Hey, welcome back here to The Semi Seminarian.
I'm your old brother, your old buddy, Pastor
Jim, coming to you through the late night static
with a word for the ones who've run out of easy
answers. Most preachers swerve around this passage
like it is a pothole, but not tonight. We're
heading straight through it. This episode's called
Love May Quit, But God Won't, Jesus and Divorce.
It's not about finger pointing or moral score
keeping. It's about what happens when forever
falls apart and grace still shows up anyway.
When the paperwork's done but the ache won't
quit. When a love you promised walked away but
the love that made you doesn't. So lean in close
let's go find Jesus on that dusty road where
the Pharisees came to trap him but he came to
tell the truth about mercy. I'll see you on the
other side. Like I had mentioned 12 years, lots
of sermons, lots of gimmicks, lots of bad jokes,
and lots of something else too. Running from
the hard parts of the Bible. Because preaching
on those hard parts requires trust on both of
our parts. Trust in you that you'll hear what
I say and what I don't say. I trust that you'll
trust me to challenge. Maybe, maybe something
that you believed about the Bible and you've
believed it that way for your whole life. But
I trust that you'll trust me to maybe give you
something to think about. when you think about
what you think about that part of the Bible.
And that type of trust between us takes time.
It requires relationship. And I think that's
why most preachers don't preach on the hard parts
of the Bible. Because they don't trust themselves
to do it. They don't trust themselves to be able
to form that relationship between you and I.
And so, they just avoid the hard parts of the
Bible. Well, on this Pastor Appreciation Sunday,
I want to demonstrate to you how much I trust
you. Because today's topic is on D -I -V -O -R
-C -E. The morning sun is just beginning to rise
on the ridges of Judea. The air carries a faint
chill that lingers before the desert begins to
warm. Jesus and his disciples are walking south,
down through the dusty roads between Capernaum
and the Jordan. The crowd trails behind them,
farmers with dirt under their nails, mothers
clutching the hands of sleepy children. Men who
left their nets just long enough to see what
he might say today. There's a stillness in the
air that's not quite peace. It's anticipation.
Up ahead, beneath a fig tree heavy with green
fruit, a cluster of Pharisees waits. They've
been watching him waiting for a moment just like
this when the teacher is surrounded by people
too poor, too hopeful to know that their hearts
are about to become someone else's argument.
The dust hangs low and the wind curls around
them carrying the murmurs of the crowd and the
smell of the Jordan just beyond the next hill.
Jesus slows his pace, looks at their faces. You
can almost see the question forming before it
is ever spoken. Before we lean in to listen,
let us quiet the noise that followed us in here.
Let the dust settle in your souls. The question
that waits beneath this story isn't about rules,
it's about hearts that break. And a God who refuses
to walk away even when we do. So, friends, breathe
deep. Let your spirit listen, not for defense,
but for invitation. Hear the ancient air move
again through this holy conversation. The Word
waits for us along the road. The reading this
morning Mark chapter 10 beginning with one He
left that place and he went to the region of
Judea and beyond the Jordan and crowds Gathering
around him and as was his custom. He again taught
them Some Pharisees came to test him and they
asked him. Is it lawful for a man to divorce
his wife? He answered them What did Moses command
you? It said Moses allowed a man to write a certificate
of dismissal and to divorce her. But Jesus said
to them, because of your hardness of heart, he
wrote that commandment for you. But from the
beginning of creation, God made them male and
female. For this reason, a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his wife.
The two shall become one flesh. So they are no
longer two but one flesh Therefore what God has
joined together let no one separate Then in the
house the disciples asked him again about this
matter. He said to them Whoever divorces his
wife and marries another commits adultery against
her and if she divorces her husband and marries
another she commits adultery Friends, the word
is spoken not to bind us, but to beckon us, not
to build a wall, but to uncover what still aches
for healing. These words are as ancient as the
dust, as an alive as your next breath. So may
we hear them not as verdict, but as a vow that
even in our breaking God remains. The ground
beneath us is holy, still warm from his footsteps.
Thus begins the story that waits for us on the
road. It's early morning on that road south to
Capernaum. The air is still cool enough to smell
the sea. The fishermen are mending nets and the
sound of them working, the pull and knot. The
pull and knot keeps time with the breeze off
of Galilee. You can see Jesus a few steps ahead
of the crowd, walking slow, letting them catch
up. A group of Pharisees waits near the shade
of a fig tree and you can feel the air change
before they even speak. Every question they ask
him has a hook hidden somewhere in it and he
knows it. They ask about divorce this time. Not
because they care about marriage, but because
they are looking for leverage. You know the tone?
They're not asking to learn, they're asking to
trap. Maybe you've been on the receiving end
of a question like that. The kind that's already
decided what it thinks about you before you ever
even open your mouth. Maybe you can still remember
how it felt to be turned into somebody else's
object lesson. Jesus doesn't argue. He doesn't
bristle or perform. He does something quieter,
something truer. He crouches down and he draws
a line in the dust between them. Like he's saying,
you can ask me about the law, but I'm going to
talk about the heart. When he finally looks up,
it's the same expression you've seen before in
his stories, the one that sees through the pretense
and the pain. And he says, because of the hardness
of your hearts, Moses wrote you this commandment.
But from the beginning of creation, God made
them male and female. Therefore, a man shall
leave his father and mother and be joined to
his wife. Two shall become one flesh so they
are no longer two but one flesh therefore What
God is joined together let no one separate and
the crowd shifts Some look down some nod some
whisper But he didn't just answer the question
they had asked He answered the one they didn't
dare say out loud What do we do? with what's
already broken. You don't need me to tell you
this. There are some verses of the Bible carry
the weight of real lives behind them. This is
one of them. If you have ever sat in a lawyer's
office staring at a stack of papers that used
to be your vows, Or if you have ever lain awake
at night replaying all the things you had said
wrong or the things you couldn't say at all,
you already know this isn't theory. This is heartbreak
with a legal name. And maybe you've heard this
passage used as a gavel and not a gospel. Maybe
someone stood behind a pulpit and said, God hates
divorce. as if that settled everything. They
probably forgot to mention that Malachi says
God hates the violence that leads to divorce,
not the person surviving it. They forgot that
the same God who hates sin also kneels beside
sinners, scribbling mercy into the dust. You
know the ache. But that kind of preaching leaves
behind. It's the ache of the person who stayed
too long or the one who left too soon. It's the
ache of the one who kept trying and the one who
couldn't try anymore. It's the ache of the child
who watched two worlds split and had to learn
to carry both names in the same heart. Maybe
you've wondered, if marriage was meant to be
forever, what happens when forever walks out
the door? What happens when love breaks but grace
doesn't? What happens when the covenant feels
one -sided and heaven seems quiet? You start
to wonder if you're even whole, or if the fracture
in your life somehow disqualifies you from the
kingdom. Jesus knew that ache. He wasn't giving
the Pharisees a rule book, he was revealing their
blindness. Because of the hardness of your hearts,
he said. And that phrase doesn't mean moral failure,
it means spiritual scar tissue. It's what happens
when love becomes bruised too many times to stay
tender And maybe that's what he's naming that
day The way that we harden to protect ourselves
and in the process Lose the softness that made
us human in the first place It helps to understand
what that question meant in his time. Because
in first century Judea, only men could initiate
divorce. All it took was a written notice, a
certificate of dismissal. And the woman was out.
No property, no income, no protection. She might
return to her father's house if he would take
her. Otherwise, she'd beg or have to remarry
for survival. Divorce wasn't mutual heartbreak.
It was social exile. So when Jesus says whoever
divorces his wife and marries another commits
adultery against her, he isn't tightening the
law. He's flipping the script. in a culture where
men couldn't technically commit adultery against
their wives. He names it plainly. If you abandon
her, if you discard her, you sin against her,
not just before God. In other words, the law
might let you walk away clean, but grace won't
allow you to walk away cruel. And you don't need
me to tell you this. But Jesus wasn't out to
shame the divorced. He was out to protect the
discarded. He was standing between power and
pain, saying to every woman who had been written
off, you are not disposable. You are not property.
You're mine. The Pharisees heard that and they
thought he was raising the moral bar. The brokenhearted
heard it and realized he was lowering a wall
that kept them out. And that's how the gospel
works. It sounds hard to the proud and healing
to the humble. And maybe you've noticed that
in your own lives. Grace will wreck your categories
before it restores your heart. It'll make you
see that sin isn't always rebellion, sometimes
it's just despair. And the cure for despair isn't
condemnation, it's compassion. And that's what
Jesus is doing here. He's rewriting this law
in the language of love. And when he says what
God has joined together, let no one separate.
He's not scolding. He's grieving. Because he
is remembering the original dream of Eden. When
two people could stand naked and unashamed before
each other. No prenup. No backup plan, no record
of wrongs, just belonging. He's mourning what
we've lost. Kind of trust that could hold us
through the night without fear of being sent
away in the morning. Maybe you've been here long
enough to know that love can break your heart
even when you're doing it right. Maybe you've
prayed until your knees ached. Still that silence
came back louder than the amen. Maybe you stayed
longer than anyone expected and still found yourself
standing alone. And you wonder, if marriage is
sacred, what does that make me now? Am I the
unholy one? Am I the exception God tolerates
but doesn't bless? The one sitting at the back
of the church hoping no one will preach this
message this morning? I think you already know
the truth. Even if it's hard for us to say out
loud, you are not unloved. You are not half saved.
You are not outside the circle of grace. because
the cross has already handled the paperwork.
Jesus doesn't divorce his people. He keeps showing
up even when we have run out of reasons for him
to. And that's the whole gospel right there.
It's not God hates divorce, it's God refuses
to divorce you. And maybe you're right now, maybe
you're noticing the story isn't necessarily about
who left whom. It's about who stayed. The Holy
Spirit stayed. Spirit stays when everybody else
walks out. Spirit stays when you can't even pray
anymore. Spirit stays, hums that same song she's
been humming since Genesis. It's not good for
you to be alone. That's why the church needs
to sound more like the Spirit. Not judgment,
not suspicion, not labeling people failed marriage.
Staying power, companioning power. Because every
person that's lived through that fracture knows
it's not about finding new love. It's rediscovering
that you are still beloved. The longer I live,
the more I believe that Jesus teaching on divorce
isn't about the rules, it is about revelation.
He wasn't defining who was in and who was out.
He was describing what love looks like when it
refuses to quit. It's a picture of covenant,
not contract. A covenant says, I'm not here because
it's easy, I'm here because it's holy. But even
covenants need grace when they break. Some of
you have spent years trying to rebuild from that
break. You've had to learn how to be mother and
father. You've had to learn how to split holidays,
how to smile when it still stings, how to sit
through sermons that don't quite see you. I want
you to know something, friend. The kingdom sees
you. King sees you. And he isn't keeping score.
He's keeping watch. And maybe, just maybe, what
Jesus really is teaching here is not about keeping
marriages together. It's about keeping hearts
soft. Because once the heart goes hard, everything
else follows. Forgiveness gets brittle. Compassion
turns into compliance. Mercy becomes a memory.
But if you can keep your heart soft, even after
betrayal, even after endings, then the kingdom
is still growing in you. The truth is some covenants
die. But resurrection is still the story. You
might not get the same marriage back, you can
get your soul back. You can still walk in grace
and you can still live in peace with your past.
That's the miracle that doesn't make the headlines.
The person who refuses to let bitterness have
the last word. The one who says I won't call
this failure. I'll call it formation The one
who learns to bless what broke them not because
it was good, but because God wasn't done Maybe
you don't need a theology of divorce today. Maybe
you just need permission to heal Maybe you just
need to know that holiness isn't the absence
of scars It's the presence of mercy in the middle
of them. I think that's why Jesus keeps bringing
the conversation back to the beginning, back
to Genesis, back to Eden. Not because he's nostalgic,
but because he's restorative. He's not saying
go back and fix it. He's saying let me plant
something new in that soil. And that's what he
does. He takes the ground we thought was barren,
and He turns it into mercy again. So if you're
sitting here wondering whether God can still
use you, the answer is yes. If you're asking
whether you're still whole, the answer is yes.
If you're hoping that someday love won't hurt
this much, also yes, but maybe not the way you
expect. Because the next love He might give you
may not be a person. It may be peace. It might
be purpose. It might be a quiet morning where
you realize the shame's finally gone. Spirit
is humming over the waters, saying let there
be light. You don't need me to tell you, but
that's what grace does. Doesn't erase what happens,
it redeems it. Doesn't make you forget, it teaches
you to remember differently. And when you do,
you'll realize that even here, in the dust of
your own undoing, you've never been alone. So
maybe the gospel word today isn't stay married
at all cost. Maybe it's stay merciful, whatever
it costs. Stay soft enough to forgive. Stay honest
enough to heal. Stay close enough to the spirit
to know it's still singing your name through
the static. Because love can fail, but grace
won't. The one who joined himself to you in baptism
still means what he says. I will never leave
you, nor forsake you. Amen? Amen. If this one
hit the tender places, that's alright. It was
meant to. Because the gospel isn't afraid of
the ruins. It moves in and makes them home. It's
what this episode, Love May Quit, But God Won't,
is really about. Faithfulness of God when everything
else folds. Maybe tonight you just needed to
be reminded that the covenant still stands. Not
the one on paper. The one sealed in baptism.
Jesus hasn't left you. The Holy Spirit hasn't
gone quiet. She's still humming that same creation
tune. It's not good for you to be alone. So wherever
you are, divorced, remarried, heartbroken, healing,
know this. Grace didn't give up when love did.
It's kind of mercy worth sharing. If this word
steadied your soul, go ahead and pass it along.
Like it, share it. Leave a comment about what
stirred your heart. It's how these porch -front
gospels keep walking the earth, one story, one
share, one whisper of hope at a time. Keep your
heart soft, your hope stubborn, your dial right
here. Because love may quit, but God won't. I'll
see you next time.