Scripture: Genesis 2:18-24; Mark 10:2-16
What if everyone actually had only one soul mate, a random person somewhere in the world?
That question was asked in the “what if” section of the XKCD.com website. They broke it down basically to this:
Assuming your soul mate lives at the same time as you and, to keep things from getting creepy, we’ll assume they’re within a few years of your age… most of us have a pool of around half a billion potential matches. And let’s say you meet 50,000 people in your lifetime – the odds of finding that one soul mate are one life out of every 10,000 lives.
Soul mate or not, people actually still do get married in this world. And… when people get married, that means, some people also get divorced. When I realized I was the one preaching this week’s lectionary texts, I thought this is either a tremendous teaching opportunity – or a tremendous disaster in the making. Because let’s face it - it’s a delicate and controversial topic, and I have seen this text get utilized on more than one occasion to bludgeon someone over the head with why they either need to stay in a bad or even an abusive marriage or used it to condemn someone who has gone through a divorce.
No matter how you want to frame it, no matter whether it was a divorce that “needed” to happen or not – it is never an easy process – and it hurts. A lot. It hurts the two people involved, it hurts their children if there are any, it hurts their families, it hurts their friends. When that one flesh that you were joined into gets torn and ripped apart – that doesn’t heal easily. A part of you is going to be damaged and changed forever because of whatever happened in that relationship that led to tearing the two of you apart. But flesh does not rip apart by itself. Something has to pull it apart. Divorce does not just “happen” – something forces two people apart. Something has happened that is so hurtful or so beyond repair. Some sin has run amok.
