# Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost October 10, 2024 - [ Blog ](/news-categories/blog) *By the Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Ph.D ’13 Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in the Faculty of Divinity Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church* *(The following is a transcript of the service audio, Oct. 6, 2024)* So, to begin, I've said this a couple of times so far this term, but I just want to remind everyone that I did not choose these readings for today. We share a schedule of readings with most Protestant churches, and this is what I have for you this morning. I'll also say that I teach preaching here at Harvard. I have some former and current students in that preaching class here today, and one of the things that I tell students in that class is that if there is something in the lesson which sounds off-putting, or unsettling, or just plain wrong, you have to talk about it. Because if you don't talk about it, it doesn't matter what you say, the only thing people will remember is that you didn't talk about it. And the only thing they'll think is that maybe you're not a person to talk to about hard things. So, you can bet what I'm going to talk about or try to talk about this morning. I actually want to talk about the Mark lesson and Jesus' teaching on divorce. Are all those things, at least to me, off-putting, unsettling, and wrong? And I want to talk about that. But also, Job is complicated and difficult for lots of reasons, but there's that line at the end too, when Job, his rebuke to his wife, he says, "You speak like any foolish woman." It's not just the teaching on divorce that we need to run, that I, as a preacher, need to run towards today. It's thousands of years of misogyny and patriarchy in our tradition. And I actually think that that is what Jesus is speaking to. And I actually think that in His exchange with the Pharisees today, He is trying to speak to that, and speak back against that misogynistic tone in Job. And I preached on this lesson three years ago, and I'll say now what I said then; I don't think that Jesus is condemning divorce in this passage. That seems ridiculous to say on its face. But I don't think we can read this reading so simply. I don't think this is just a simple kind of embrace of something, like what we would in today's politics call family values. And I'll say more about that in a minute. But another one reason why we will hear next week, in next week's lesson, when Jesus is going to tell these same people, "Whoever does not leave his family behind for the sake of Him will not be welcome in His kingdom." So, there's no simple family values lesson going on here. Something more complicated is going on here, and I think that's what Jesus, in fact, is pointing to despite this passage's reception in Christian history. So, let me give you two pieces of context for why I am going to try to say that this morning. The first is the circumstance of this question that the Pharisees bring to Jesus. The Pharisees are sort of a rival group to Jesus. Different gospels read them differently. Sometimes they're demonized in worrisome ways. But in many ways, the Pharisees taught things that were very similar to what Jesus taught at that time, and now they are coming to Him with this question. And in the circumstance of the Gospel of Mark, something important has just happened a couple of chapters ago. And what has just happened is that John the Baptist has been beheaded. And the reason John the Baptist has been beheaded is because he condemned King Herod for divorcing his wife. So, this is the context in which the Pharisees asked this question. This prophet, this predecessor, this forerunner of Jesus, has just been executed for condemning the king for divorce. And they come to Jesus and say, "Can a man divorce his wife?" I'm not sure it's a trick question, but it's a tricky question. A question the answer to which could get Jesus in a significant amount of trouble. –– Embed [Harvard Memorial Church](https://soundcloud.com/memorial-church "Harvard Memorial Church") · [The Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts Ph.D. - Oct. 6, 2024 | Sunday Sermon](https://soundcloud.com/memorial-church/the-rev-matthew-ichihashi-potts-phd-oct-6-2024-sunday-sermon "The Rev. Matthew Ichihashi Potts Ph.D. - Oct. 6, 2024 | Sunday Sermon") –– Now, the other piece of context here is broader, it's more historical, it's less to the particular narrative of what's going on in the Gospel of Mark. The other piece of context is that in the ancient world, in Jesus' time, divorce was acceptable. There were disputes, different schools about under what circumstances it was acceptable, what sort of procedures had to be followed before a man could divorce his wife, but it was broadly accepted. And really, they're trying to ask Him not whether a man can divorce his wife, but what procedures should be in place. It's a dispute about the rules. But again, there's some context here, that the 2,000 years between us and them obscures, which is that the word in Greek, there's no word for divorce in Greek. The English word "divorce" connotes something like separation or division. The Greek word here translates into English as dismiss. When should a man dismiss his wife? This is the same word that Jesus uses when He dismisses the crowds or dismisses His disciples. And that gets closer to the question these men are asking Jesus. Because in the ancient world, in ancient Judaism, only men could initiate divorce. Couples did not divorce one another. Men sent women away; men dismissed women. Marriage, at that time, was not primarily about love or the complexities of love. It was about what men could claim as their own. Now, this doesn't mean that people didn't fall in love. Of course, they did. It doesn't mean that married people weren't in love. Of course, they were. It's just not why marriage contracts were typically written. In this patriarchal culture, it was about what belonged to which men. It wasn't why contracts were written, and it also wasn't why marriage contracts were broken. It wasn't why women were often dismissed. And when they were dismissed because it was a patriarchal culture, many of these women would become essentially homeless. So, this is what's at stake contextually in the question. This is the question the men are asking Jesus. When is it right? When is it appropriate? And what should the procedure be for a man to dismiss his wife? So, this is the problem with the question. They have made this situation into an abstraction, a thought experiment. And what that thought experiment obscures, both then and now, is the complexity and the suffering implied in the way these rules are applied. When they ask Jesus this question, their goal is not actually to get a real answer about the rights and responsibilities of men, let alone to get a real answer about the dignities of women. And even less are they trying to get a real answer about the complexity, and possibly the sanctity, of married life. It's a thought experiment. "Let's see what He'll say about this weird political thing that's going on with Herod." And Jesus knows that's what it is. And He knows that, in asking it that way, they are covering over all this human suffering, then and now. They say to Him, and that's why He responds in this incredibly concrete and accusatory way to them; they say to Him, "Hypothetically, when should a hypothetical man divorce his hypothetical wife?" And Jesus immediately puts it in the second person. "What did Moses say to you?" And they want to revert back to the abstract. They say, "Moses says, 'When a man...'" And He's like, "No, he was talking to you. I am talking to you. This is not a thought experiment. It's about concrete human beings, people in the complexity and the suffering of their actual lives." And to make it concrete, as a rejoinder to this abstract question, Jesus takes up a child and holds it in front of them. This also is a breach of the rules. Children were not invited to these kinds of conversations. This is where important men were discussing important things, like God and religion and laws. And the disciples said, "Children have no place here." But Jesus says, "No, they do." He lifts up the child into the midst of them. Because these children, He realizes, are not theological questions, not theological problems. They're concrete humans. There are no more theological problems or abstractions than the women of first-century Judea were. Each of them human, each of them beloved, each of them made in the indelible image of God. And I think this, actually, this sense that every single one of them, the children and the women too, were made in the indelible image of God. This is why Jesus turns back to the Adam and Eve story. He doesn't lift up Adam and Eve as a proof text against divorce, but because through them, we can see that every human, any human, even and especially the human you seek to dismiss or to disdain, that human being is bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, just as Adam and Eve were one of another. They are not metaphors for any single matrimony. Rather, they represent the bonds of our common humanity. Since the beginning of creation, Jesus says, all of us have been bound one to another. All of us belonged to one another. We are part of one human family. And that's why, if Jesus will say next week, as He will, "Turn away from your family for the sake of the kingdom of God", it's because all in the kingdom of God deserve a love as deep and as lasting as the one that we offer those closest to us. In God's kingdom, no one should be dismissed into oblivion. In God's kingdom, no one should be renounced with indifference. Even if you have the power to do so, even if you follow all the right rules while doing so, even when all the old rules are on your side, there is no justification for treating bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, any other human person, with this kind of disdain. This is what Jesus is saying to His questioners. The woman you men are figuring out how to cast off? She is herself made in the image of God. And so you need to treat her that way. As a physical, as a public, as a material rejoinder to these men and their questions, to His own disciples, Jesus takes up and blesses a child. And to conclude, and I think to kind of sum up this teaching, He also gives a final teaching as He blesses this child and holds it before them. In response to all these questions they have been asking Him, He says to them, "Receive the kingdom of God as a child." Now, there are two possible readings in English for what that could mean. "Receive the kingdom of God as a child." And interestingly, in Greek grammar, the same double meaning exists. One possible reading for this, "receive the kingdom of God as a child" would be like, "Oh, I should be like a child when I receive the kingdom of God. I should have a childlike faith." And maybe that's the reading. But given what Jesus has done, I don't think that's what's happened. Because what Jesus has just done is He has just received a child. I think the actual reading here is, "Receive the kingdom of God, because it will come to you as a child." In the form of a child. In other words, it will come to you as one vulnerable and in need of your protection and your blessing, which is what Jesus offers the children He sees. If you look for the kingdom, if you seek the kingdom, Jesus says, then look for the outcast and rejected. That is where the kingdom will be, and you'll be received into it when you receive them. We Christians have been seeking God's kingdom for 2,000 years. We've been looking for it high and low. We've been trying to find it. And as we have tried to find it, we've been using all our best rules for righteousness. As we have sought God's kingdom, we have imposed all our rigid pieties upon people already burdened with oppression and exclusion, and pain. Women, yes, but also children, queer people, trans people, all sorts of folks who don't fit the rules we imagine that we must enforce. All of whom we turn away. Meanwhile, God's kingdom has been everywhere around us all the time. Waiting among those lost and rejected and defenseless people. Waiting for nothing more than for us to be like Jesus, and to welcome them with our protection and our blessing. #### **Full Service Video** See also:- [ Pusey Minister ](/blog-categories/pusey-minister) - [ Sunday Service ](/archive/sunday-service) - [ Sermon ](/archive/sermons) - [ Matthew Ichihashi Potts ](/media-archive/matthew-ichihashi-potts) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)