In a culture where 50% of marriages end in divorce, it is extremely unlikely that anyone in this room has not been personally impacted by a broken marriage.  Perhaps you yourself have been divorced and remarried.  And or maybe your parents or children have divorced.  For my part, my mother had four children by her first husband, divorced, and remarried my father.  And my high school girlfriend, whom I did not marry, became pregnant and gave birth to my daughter Amy.  This slip up in the order of things hardly gives me room for pride when I report that I am the only one of the six kids in my family who has not been divorced. Thus, I come to this passage on Jesus and divorce with less than great credentials, and in as much need as anyone of God’s grace.

We also want to affirm the progress made toward women’s liberation, particularly the right of a woman to leave an oppressive and dangerous relationship, and freedom to utilize her God given intelligence and creativity in roles beyond her association with men.  And we want to affirm a niche in the social fabric for loving and committed same sex relationships, and, in good Christian tradition, for friendship and family bonds that extend beyond the kinship family unit.

It is on this note that we recognize that the teaching this morning from Jesus is somewhat of an aberration.  Rosemary Radford Ruether notes in Christianity and the Making of the Modern Family that the “Gospels present the Jesus movement as a gathering of mostly marginal men and women out of their families and occupations into a counter cultural community.”  In Luke we hear Jesus say, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brother and sisters, …he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)  Over and over scenes are played where Jesus and his disciples disregard their connection to patriarchal family and affirm relationship beyond it.  Staying true to the wisdom, justice and love of God is a higher obligation than the family.  Those who honor that higher obligation with you are your brothers and sisters:  “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother,” Jesus said, choosing not to leave those he was with to attend to his mother and siblings.  It may make for good reading, but far from being radical, the Da Vinci Code notion that the patriarchal culture of the Church oppressed the news of Jesus’ child, simply takes us back to the patriarchal notion that inclusion in the kingdom of God is determined by bloodline. In a radical departure from the notion that blood line determines social status, particularly royal jurisdiction, Jesus created a new family based on grace and obedience to God’s will, so that anyone, slave and free, male and female, Jew and Greek can become coheirs with Christ, kings and priests in the family of God.

Indeed the whole hierarchical structure of patriarchy was called into question by portions of the early Church to the degree that it became a threat and had to be reigned in.  Women, slaves and children were reminded that freedom in Christ didn’t mean rejection of their social obligations, at least not before the end times. 

In the context of our scripture passage, we note that first century Judean law made it easy for the male to divorce his wife and hard for the wife to divorce her husband.  A divorced woman then was often left in a precarious social position, especially if she were not taken back into her father’s house.  Jesus takes the issue from a question of what is legal, to a question of spirituality.  There is something fundamentally, archetypal, powerful and functional about the bond between a husband and wife.  It is not to be entered into lightly, or discarded with ease.

Being gracious, and leaving room for different relationships doesn’t mean we lower the ideal.  Just because we acknowledge both the reality of economic and social inequality, we don’t change the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.”  Call us hypocrites, but let us be conscious hypocrites, rather than lower our expectations to the point where no God calls us to a more righteous life.

I have read a report or two about polygamists who are arguing that their simultaneous relationships are better for children and society than the serial polygamy, the cycle of marriage, divorce and remarriage over and over, with fatherless children scattered all over.  They have a point here.  Also, they are arguing in court that if all are mutually consenting, then it should be allowed.  If our only moral guideline is mutual consent then it is tough to rule against them.  

Admittedly, I am in the beginning of a period of research on this topic but I risk a few educated guesses today.  In hunting and gathering societies, before the discovery of male participation in reproduction, it was likely that sex was relatively indiscriminate and that children, pregnant and nursing women were cared for by the entire clan.  Patriarchy, and Polygamy in particular likely arose first in pastoral societies who, due to the observation of their animals, discovered that semen from the male resulted in offspring.  It seemed natural, no doubt, that the powerful and dominant human male, would, like a bull, impregnate as many females as he could maintain control over.  More children meant an extension of power.  Such an understanding is prevalent in the ancient Middle East including Israel.  Saul, we remember, had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines.  His case is exceptional only in numbers.  The commandment against adultery is concerned not with the spiritual union between a man and a woman, but with the man’s property.  Polygamy is still common practice among the wealthy in Jesus day, though it appears to be losing ground to monogamy.  A loophole was divorce. The problem with polygamy, of course, is the human capacity for emotional connection (love) and our sense of justice.  First off, no doubt, was the sense of justice of the other males who were left without a mate, or forced to fight over or share the few left over (and thus were unable to distinguish who was the father).  The sharing of course, also came to be controlled by the bull male too, in the form of prostitution, where the powerful male controlled not who had the female, but who got the profit.

To the degree that we agree in principle that it is not right that one man have ten wives and another none, and more, that the woman is equally a human being and child of God, and, from a patriarchal point of view, that neither spiritual nor biological father should have to see their daughters raped, abused, or treated as chattel, and then finally, that women themselves are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and should have an equal part in the relationship, a sacred union between one woman and one man starts sounding like a word from God.

Still, it is quite understandable that portions of the feminist movement in the 1970s might reject the whole male problem altogether and begin to call for women to embrace a feminist separatist nationalism, imagining women creating a separate world for themselves. Ruether notes, “Following the tendency of the New Left culture to take every critical insight to its logical extreme as its highest and best meaning,” some lesbian feminists claimed the “ultimate way to separate oneself from all expressions of male domination was to reject ‘sleeping with the enemy.’”  (Ruether, p.148)

But, even with the amazing flexibility of the human mind, only a small portion of the population is inclined toward homosexuality, many heterosexual women and men hold aspirations for the feminist movement, and more lesbian women than not remained close to heterosexual men and women in their own families and work place, “and did not feel they needed to withdraw from the rest of humanity to affirm their identities” (Ruether p. 149). We also know that while there is less physical abuse and intimidation, same sex relationships are by no means free of inequality or unhealthy emotional dynamics.  Lesbians, it turn out, are in need of God’s grace too.

It is interesting to note that both before and after our passage on marriage and divorce, we find Jesus commenting on the importance of children.  Indeed he is extending both his and our concern for children beyond our connection to them from family ties; but it is precisely because of our concern and care for children that we should care about marriage.  The primary function and importance of marriage to society is the safety and nurture of children.

As important as the economic, sexual and reproductive liberation of women is, neither birth control nor abortion has prevented non-marital sexual intercourse and easy divorce from resulting in more women and children oppressed by poverty.  Too many of us men have a decreased sense of obligation and responsibility.  We turn the argument for independence around, and after you independently consent for sex, we leave you alone to receive support from The Man (i.e. the government) or to freely work at low wage jobs to pay for child care and put food in our children’s mouths.  Sex disconnected from spiritual and emotional connection and responsibility: the bull in man loves that idea!  Fortunately we are told that God created us, both men and women, in the image of God, and to be united together as one.  This union is the spiritual foundation of the family.

The evidence is overwhelming:  Children raised by both biological parents are much more likely to avoid crime, substance abuse, sexual abuse, premarital sexual activity, having children out of wedlock, poverty, and more likely to attain a good education, to not divorce, and to have better economic, physical and mental health.

The Progressive Policy Institute, the research arm of the Democratic Leadership Council, reports that the “relationship between crime and one-parent families” is “so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low-income and crime. This conclusion shows up time and again in the literature.” (Glen T. Stanton, In Why Marriage Matters for Children. 1993. family.org)

If independence is your highest goal, or if you feel called by God to radical commitment to the common good, do like Jesus and Paul and so many of the early Christian women and men: don’t get married or have children.  Having and raising children in marriage is never seen as the only or most important act in Christianity.  But if we choose to engage, it is serious, sacred business.  Honoring marriage is about honoring equality between men, between men and women, and about honoring the sacred value of our children.  It is true that women still suffer from inequality in the marital relationship.  We need to divorce the idea of life long commitment from eternity long inequality.  Still, freedom from the responsibility of marriage leaves far too many alone to care for children.  

Marriage and parenting will always involve sacrifice.  They involve saying no to some things in order to say yes to a higher good.  We say no to many partners to say yes to one.  We say no to many things so we can, with our spouse, say yes to our children.  We say no to many behaviors to say yes in a covenant with God (this is a paraphrase from Andrew Warner. Christian Century, Oct. 3, 2006). 

We have all been touched by divorce and broken homes.  Whether single, married, gay or straight, with children or without, we all come before God assured of grace through Jesus Christ. We are forgiven.  And called to support one another no matter what our state, and to commit ourselves to a future world filled with individual and social righteousness, with joyous togetherness, peace, justice and love.