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You cannot be serious!                        Mark 10: 2-16                   October 4, 2009

"You cannot be serious!"

That exclamation will forever be identified with tennis great John McEnroe. And for good reason. Despite the fact that he is arguably one of the greatest players of all time, one who has 77 career singles titles and countless more in doubles, it is the image of him barking "You cannot be serious!" at a linesman or umpire, as he argues over a ball called "out" that first comes to mind whenever McEnroe's name comes up. So much so that the instant replay video system used by CBS and others to review disputed line calls during major tournaments is actually called the "Mac Cam."

Johnny Mac, as tennis insiders often call him, at age 50 is no longer playing on the ATP tournament circuit. He is perhaps the best tennis commentator in the business, however, and over the years he has grown comfortable with the "You cannot be serious!" exclamation. It is, after all, the title of his bestselling autobiography and, most recently, the centerpiece of his recent television ad for National Car Rental.

While I always rooted for his chief rival, Jimmy Connors, when each was at the top of his game, I have come to really like McEnroe as he has aged. Mostly, it's because he manages to combine his passion for the sport and his legendary intensity with a genuine sense of humor.

But I also like John McEnroe because he is candid to a fault and because he is never afraid to question a call.

It doesn't matter if the call is made by a linesman or by the umpire - the guy sitting up in the chair at the side of the court, whose word is final - he doesn't have the slightest hesitation about looking him in the face and saying, "You cannot be serious!"

The reason I admire that trait in John McEnroe is because I believe that it is one that God wants us, as children of God, to have; in life, in matters of faith and - in particular - in regard to the interpretation of Scripture.

There are times, you see, when we read a passage from the Bible and our reaction is much like McEnroe's. We find ourselves looking up at God - the ultimate Umpire - and thinking, "You cannot be serious!" And I believe that attitude is perfectly OK.

Today's Gospel Lesson includes one of those passages. It's one of those words of Jesus that, at times, I wish he hadn't ever said.

The passage begins with Jesus having a conversation with his favorite adversaries - the Pharisees. As usual, they are trying to test him - to trap him into saying something he will eventually regret.

"Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" they ask Jesus, who responds, as he so often does, not with an answer, but with another question. "What did Moses command you?" he asks them in return.

When the Pharisees respond to Jesus' question by reciting the law that allows a man to issue his wife a certificate of divorce, Jesus tells them that Moses allowed such a practice because their hearts were hard, and then tells them that no man and woman should separate, once they are married.

"From the beginning of creation," Jesus quotes, "God made them male and female, and for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate."

Sometimes I wish Mark's account of Jesus' teaching stopped right there. But it doesn't. Jesus follows his exchange with the Pharisees, Mark tells us, with a private conversation with his Disciples.

And in this more intimate setting, Jesus says, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she [too] commits adultery."

You cannot be serious, Jesus! You cannot possibly be issuing an absolute ban on divorce. Can you?

There are three possible responses to this difficult saying of Jesus. On one extreme, we can take it literally and argue that divorce may never be permitted, under any circumstances. Period. Full stop. Some churches, as you know, have done that very thing.

On the other extreme, we can simply ignore this saying, pretend it isn't there and move on to the much more pleasant concluding section of our Gospel Lesson for today - the part about the children. "Let the little children come unto me," after all, is a much more uplifting text than "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her."

My choice is to reject both of those extremes. Rather, I propose we question Jesus' call about divorce, confront the text and see if we can make some sense of it.

First, let's remember that marriage, in Jesus' time, wasn't the sort of relationship we take for granted today. It wasn't two people falling in love and deciding to create a new family together. Marriage was a contract between two sets of parents and their families: the woman's family literally gave her away to bear a new generation of children for the husband's family.

So Jewish men, according to the Law, were permitted to receive a certificate of divorce from the authorities and remove their wives from their homes if they were dissatisfied with them for any cause. And when that happened, the divorced woman would most likely become homeless and would often be forced into a life of prostitution to sustain herself, while the man simply moved on and married someone else.

When Jesus tells the Pharisees that the problem is their hard heartedness and that women should not be treated like any other possession but rather that, in marriage, God desires that two people become one, he is standing, as he always does, on the side of the victim. He is willing, as usual, to turn society's accepted norm on its end in favor of God's norm.

To put it simply, Jesus tells the Pharisees how they should interpret the Scriptures. "Moses only allowed divorce in the first place," he tells them, "because of your hardness of heart."

In other words, Jesus tells the Pharisees that the thing that matters, in the end, is love. That is God's norm. Always was, and always will be. And our interpretation of Scripture should always be measured against that standard.

When God created marriage, Jesus says, God created something good; men can't just use it for their human convenience and then discard it when a better match or a better family alliance comes along.

In the end, Jesus was serious after all. He established lifelong marriage as an ideal. As the will of God for every couple. But he also reminded his listeners - and reminds us today - that love - the opposite of what he describes as "hardness of heart" - love is the ultimate ideal.

This loving ideal is what caused Jesus to submit to the cross. It is the ideal that allows us to recognize with compassion that sometimes relationships die. And recognize that when relationships die, sometimes the loving thing is to ask for forgiveness and move on - hopefully to love again.

When we look at marriage, at the serious words of Jesus and at our limitless capacity for hardness of heart, we see our need for a Savior.

As we gather around this table this morning, may we be glad that we have one.

                                                                             AMEN

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