In this view, Jesus is the friend rather than the savior, the one who comes to encourage us, to support us, to stand beside us, but never to chide us.  And there is good reason for us to look at Jesus in this way. A seminary professor of mine once said, "He never turned anyone away."  There were those who turned away from Jesus, but he did not turn away from them. Jesus got into all sorts of trouble for befriending sinners and reprobates.

In numerous places in the Gospel, Jesus appears to be the foe of legalistic, literal interpretations of the Jewish tradition.  He gets into trouble for breaking Sabbath laws, saying to his critics, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."  He appears to be shockingly indifferent when it comes to observing the strict laws on ritual purity.  "This man eats and drinks with sinners!" his critics charge.

So it is a bit surprising to hear Jesus’ hard-line response to his critics who ask him one of the hot questions of the day: is it OK for a man who has divorced his wife to remarry?

This would have been a good time for Jesus to respond with, "Why don’t you ask me also about what is right for a woman, not just for a man," or "Our laws about marriage were made for humanity, humanity was not made for our laws."

But Jesus says in words that are even stronger than those found in the Gospel of Matthew on this occasion, that anyone, man or woman, who divorces and remarries is committing nothing less than adultery.

Wow!  Is Jesus having a bad day or what?  All of us either are people who have divorced and remarried or else we love people who have divorced and remarried.  What about them?  Would Jesus tell a woman who has suffered terrible domestic abuse, "Stay married. You promised."  And when that woman finally summoned the courage to leave her evil husband, would Jesus say, "Now that you have divorced, you may never remarry?"

Let me say a few things about this tough saying of Jesus on marriage and divorce.  I hope to put this saying in a proper theological context for you because I’m sure that, while you might not have heard a sermon on it in a long time, it is a passage that has caused you trouble.

In ancient societies, where woman rarely owned property, marriage meant a guarantee of support for the most vulnerable members of the society - women and children.  Without the protection of the laws against divorce, women were totally at the mercy of their husbands and fathers.  In criticizing those who advocated easy divorce (and there were many in Israel who did so in his day), Jesus puts himself on the side of the weak and the vulnerable.

Jesus justifies his tough position against divorce and remarriage by an appeal to the creation in Genesis 1. God intends that married people stay together.  God is on the side of unity, community, and stability to the world that, without people who show enduring commitment to one another "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, until death do us part," it would be a heartless, unstable, and chaotic place.  Alas, with the rate of marital separation in our society, with poorly enforced child support laws, our world has become unglued for many, and it’s the children who suffer.  "From the beginning it was not so," says Jesus.

Which reminds us that the very next words of Jesus are about the love and care of children.  What he says against divorce and what he says for children in today’s reading are related.  It would be a sad perversion for the church today to take what Jesus said against marital breakup and use it to beat up on those persons who, for various reasons, have decided to end their marriage and separate, as if divorce were the one unforgivable sin.  Marital separation hurts people, and hurting, vulnerable people are those who are especially loved by Jesus - hence today’s lesson defends those who are victimized in marriage and divorce and defends little children.  What he says here is not an all-inclusive, once-and-for-all final word about divorce and remarriage.  Rather, it is his response to a question that was put to him by his critics who were hoping to trip Jesus up.  And what Jesus does is not to once-and-for-all condemn all divorced persons, but rather to come down clearly on the side of the weak, the vulnerable, and the defenseless.  We live in a broken world where people make and break promises, where people find if difficult to keep their commitments broken by other people.  Jesus is clearly on the side of those who are hurt by such human chaos.

Now I say all this with some trembling, not because I am afraid to say tough things, but because I’m sure that there are some of you who, no matter how I contextualize all this, will be hurt by these words from Jesus about divorce and remarriage after divorce.  A broken promise, including the broken promises of marriage, is a serious moral matter, no matter what reason we might give for thinking that we are justified in breaking those promises.

I think we’ve got the fight the tendency just to explain away Jesus’ words on divorce.  We have come here this morning to be with Jesus, to listen to Jesus, even if what he has to say to us makes us uncomfortable.  Remember, the one who says that divorce and remarriage after divorce is a sin is the same one who repeatedly says that he has come to seek and to save the lost, and to forgive sinners.

If you have been hurt through divorce, then today’s text is the good news that, from the beginning divorce is not what God intended.  If you have hurt someone through divorce, then today’s lesson is a good time to be reminded that Jesus came into the world to save sinners, to forgive us, to offer us the gracious means whereby we can pick up and start over.  That is what I believe to be the word for us from today’s tough talk by Jesus. Amen.