One of the good things about working through a book of the Bible in a systematic way is that you're forced to deal with the difficult issues as well as with the more pleasant ones. Of course that's also a drawback, because the difficult issues are usually just that - difficult to deal with. That's certainly so today. The issue of divorce and remarriage is one that affects many if not most of the congregation in one way or another. Even if we haven't experienced it ourselves, there aren't many of us these days who don't have friends or relations who are divorced and possibly remarried. So these words of Jesus in this passage from Mark 10 are important ones for us to deal with. When I planned this series earlier in the year I was going to look at the three issues of marriage, children and possessions, that come up in this passage, but I've decided that the issue of divorce is plenty for one sermon.
	So what can we say about these verses? Well, the place to start I think is to recognise that Jesus, here, isn't responding to a needy case. He isn't confronted by someone whose marriage is in tatters and who doesn't know what to do about it. Rather he's answering a question put to him by the Pharisees who have come to test him, to catch him out with a controversial question. Now it's controversial on two fronts. First of all, within the Jewish community there were two widely differing points of view: The school of Shammai, one of the leading teachers among the strict Pharisees, said that divorce was only allowed in the case of adultery. On the other hand, Hillel, a liberal Jew, argued that almost any area of dissatisfaction was grounds for a man to divorce his wife. So if she burned the peas, or didn't put the right amount of starch in his favourite shirt, he could simply write her a bill of divorce and that was it.
	But it was also a political issue. You may remember that back in chapter 6 John the Baptist lost his head for criticising Herod for marrying the divorced wife of his own brother. So possibly the Pharisees were hoping that Jesus would speak against divorce and suffer the same sort of retribution that John suffered.
	But notice how Jesus responds. First he points them back to the Scriptures. "What did Moses command you?" They answer, Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send his wife away. But lets have a look at the passage they're referring to: (Deut 24:1-4) "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 2and goes off to become another man's wife. 3Then 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); 4her 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 point of this provision is to stop men treating their wives as chattels, things to be taken up and discarded as the mood took them. It was to reinforce the importance of the marriage bond rather than to weaken it. But the Pharisees took it to mean that divorce was all right. All you had to do was to give your wife a piece of paper that said "I divorce you" and that was it. It seemed like a very satisfactory arrangement - at least in the eyes of the men of the time.
	Well, Jesus explains that this provision was only made because of their hardness of heart. But they'd taken it to be a norm. In fact some had taken it as a rule. That is, if your wife did something that you could construe as immoral you had a duty to divorce her. It's the same as if you thought that the road law that says if you drive at 90kmh you'll be fined $160, means that this is the norm, so whenever you're out on a suburban road you should do 90kmh and wait for a policeman to pull you over so you can pay your fine. No, this is a law that allows for peoples' hardness of heart. That is, the fact that we're sinful, unable to do what God wants of us in any consistent way.
	You see, the problem is that they've failed to understand the priorities that God has for human beings. So he points them further back in the writings of Moses. One wonders in fact if this is what he actually had in mind when he asked them what Moses taught, remembering that Genesis was also thought of as part of the writings of Moses. He quotes Gen 1 and 2 to them. "God made them male and female." 7"For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8and the two shall become one flesh." So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
	Notice, by the way, that they come to him to talk about divorce and he talks to them about marriage. That's a useful pastoral hint isn't it? When people talk about things breaking down, we can talk about how God builds things up. He wants them to see that God's original intention for people isn't undone by the provision for divorce, even if people are hard of heart. Rather, God's intention is that marriages will survive.
	What does it mean that the two shall become one flesh? Well, I don't think this is referring simply to the sexual union of marriage. Rather the term one flesh is used more commonly in the Scriptures to refer to the idea of family, kin, or community. So Laban refers to Jacob as "my bone and my flesh". Similarly David refers to the elders of Judah as "my bone and my flesh". So the idea of becoming one flesh has to do with forming a new community independent of their parents, a community, what's more, that's held together by bonds that can't be broken. Some people make the mistake of reading this as meaning that when they get married they lose their independent identities and end up with just one identity. So they can't do anything without the other partner taking part. They can't develop their own interests unless their partner is interested in that thing as well. Or they feel they have to go along with their partner in whatever interests they have. I prepared a couple for marriage last year and he was into restoring Ford Mustangs. He was a member of the Mustang Owners Club and so she used to go along with him to their meetings and sit in the back row and watch, and I got the distinct feeling that she could think of a whole lot of other things she'd rather do with her time. But she thought they should do things together if they were to become one flesh. Well, that's a commendable attitude, but I'm not sure it's very realistic and it certainly doesn't come out of this theology of one flesh. Rather married couples are to be two individuals who form a community unit, who are bound together by a kin relationship, a relationship that God means to be indissoluble. The term Jesus uses for joined is the term yoked. Now some people may feel like the yoke of marriage is a great burden, but it may also be a great help. A yoke, of course is used to bind two animals together so they can pull as a team, and while they work as a team the yoke actually helps them, making the load easier to bear. But I think what often happens in marriages that are having difficulties, is that one partner or the other, if not both, so dislikes being yoked together with the other partner that they expend all their energy trying to pull away from the yoke rather than working out how they can join forces to do their work as a couple. And all that does is to destroy the yoke and, as often as not, the two people in the process.
	So Jesus concludes, what God has joined together, let no one separate. Again, he's addressing those Pharisees who were only too happy to condone divorce if it was convenient for them. He says don't go for the easy divorce. God is the maker of every marriage, and his will is for marriages to survive. This is a word for us today as well I think, when the process of divorce has been made as simple as possible. Don't think, just because the law has simplified the process, that it's an easy option, an easy way out of a difficult marriage.
	So what we find here so far is that God's allowance for human failing, for our hardness of heart, doesn't denote a norm. Rather God's priority is to favour marriage over divorce. Secondly, God is the agent of marriage. Men and women were made for marriage from the beginning and that means forming a community which has bonds which are meant to be indissoluble.
	Now if we were to take these next few verses at face value, we'd have a clear and definitive answer to the question of remarriage. Obviously it's out of the question. But we need to look further. Again we have to remember that Jesus is addressing people who come out of a culture where easy divorce was the norm. And so what he's doing is providing a balance to the almost flippant attitude of the Pharisees to the marriage bond. And as always we need to let Scripture interpret Scripture. So in Matthew 5:31-32 and 19:9, Jesus allows for divorce on the basis of immorality or unfaithfulness on the part of the spouse. Similarly in 1 Cor 7 Paul says that if an unbeliever leaves his or her spouse, the spouse is no longer bound to that person. So there are cases where divorce and remarriage are allowed, because of people's hardness of heart.
	So marriage is good. Marriage is permanent. But sadly, the church isn't made up of impeccable saints. All of us are fallen creatures, all of us are sinful and hard of heart. All of us depend for our salvation on God's grace and forgiveness. And that's equally true in the area of marriage. Where our hardness of heart has affected our marriage, whether that effect has been terminal or simply hurtful, we need to turn to God in repentance and ask for his forgiveness. We most probably also need to ask for the forgiveness of our spouse. On the other side we need to be prepared to forgive our spouse. Some people make the mistake of thinking that unfaithfulness by their partner means the end of their marriage. But that's to overlook the possibility of forgiveness, assuming that there's real repentance there. Not that that will be without cost. God's forgiveness of us was at great cost, and so we can expect that we will pay a cost when we're called to forgive others. That's particularly so when a marriage partner has been unfaithful. But it's God's desire that marriages will survive. It's God's desire that Christians will repent of their sins and that Christians will forgive one another. I'll speak another time about the need to be tough in order to love, when a marriage partner is unrepentant, but right now I'm talking about the time when there's a real repentance and desire to make amends. Then we need to remember that marriage is a gift of God, and that if it's difficult, we can ask him to sustain it. If marriage is God's gift, then marriage is recoverable. We also need to remember that if marriage is God's gift, then we may need to look outside of ourselves to help it along, because many of God's gifts come to us from people outside ourselves. Too many people think they have to work on their marriage on their own. They think it's a two way partnership, when in fact it's a three way partnership. And in a three way partnership where God is the third partner, we'd be foolish to look elsewhere but to him for the strength to make the partnership work, wouldn't we?
	Well, where does that leave us? God's priority is for marriage over divorce. Marriage is God's gift, so he has an interest in maintaining it. So what do we do when we find that being married is difficult.
	Well, you don't think of divorce as an easy option. You don't fantasise about freedom. If that's your temptation, just ask someone who's single. Don't look for emotional support outside your marriage from someone of the opposite sex. If you need emotional support make sure you only go to someone of the same sex, even if you're an Aussie male and that's a difficult thing to do.
	If you think your marriage is dead, then believe that God can revive it. God is the God of resurrection. If you both believe it and ask God to do it then he will. That may involve him bringing about some changes in the two of you, but it can be done.
	If you're someone who's been divorced you may look back on your marriage with differing sorts of feelings. Some may have only regrets, some may remember pain, some may hold grudges. For you the important thing to remember is that God is the God of the present. If you have things that you feel responsible for, then ask him for his forgiveness, and receive that forgiveness. If you regret the loss of your marriage make sure you value God more than that marriage.
	If you're single, then value your friends' marriages. Do all you can to reinforce their commitment to one another. Don't undermine other peoples marriages. Don't flaunt your freedom before them. And make sure that you don't under any circumstance occasion a divorce.
	Finally, if you're divorced and are planning to remarry, or have already remarried, then make sure you've learnt from the mistakes of your previous marriage. Don't make the mistake of thinking you won't make the same mistakes again. //
	So what do we learn from this part of the gospel about marriage and divorce? Well, God allows it because of our weakness, but God doesn't order it, nor desire it. Repentance and forgiveness are possible. Marriage is a gift of God and God is a God of new beginnings. So work hard on your marriage. If you've come to a rocky part of the path of marriage then ask God to help you over it. And let's never think that we're safe. This is an emotional subject and that means that it's a dangerous subject, because we're always more vulnerable where our emotions are concerned. So we need to ask God to strengthen all of us, because we all have a part to play in maintaining strong Christian marriages.
	I'm going to pray in a moment but first I'm going to leave a pause for each one of us to pray that God would give us the strength to do our bit either in our own marriage or in helping our friends maintain their marriages.

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