Rev Gav

How does mercy trump judgment?

Mark 10.2–16

The narrative where Jesus talks about divorce and immediately follows it up with ‘blessing the children’ (Mark 10.2-16), is an example of the important gospel principal found in the book of James, where ‘Mercy triumphs over Judgment’ (James 2:13). Before we unpack what this means, we need to look at the text in a little more detail.

If I am honest, as a divorcee who is married to a divorcee, there is always a pang of sadness and guilt that accompanies this passage from scripture. Is Jesus saying there is a hard line which no-one should cross when it comes to marriage? And also, when Jesus quotes Genesis saying that God made them ‘male and female’, what does this mean for those that identify as having a biological difference in sexual development, or who identify with a different gender to their biological assignation? Well, as always with scripture, context is everything.

The Pharisees were trying to trip Jesus up and get him to say something that would incriminate himself. If we go back to the beginning of Chapter 10 of Mark’s gospel, we discover that Jesus is in the region of the Jordan, and we know who preached in that area don’t we? John the Baptist, and he had been beheaded for criticising Herod for taking Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. Therefore, Jesus throws it back at these ‘Moses followers’ asking them what Moses commanded. They reply that Moses said it was okay to dismiss and divorce a wife, and this is where things get interesting!

We need to understand that marriage back then was very, very different to how it is now. It was a patriarchal society and marriages were a contract between the bride’s father and the groom. We still have this ‘legacy’ of patriarchalism in our own society in the tradition of a man asking his beloved’s father for her hand in marriage. In Judaism, wives were not afforded the same rights as men, and a divorced wife, could find herself alone, unwanted, and destitute. Jesus points out that the law was put in place, not because it was a Godly decree, but because of the ‘hardness’ of their hearts. In other words, at least, by bringing it into law — imperfect as it was — it prevented men from simply abandoning their wives at a whim. Jesus, by going back to first principles, is affirming the importance and equality of women.

This affirming of the rights of women is even more apparent when Jesus goes on to state that, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” Remember, in the law of Moses, women were not permitted to do this and what Jesus said had no precedent. Adultery, in this context, meant having disregard for the spouse, and God’s mercy should triumph over the rights of individuals. In other words, one may well have the ‘right’ to divorce, but not at the expense of the divorced person.

There is a deeper message here too. The biblical scholar, Diarmaid MacCulloch, reminds us of the curious words in Genesis, “God made them male and female,” because if humans were binary in their gender, surely the correct rendering would be, “God made them male or female?” It is worth thinking on that, however, the theological affirmation is that God is one and embraces all genders, therefore when two humans come together and their masculinity and femininity is joined, they become one as God is one. The marriage unit — in whatever form it takes — is a representation of the very nature of God. Too deep?

The point, is the underlying gospel principle of mercy triumphing over judgement. Whatever rights you have, the protection and care of people — especially the marginalised or vulnerable — must come first.

One of the things I love about little children is their impartiality, for they do not see gender, colour, race, or social status. It is no coincidence that Mark placed these words of Jesus, right after his discourse on marriage and divorce: “Let the children come to me and do not stop them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child — i.e. not seeing gender, colour, race, or social status — will never enter it.”

As, Christians, this gospel or ‘Godly’ principle of mercy triumphing over judgment, should underpin every aspect of our lives and the laws under which we are governed — whether global laws, secular laws, or biblical laws. Take, for example, the right to bear arms in the USA. We can be sure that if there were tighter gun controls, fewer innocent people would die from gun-related deaths, but the legal ‘right’ of gun owners trumps the care of the innocent. It is true to say that the blood of the innocent is on the collective hands of those who uphold that legal right.

Okay, take an example much closer to home, and an issue you know I care deeply about. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association recently reported that just over 20% of sexual minority teens attempted suicide. This is nearly four times higher than it is for heterosexual teens, and you know why? It is because of society who tells them they should be cis gender (a binary gender assigned at birth) and heterosexual, and the biggest proponents of this is the church. The most damning statistic of all is that for cis-gender, heterosexual, faith-based teens the suicide rate is generally lower than in the general population, but for LGBTQ+ young people and adults, it is actually higher than the already horrific 20%, and that is worth thinking on isn’t it?

Dear friends, do not take my word for it, take it from James who writes, “Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law of liberty, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.”

“Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

Amen.