TowerPod: St Mary's Marston Moreteyne and Lidlington
The woman who had no mother, and the gift of marriage...
Hi, welcome to Tower Pod from St Mary's Master Mortaine in Lydington, a weekly gospel message with a thoughtful sermon. Enjoy. Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" They 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 this 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, and 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. People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them, and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me. Do not stop them. For it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs." Truly, I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it, and he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them and blessed them. Let's pray. May I speak and may we listen in the name of Jesus, in the love of the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit? Amen. This morning, I want to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and speak a good word about marriage. Let me begin with something from C.S. Lewis of Narnians fame, cosmic trilogy science fiction novel. It's called "Paralandra." And there's a character in that novel called Ransom, who lands in a sort of hibernation sleep on the planet Venus. Let me read to you. But Ransom's waking, something happened to him which perhaps never happens to a man until he's out of his own world. He saw reality and thought it was a dream. Ransom sees a figure in the distance. And there, and it gets closer, and there was the stranger now on the very shore, face to face with him. For one second, the eyes looked at his full of love and welcome. Ransom realized that the figure was a woman. Never had Ransom seen a face so calm, so unearthly, despite the full humanity of every feature. There was a calm which no storm had ever preceded. There was no category in his earthly mind that would fit her. Opposites met in her and were fused in a fashion for which we have no images. One way of putting it would be to say that neither our sacred nor our profane art could make her portrait. She was obviously a goddess. But then the face, the face so calm, the face that was like the sudden coldness and stillness of a church when we enter it from a hot street, but made her like Mary, the mother of Jesus, a Madonna. So this woman speaks apparently to Ransom of the only other person on the planet as the king. So Ransom says, "You must have had a mother." "I have a mother," said the lady, looking full at him with eyes of untroubled wonder. "What do you mean? I am the mother." And once again, there fell upon Ransom the feeling that it was not she and not she only who had spoken. "If you are a mother, where are your children?" "Not yet," she answered. "Who will be their father? The king, who else?" "But the king, he has no father?" "He is the father." "You mean," said Ransom slowly. "That you and he are the only two of your kind in the whole world." "Of course," she replies. And it begins to dawn on Ransom and maybe off that what CS Lewis is trying to convey here is that Ransom has landed on a planet which has not yet lost its innocence and not fallen under the evil curse of the serpent Satan as ours did. He is talking in fact to another Eve in a pure garden of Eden, an Eve who has not yet sinned and is in constant communion with God. And so it's to this primordial time back to the creation and before the fall that Jesus returns when he's tested by the Pharisees. Now they're not really interested in the question. Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? Why does Mark say that they put the question as a test, a trap actually? Why does Jesus only give the detailed answer when he's back safely in the house with the disciples? Well, let's look and see where this incident in Jesus' life is taking place. It's down by the River Jordan. Who used to preach down by the River Jordan? John the Baptist. And why did John get put in prison and finally lose his head? If you remember, it was for criticizing Herod for pushing the boundaries of marriage by marrying his brother's wife. It makes sense. What they were hoping to do was to perhaps get Jesus to box himself in with either the liberal group of Pharisees or with the stricter group. There were two schools, Hillel and Shemae. He might come out for or against their honored prophet Moses as well. Either way, he could make enemies. They might even be lucky enough to get Jesus to say something that they could even say was treason against the king. Jesus is clever. He doesn't get drawn into all that. First, he asked them a question. What did Moses command you? Jesus asked that question knowing that Moses never commanded anything about divorce except that he made provision for when marriages might fail as they do by bringing in a proper procedure for it a certificate which would protect the woman from being exploited or worse, stoned in the case of adultery because she would have a certificate. Jesus is not here trying to give them or us now, detailed case law or discuss exceptions to the rule. He's saying something else. He's saying in effect, "Don't look at the rules and regulations. You're missing the wood for the trees. Go back. Go back." Jesus then goes back to the dawn of time, to our Genesis passage to Eden as the world was meant to be, to the original innocence of Adam and Eve, to the beauty that C.S. Lewis is trying to convey through his lady mother and her husband, the king father. Jesus says, "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, and 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." And I think for me, C.S. Lewis captures some of that beauty and holiness of the first couple, beginning with the woman. He uses his imagination of a far distant world, Venus, but one like ours once was, according to the Genesis account. He writes of first parents, another Adam and Eve, to help us picture ours. Let me share with you that I have struggled to see marriage as a beautiful thing in my late teens, because I had seen some things go wrong. It put me off, and because of that, I was disillusioned, and I actually wasn't even open to the idea of marriage. But one night in a prayer meeting, I heard someone speak of how beautiful marriage can be, and it somehow opened my eyes, and the block was removed. And so I want to say marriage is a beautiful thing. I love the words of the preface spoken by the priest at the start of the marriage service. Marriage is a gift of God in creation through which husband and wife may know the grace of God. It is given that as man and woman grow together in love and trust, they shall be united with one another in the heart, body, and mind, as Christ is united with his bride, the church. The teaching of the historical church is that the union of husband and wife in one flesh signifies, meaning it's a symbol that stands for something, it's a picture, signifies the communion between Christ, the heavenly bridegroom, and the church is holy bride. A course not all are called or able to marry, but all Christians are joined to Christ as members of his body. The final picture of the end of our spiritual journey through this life is portrayed by Jesus and in the book of Revelation as a marriage, a wedding banquet in heaven at the end. And let's picture there on my stall. We are to be the bride of Christ, eating at his wedding feast. Marriage is a picture of our final destination, our ultimate heaven, which is union with God in Jesus. One day marriage will be no more, it will be replaced by this heavenly marriage of the Lamb, where we will be united with Jesus. We are to look then towards him finally. As our Hebrews reading spoke of Jesus, long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets, and now in these final days he has spoken to us through his son. God promised everything to the son as an inheritance and through the son he created the universe. The son radiates God's own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. Jesus tasted death for everyone, for each one of us. God chose to bring many children for God through Jesus and his suffering into their salvation. So now Jesus and the ones that he makes holy have the same heavenly Father. Let us give thanks. Amen. [Music] (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]