The Rev. Carol Wedell
October 4, 2009

There is not one of us in this room who has not been impacted by it in some way.  The phone rings late at night and it is your daughter, sobbing hysterically.  Her husband has just announced that he doesn't love her anymore and is leaving.  You wonder how your three grandchildren will adapt to this sudden change in their lives.  And yet, a part of you has seen it coming.

You haven't heard from a good friend for a while.  Then the email arrives, "I'm sorry I've been out of contact.  I thought that Mary had actually given up the bottle for good.  She went through two treatment programs and was doing so well.  But a month ago I came home from work and found her passed out again.  The kids were fending for themselves in the family room.  I love her, but this can't go on.  It's not safe for the children, and I'm not sure I'm even helping her.  She's moved back in with her mother, and I'm learning how to be a single dad.  Please pray for us all."

A young mother walks into your office with her six month old baby.  Her eyes are rimmed red, and the dark circles under them almost make her look like a raccoon.  It's not hard to tell that she is barely holding it together.  She hasn't even sat down before the awful words poor out:  "he was having an affair the whole time I was pregnant!  I don't how to do this all on my own."  And they had looked like the perfect couple; no one saw it coming.

Your brother stops by the house.  He's just been exceptionally quiet lately.  Today he walks in, and slumps into a kitchen chair.  "She wants a divorce.  I thought things were fine, and then one day, out of the blue, she tells me that she is terribly unhappy.  She agrees to talk with our pastor.  I got my hopes up.  But all she really wanted to do was find a place to say it out loud. It's over.  She wants out. How am I going to be in my kid's lives like I am now?  I'm afraid I'll get cut out.  I couldn't stand that."

You know that their marriage is rocky.  You can sense the tension, hear the sarcasm.  You want to help, but don't know what to do.  You haven't really been told much - it's just something you can sense.  Then one day she pulls you aside and lifts up her long sleeves.  You see the bruises.  And all you want to know is how soon she can get out of there.

Divorce.  It's never pretty.  It's always painful.  As many as 1 in every 2 American marriages end in divorce.  Within our congregation at least 15 of us have been through a divorce.  Within our presbytery ten of my clergy colleagues have also been divorced.  Beyond the immediate family, friends, co-workers and even church congregations are impacted by the break up of that most sacred covenant.  And always, always, even when things are "amicable" the children, no matter what the age, pay a price.

Before we return to this morning's rather disturbing scripture reading, I want to remind you that I too am among those who have been divorced.  So I am pointing no fingers.  I struggled mightily with this passage this week, as I have every time I have read it.

I've also watched as couples sit in my office, the gap between them irreparable.  Almost always, they wait too long to seek assistance.  One or the other is emotionally or physically already "gone."  The marriage has actually been over for some time.  I've sat with the husband or wife whose spouse has been unfaithful.  I've seen the destruction that substance abuse or physical or verbal abuse can cause.  From where I sit there are times when divorce is the better of bad options.  It may offer the most opportunity for healing and wholeness for all involved.

So what to do with this morning's gospel reading? I have tried to say, "Well, Jesus was just exaggerating to make a point."  Or, "this was really a time-limited comment - it doesn't apply for today."  And to a degree, both are true.  Like cutting off a hand if it causes us to sin, Jesus does use hyperbole to make a point.  And the Jewish laws concerning divorce were totally biased in favor of the husband.  Jesus at least equals the playing field.

But I'm still uncomfortable.  Still not quite sure what to do with these harsh, pointed words.  This is a passage that many of my colleagues chose to avoid today - as I have in the past.  But precisely because it makes us so uncomfortable, because divorce is at epidemic proportions in our culture, because all of us have been touched in some way by the pain of divorce, we must deal with it. 

This week, my thanks go to Methodist bishop William Willimon whose sermon on this text gave me a whole new way to look at it.  And instead of bad news, instead of condemnation, it became a grace-filled text, truly good news for each and every one of us here today.

For while we as human beings may come to a point where getting out of  a relationship is all that we can do, that is never true about God.  Jesus is telling us quite clearly that God never gives up on a relationship.  Not one of us has done anything that will keep God's grace from pouring out upon us.

When Jesus is asked about divorce, he reminds his questioners of the Hebrew law that Moses gave.  Precisely because we are human, precisely because we do not have God's ability to hang in there no matter what, an out was given.  Hebrew law gave the husband a wide variety of reasons to divorce his wife.

But Jesus then reminds them that "it hasn't always been this way.  This is never what God intended."  In the beginning of creation, human beings were created for relationship.  Created to be together in covenanted love.

Jesus moves instantly to the children who have gathered about him.  The disciples are busy trying to get these irritating kids to leave, but Jesus stops them.  Jesus stooped down to their level, held out his arms and welcomed those whom the rest of the society had no time for, those who were likely viewed as a nuisance.  He hugged them and blessed them.  And then, to the utter shock of his disciples, who even now struggle to understand just what it means to follow Jesus, he tells them that it is precisely in folks like these young children that we see what the reign of God is all about. 

As God doesn't ever leave a relationship, God refuses to send these little ones away.  Quite the opposite, God tenderly holds these vulnerable small ones.  They are never, never refused the shelter of God's love.

Here is where Bishop Willimon helped me out.  To quote him, "We read this passage as applying to us: that is, we ought not to divorce; we ought to welcome little children.  But maybe we are seeing here the great difference between God and ourselves.  Maybe this is a scripture about God." ("Let the Little Ones Come Unto Me"; Pulpit Resource, Vol. 37, No. 4,  p 7).

Did you catch that?  When we read scripture, we always think that it is talking about the human condition.  But what if it isn't?  What if this is a text of grace, showing us how profoundly God loves each and every one of us?

We as human beings ordinarily mean well.  We intend to keep our promises.  Most of the time, at least, we try to be loving.  But as all of us know, the reality is that we often fail.  I have never met anyone who entered a marriage with the goal of divorce.  Even those of us who look back and know that it was the most grace-filled option in the long run, know that God's ideal, God's hope for us are relationships of integrity and love.

In the same way, we love our children. God knows that there isn't anything I wouldn't do for my own kids. Those of you who aren't parents yourselves care about the youth in our congregation, care about your nieces and nephews, about the sons and daughters of your good friends.  But who among us hasn't been pushed to the wall at some time and lost our temper, become frustrated, wished that for just a little while the children might "go away" so that we might have a moment of peace?  No, we aren't like Jesus.  Even when our hearts are open, we do not always welcome every child we meet.

And here is where today's reading is such good news:  God is not like us.  God's love doesn't reach the end of its rope, or run out of energy.  The same God who loves each one of us so profoundly, who desires that we be in loving, caring relationships, shows us again how limited we can be.  For Jesus shows us that God's love is not just for our own children, not just for the children we know, God's love is intended for every child:  the children in Cleveland whose parents are children themselves, the children in Pepper Pike whose parents are too busy with their own lives, the children in Russia, who live in orphanages, waiting, hoping for even one loving visitor.  Those of us who follow Jesus are asked to do what he does:  love every child as our own.

As ordinary people, we know that there are limitations to the love we offer.  We don't always have the ability to stay in relationship, especially when it's tough.  That's true.  But what this reading is telling us is an even greater truth:  God's love has no limits.  All we need to do is remember that even in this reading, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, on his way to the cross, showing us just how limitless God's love is.

And on the way, Jesus stops to teach us what it means to follow him.  As always, the bar is set very high.  And as always, we don't measure up.  But the good news, is that our inability to reach that bar is never enough to keep God's love from us.  In spite of our failures, in spite of our inabilities, God's love knows no limits.  Where we cannot, God can.

One of my online colleagues told the following story.  She writes,

One of my favorite Polaroid pictures of my Grandmother Lazenby captured a moment of a child coming to her with great expectation.  My brother Steve was 3 at the time, very small for his age.  My grandmother was tall and stately.  Every time we visited, Steve would approach Grandmomma, cup his hands together holding them out to her and close his eyes.  Always, Grandmomma broke into a wonderful smile. She would bend down and place something into his tiny hands.  He would open his eyes and JOY would sweep across his face.  This moment, with a child looking into his cupped hands and a grandmother looking into his face is what the picture captured.

She then tells of a very challenging weekend, where the strain of keeping relationships together was exhausting, where like our reading from the psalm, she attempted to "walk with integrity.  She concludes:

But time and time again, as my shoulders began to slump, as my head began to lower, as I had to pull a carefully-thrown dart or two out my heart, I found myself becoming as a child.  I heard the words of Jesus ... "Let the little children come to me..."  Yes, over and over again, I approached Jesus as if approaching the Table.  I felt as tiny as Steve was in that Polaroid picture.  In my neediness, I felt as if I was also cupping my hands and closing my eyes with anticipation that God might lean down, lovingly smile at me and fill my hands with what I most needed for that moment.  And God did ... each and every time.  It is not in the strength of the person where integrity is found; it is placed within by the trust of a child.

Friends, as we come to the table this morning with God's children all over the world, we come with our hands open, waiting to receive the grace and love that we all so desperately need - and that God is longing to give us.