There are times when I get angry with God. I’m not alone. If you don’t believe me, read Psalm 13. The writer of that psalm was very angry at God for abandoning him in his time of trouble. Yes, from time to time, men and women over thousands of years have been angry with God. Similarly, I find that there are times when I read in the scriptures what Jesus has to say about this or that and I find myself saying, “Good grief, Jesus, why in the world did you have to go and say that?!?” I have to be honest with you and say that this Sunday is just one of those kinds of days.

What does Jesus have to say today? One day, the story goes, Jesus was asked by some Pharisees whether it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. Jesus replied, as he often did, by asking the Pharisees a question in return. That is, he asked, “What did Moses command?” In fact Moses did permit men simply to write a letter of dismissal and the marriage was over. Jesus then went on to say that such a writ of divorce, as it was called, was permitted by Moses to deal with the hardness of men’s hearts, that is, as a concession to the fact that some men and women simply cannot manage to live with one another. Then Jesus takes his audience all the way back to the beginning of creation, when God created man and woman, when God declared that the two shall become one …. ‘Those whom God hath joined together, let no one separate.’

Then, later, the story continues, in private, Jesus was asked by his disciples to say more. It is here that I wish Jesus had just kept silent, because his words seem so harsh, so punitive, so lacking in pastoral sensitivity, as we might say today. Jesus says, “Whoever re-marries after divorce commits adultery.” I am embarrassed, even angry at those words. While I have been married to my first and only wife for 44 years, I have been through living hell with so many couples trying to save their marriages; that is, good, gracious, honest, Christian men and women who have discovered that the chemistry of their relationships is so destructive, so poisonous, and impossible, persons for whom divorce is the only recourse, the only creative, honest, even Christian option left to them. Now, we read that if such persons re-marry after a divorce, Jesus labels them, he condemns them as adulterers. Why would Jesus say such a thing? Why?

To understand, we have to dig deeper into this Gospel of Mark, much deeper. And while I don’t want to get all academic here, there is one basic understanding which we must share in order for us to understand anything at all in the Gospel of Mark. That is that Mark had a particular historical view. That is, Mark understood all of history to occur in a kind of drama with three fairly distinct acts:

The First act was quite short, that is, from the creation of the world until the Fall of humanity; that is, when Adam and Eve gave in to the whiles of the Serpent, when they gave in to being less than that for which God had created them. Just the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis. End of Act One.

The Second act was from the Fall of Man all the way until the end of this broken world, until the dawn of the End of Time, when the Second Coming occurs; that is, when God’s love and God’s will reigns supreme throughout all the world. End of Act Two.

The Third Act comes when the Second Coming has occurred, when all things will be conformed to God’s will and when all is well.

Now there is a little bit of confusion in this Three Act Play in Mark’s Gospel. That is that Mark believed that the transition between Acts Two and Three began with the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus and that this age [the very one in which Mark, Jesus and you and I live] will finally end when Jesus returns in the Second Coming. But Jesus’ teaching in the pages of the Gospel of Mark comes in the very midst of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. So Jesus’ teaching was part in the present, fallen world and part in the new, the redeemed. These words of Jesus fall between Act Two and Act Three, if you will.

Now, Mark’s understanding of Jesus’ view of Act 3, that is when all things would be conformed to God’s purposes, would look a lot like what things were like before the fall, that is back in the Garden of Eden. Hence what the man-woman, the woman-man relationship was like in the Garden of Eden is where we must look to comprehend what Jesus was trying to get at here.

In turn, Jesus’ understanding of what the Woman-Man, the Man-Woman relationship was intended to look like is found in that phrase from Genesis 2:25, the very next verse following the one Jesus quoted in this morning’s gospel reading. Genesis 2:25 reads: And the man and woman were both naked and unashamed.

Sadly, this line of scripture has been terribly distorted by American Puritanism and has come to be understood as having to do with sex. This is not the point at all. What is it to be naked and unashamed? Think about it: to be naked and unashamed is to be unencumbered; to be lacking in the protection, the armor of clothing; to be lacking in clothing which bears status symbol names of Nike or Levis or Tommy Hilfinger; to be naked is to be honest and unguarded about what you really look like, more profoundly, who you really are. No pretence; no lies; no pretending, no decoration, no make up, no distortion. To be naked before another person, human or divine, is to be in the state of honesty, to be unguarded. To be naked and unashamed it is be comfortable with communicating to one another, “O.K.: What you see is what you get!” It is that state in which all moments are unguarded moments. When we live in community with others in this way, there is nothing whatever for which to be ashamed. Naked and unashamed.

To be clear, this is not about nudism, this about being real people, the real people God created us to be in the first place. Think about artistic renderings of Adam and Eve before and after the Fall. Before the Fall, each was open, vulnerable, trusting, accepting. Adam and Eve are often depicted picking fruit from the tress in the garden. Of course, because the artists and those who paid them could not deal with nudity, there is nearly always a palm frond across Eve’s breasts and a piece of shrubbery strategically placed lower down. In paintings, after the fall, we usually see Adam like this: [arms and hands crossed low across the genitals] and Eve rather like this: [arms and hands crossed one high across the breasts and the other low across the genitals]. All in contrast to before the Fall, like this, absolutely open, welcoming, unabashed and, as a consequence, vulnerable.

And, we must never forget, Adam and Eve adopted this same posture toward God in that Garden. This is also the posture of God toward Adam and Eve in the Garden, as God walked in the cool of the evening. As my friend Brother Robert of the Franciscan Friars says:

God was content that God be God, that Eve be Eve and that Adam be Adam;

Eve was content that Eve be Eve, God be God, and that Adam be Adam; while

Adam was content that Adam be Adam, God be God and that Eve be Eve.

So, you see, Jesus in his response to this question about marriage and divorce, Jesus was pushing both the Pharisees and his Disciples to remember the ideal, to confront the ideal image of those open, accepting, welcoming, and vulnerable postures of the marital relationship, and, indeed, the model for all relationships, both human and divine --- one with another to be naked and unashamed --- contented.

But those Pharisees, indeed those disciples were not yet there, they had by no means achieved the ideal of the Garden of Eden. And remember, we call those disciples Saints! They were not perfect, not ideal, often anything but models of what humans are called to be. Peter denied Jesus three times, James and John competed for the honor of sitting at Jesus’ right hand and Judas betrayed him. Each fell short of the glory to which they had been called, settling for second, third or fourth best.

And that’s what divorce is, at best, second best compared with the ideal.

In closing, this is not just about marriage. This same ideal is the model for all relationships, with spouses, significant others, partners, family, friends, business associates, and, shock of shock in this election season, even with political opponents. Naked and unashamed.

Do you believe that Jesus really believed with all his heart and all his mind and all his soul that this model of living was the best and that to which we should all aspire? Just remember how Jesus died:

Naked,

Unashamed,

Ultimately vulnerable,

Just like this: + Naked and unashamed.