilled. These passages can also be painful for those who have felt intense pressure to conform their own relationships to fit an ideal in which one party is somehow meant to dominate, and the other must always be submissive.
 
If today’s readings from the Scriptures are difficult for you, you’re not alone. Thankfully, you are surrounded here by your brothers and sisters in Christ who can help you to find new strength, and hope, and courage as we seek to walk together in God’s ways… and find again and again that our Father in Heaven, the Living God, is offering us all Good News even in the most difficult places… and that His word to us today is part of His gift of life-giving love.

I know that these passages have sometimes been used to justify sexist attitudes, and patriarchal practices… but I believe that instead of avoiding these difficult passages, we are much better off to attend to them, and see how they are actually intended to open our eyes to God’s heart and deep desire for humanity as a whole… which is certainly not outdated, but perhaps needed now more than ever. And when we do so, I believe that we’ll find, not ancient arguments in favour of patriarchy… but a deeper appreciation for the Good News of God’s reconciling love, and true fellowship offered to all.
 
And so, to help us reflect on this Good News in our readings today, I’d like us to take a closer look at some of the language… the words and concepts that the Scriptures use in these passages, and see how they make sense within the Biblical story of God’s great love for the world.
 
The first word we need to look at a bit more closely is the Hebrew word for humanity: adam.
 
Adam in Hebrew is related to the word for earth or dirt: adamah… kind of like how ‘human’ is connected to the word ‘humus’, which is Latin for ‘ground’, from which we get words like ‘humble’, for lowly, and so on. And this makes sense, when we think of how Genesis describes the first human being formed from the dirt. Before it’s used as a proper name, adam is simply the word for humanity… “people of the earth”… “dirt-people”. And yet, God has great plans for these lowly humans… these adam.  
   
Listen to what Genesis 1:27-28 has to say,
“Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind [adam] in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’
So God created humankind [adam] in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’”
 
The Living God creates humanity in His image. Not just one man named Adam, but the whole human race. And God creates them to represent His own character and goodness… not to oppress or subjugate… but to rule through caring for and cultivating His good world on God’s behalf. Humanity’s job is to be God’s representatives in Creation… acting like Him so that it all thrives and flourishes. How can we do that? Well, one thing’s for sure: we can’t do it all alone.
 
In our reading today, from Genesis Chapter 2, we hear for the first time in the story that something’s “not good”. Genesis 2:18, “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that [adam, which the NRSV translates here as “the man”] should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.”
 
Remember, at this point, humanity is one… united, but basically alone. This solitude is no good, it falls short of God’s intentions for His image-bearer… so God seeks to get the human a helper… which is the second word I think that we need to look a bit more closely at today.
 
What often comes to mind when you hear the word 'helper'? Often the way it’s used in our culture carries with it the idea of someone who is subservient… someone who’s job it is to do what someone else wants… like an employee, serving their bosses’ ambitions… doing what the important people tell them to do.  
 
But the Hebrew word for ‘help’, ezer has a different slant to it… one that emphasizes the vital importance of their efforts as the ‘one who brings aid’. The reference is not so much about a subordinate, but a saviour! One whose help is completely indispensable. In fact, in the rest of Scripture, ezer is frequently used to refer to God Himself!
 
For example, listen to the words of Psalm 70, and get a feel for how essential an ezer is:
Be pleased, O God, to deliver me.
O Lord, make haste to help me [to ezer me]!
Let those be put to shame and confusion
who seek my life.
Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor
who desire to hurt me.
Let those who say, “Aha, Aha!”
turn back because of their shame.
Let all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you.
Let those who love your salvation
say evermore, “God is great!”
But I am poor and needy;
hasten to me, O God!
You are my help [my ezer] and my deliverer;
O Lord, do not delay!
 
Did you feel the urgency and earnest longing in that prayer to God for help? And even though God proves to be our ezer again and again, no one should think of the LORD as being subservient to us and our plans. No, He helps us lowly people of the earth out of compassion and love… and as His images, He wants us all to be like Him and to ezer each other.
 
The logic of these first chapters of Genesis is not that ‘God made a man, and then made a woman to serve him.’ It’s that ‘God made a single human, split them in two, and now they can do something they simply cannot do alone… that is: filling the earth by sharing in loving fellowship together.
 
The Bible’s vision of how humanity is to reflect God’s image in the world is not about gender hierarchy, but about humans helping one another… caring for each other… welcoming those who are very different in some ways,  but who are still ‘bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh’… we serve as God’s image as we love one another.
 
With all this in mind, let’s turn now to our Gospel reading for today from Mark Chapter 10.
 
This whole episode starts off when some Pharisees came up to Jesus and asked Him: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” (Mark 10:2). Far from an honest question, St. Mark tells us that this question was a test… an attempt to trap or pin down this influential and controversial wandering teacher. At the time, this was a very politically charged question… something like asking an American politician about immigration policy or abortion today.
 
Even more light is shed on this debate by how St. Matthew tells the same story, in Chapter 19:3, because St. Matthew adds a few more words: “for any cause?” Matthew 19:3, “to test him they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?’”
 
In short, the debate that the Pharisees were trying to draw Jesus into was about ‘what kind of limits were placed on men who were seeking to leave their wives’.
 
During those days, most Rabbis were divided on this issue: one camp said that divorce was only allowed under the most serious circumstances… like adultery. The other camp went so far as to say that there were no limits. A man could divorce his wife for any reason… even if their wife had simply ruined supper, they could put an end to their relationship.
 
This was a debate about the power that husbands were free to wield in their relationships… not an argument about what would be best for women, who had little to no say in the matter in that time and place. And yet at the same time, there were very serious consequences for women!

The dangers of being abandoned were very real, and devastating, as most women could not live independently in that culture and time. They lived either with a husband, or in their parent’s home… or at the mercy of strangers. Easy divorce for men meant that women had to live with the threat of divorce hanging over their head all the time. It was an incredibly uneven power dynamic, that tended to elevate husbands up over their wives. Not exactly the kind of loving fellowship we see God intended for humanity from the start.
 
When Jesus was asked about what was lawful, Jesus asks them about their understanding of the law. Mark 10:3-4, “He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.”
 
The certificate of dismissal or divorce was meant to be a form of legal protection for the woman, so that she could at least be able to remarry, if she was able to. As long as they took the proper legal steps, they seemed to see no problem with it. Of course, it’s not quite as simple as the Pharisees make it seem.

The passage in question comes from Deuteronomy 24:1-4, and it’s the only case study in the Torah that discusses the actual process of divorce among the people of Israel: “Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house and goes off to become another man’s wife. Then suppose the second man dislikes her, writes her a bill of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house (or the second man who married her dies); her first husband, who sent her away, is not permitted to take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that would be abhorrent to the Lord, and you shall not bring guilt on the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession.”
 
The case takes divorce itself for granted, and offers some guidelines around it. But notice that the focus of this case study is the prohibition against remarrying the woman’s first husband after another marriage had taken place.  
 
According to the law of Moses, the big problem here is treating marriage like a temporary, casual contract… something that can be entered into and out of on a whim, instead of a coming together of two lives with the intention at least of being each other’s ezer and sharing in a lifetime of loving fellowship.
 
And so Jesus responds to their test by pointing back to God’s intentions for humanity: for us to share together in a fellowship of love.
 
Mark 10:5-9, “Because of your hardness of heart [Moses] wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
 
God’s intentions are for us humans, His image bearers, to live together in loving community. Not only in marriages, but in all of our relationships. But Jesus also knows that we’re all a long way from Eden… that we are all a part of a world that has already fractured and fallen away from God’s good ways… and that this brokenness is present to a greater or lesser degree in all of our relationships.

We all know that sometimes marriages must end, and that some relationships do far more harm than good. But the way forward is not simply to settle for shallower connections that are easier and easier to end… but to remember that God’s heart from the beginning, has been to bring us together… to share in His fellowship and love in community.
 
We humans belong together! And this goes way beyond the bounds of marriage! Notice how Jesus rebuked His disciples who were attempting to keep kids away from Him.
 
Mark 10:14-16, “But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’  And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.”
 
Young and old, male and female, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile… politically left and right… whatever way you want to spin it, we humans, with all of our differences, were made to be together… to be an ezer for each other… to care for and bring order to God’s good world… and to share together in His loving fellowship.
 
Sadly, there are so many ways that we humans, that we Christians, have forgotten what the Gospel is all about… not arguing over authority and power, but proclaiming the Good News of Jesus, God’s Son, who set aside His own high status and power and glory to be our ezer… our helper… our Saviour… choosing to bind Himself to us lowly sinners… to suffer and to give His life as an all-sufficient sacrifice of love, atoning for the sins of the whole world… so that we all could be made holy, forgiven, and be reconciled to God and to one another forever.
 
The Good News of Jesus is not about fighting over the right way to organize our human families… it’s about all that the Living God has done in Jesus Christ to reunite us… to make us one in His family.
 
As we heard in our second reading from Hebrews 2:10-12,
“It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”
 
Because of Jesus Christ, all of us are able to share in God’s fellowship and love. He is our Saviour, our ezer, and in Him we all are made one again. Married or divorced, or widowed, or single… all of us have a place at His table. All of us are embraced by His welcoming arms, as beloved members of Christ’s family… reflecting God’s own character and goodness into the world through our lives together.
 
Some relationships aren’t within our power to resurrect. And full reconciliation in our world won’t come to pass until all things are made new when Christ returns. But as Christians living today in an ever increasingly divided and fractured world, our lives are meant to be characterized by reflecting Christ’s great reconciling love in all we do.
 
So with the help of the Holy Spirit at work in us, may we help one another to find new strength, and hope, and courage together as we seek to walk in the ways of God our Father, and our great Saviour Jesus Christ. May we share with one another the grace and compassion and forgiveness that He has offered to us all, and may we find new ways to share this Good News with everyone else in our lives. Amen.