| Mark 10:2-16 "Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God" |
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| Written by Rev. Don Lee | |
| Saturday, 07 October 2006 | |
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I wonder if any of us truly have the faintest idea what this “Kingdom of God” really is about? Jesus envisioned a world so radically transformed that I suspect it would feel alien to us, almost profane, despites it’s holy-otherness! We catch glimpses of it, here and there all right, but maybe a glimpse is all we can really handle…at least for now. Last weekend, at our church auction and one of our young children called out… “Hey, Pastor Don, do you like my hair?” In the back of my mind I remembered she used to have hair halfway down her back. “It looks wonderful,” I replied. She smiled at me and said, “I had it cut off so they could make a wig out of it, so someone with cancer could have hair just like I do….” She looked up at me with this radiant smile and it was as if Jesus had said, “My Kingdom is at hand.” According to Jesus, God’s “Basilea” (God’s Kingdom) is not some future reality in the sweet by and by. Rather, God’s Basilea is a new and present reality breaking-in all around us! In the Gospel narratives, Jesus’ preaching of the Good News of God’s love, accompanied by healings, exorcisms, feeding of the hungry, and raising of the dead, were evidence that God’s spiritual reality is overflowing into our physical present. Thus when John the Baptist sends a messenger to inquire of Jesus if he is the Messiah, Jesus responds: "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. -Matthew 11:2-6 The signs of God’s Kingdom are reconciliation, restoration, healing, forgiveness, comfort, well-being, justice and peace. And yet, despite signs that the Kingdom of God has come (on earth as it is in heaven), you don’t have to look very hard to find evidence that this Kingdom has not fully arrived; the hungry go without food, the innocent suffer, the sick are not healed, the oppressor continues to oppress. So Jesus teaches his followers how to behave as Kingdom people and to pray that his kingdom will come. And that brings us to today’s scripture. Jesus is speaking about Covenant. Covenant is critical to the coming of God’s Kingdom in its fullness and underlies all that Jesus teaches in the Gospels. He is saying, when we honor our covenants it will not only make us happier, healthier people, it announces the reign of God, on earth. Our Gospel reading comes from Mark 10:2-16. I invite you to (stand and) listen for the Good News! 2 Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" 3 He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" 4 They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her." 5 But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6 But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 7'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." 10 Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery." 13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 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. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." 16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. In the words of a 13th century prayer: O most merciful Redeemer, friend, and brother, may we know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, and follow thee more nearly, (moment by moment, day-by-day). Amen. I suspect we’re all aware of the tragic shootings that took place in a one room (Ohm-ish) Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa. last Monday that took the lives of five young girls and left another five wounded. Many have been amazed at the surviving family members’ willingness to forgive the shooter, Charles Roberts 4th. They’ve backed that claim up too by: embracing the shooter’s family, comforting them in their mutual loss, even inviting the shooter’s widow to attend the funerals, and requesting that a fund be set up for her and her three children. Isn’t that amazing? Good church folk have told me that they don’t know if they could forgive someone for taking the life of their child. Yet, this is exactly what Christ tells his followers to do. This is not to deny their grief. I don’t think there’s any question the people of Nickel Mines, Pa. are grieving the loss of their children. The best I can make of it is that because the (Ohmish) Amish cherish all life as sacred, they care even about the one who takes it! Why is it so unbelievable to us that it might be possible to live the radical life Jesus calls us all too? Maybe the reason we find such behavior so incredible, unrealistic, and culturally irrelevant is that simply we are not living “THE WAY” Christ calls us to live. “THE WAY” as the early church was known in its infancy referred to a way of life. It’s the intentional decision to live in covenantal relationship with God and one another. In the words of SǾren Kierkegaard, “The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. We Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?” -Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Soren Kierkegaard, Charlies Moore, p. In my entire life I have never heard a UM preacher ever speak to this text about divorce! (and some of you are thinking) so let’s not go there. But Jesus does. And I think its important to hear what Jesus has to say, even if it afflicts our comfort! Jesus states pretty clearly here, divorce is not God’s intent. Why? It comes down to a question of covenant. Basically, a covenant is a mutually beneficial agreement between two parties. The idea of covenant making grew out of the recognition that without certain conditions of mutual trust and support human beings cannot live happy, healthy, peaceful lives. A week and a half ago, my family and I were in an accident. We had just left Chick-fillA after eating dinner, and were heading north on Old Denton when a car hit us so hard, my wife’s van literally lurched forward in the lane (that despite the fact we had been cruising at a steady 40 miles an hour)! Of course, if I had been driving, the other driver would never have caught up! The other driver confessed she never even saw us. We got out of our vehicles and checked to make sure no one was hurt. Fortunately, other then some sore necks everyone seemed to have survived the accident. Our vehicles were not so lucky. Still, after we exchanged insurance information, and went our separate ways. I just described an honoring of covenant. As we exchanged information we honored a binding covenantal agreement that states the person at fault assumes responsibility for the damage caused by their actions and agrees to make it right. These kinds of covenants enabling us to live in order and peace. It is the uninsured motorist who creates chaos! Covenant makes relationship possible! It’s our ability to enter into mutual understandings of trust and support that allows couples to fall in love, families to form neighborhoods, and citizens, communities. The Bible reveals a God whose in the Covenant making business! In Genesis (1:28) God creates humankind, blesses it and says: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth..." With the Adamic covenant God acts to bless the children of God and to extend their experience of family and community to the ends of the earth. Later in Genesis, when God catches humans mis-behaving, God’s ordering presence is withdrawn, (pulls the plug, so to speak) and chaos descends back over the creation …But then, God acts to save humanity, through Noah and his family, thus honoring the covenant made in the beginning. God covenants with Abraham and Sarah, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Genesis 12:3 By the way, those who claim Jews and Muslims worship a different God then Christians, don’t know their Bibles very well. All three of the great world religions, (Christian, Muslim, and Jews) claim Abraham and Sarah as the forefather and mother of their faith. And all three religions have had their extremists! Notice that at the heart of God’s covenant making is the intent that the benefits promised should be freely shared by all peoples, and not confined to some. “That all the world shall be blessed…” Now, jump over to the NT. God institutes a new covenant, written on our hearts and made possible by faith in Christ. Hebrews 9:15 tells us “Christ is the mediator of a new covenant… and that He has died as a ransom to set us free from sin…” Historically in the church, communion is a sign of this new covenant in Christ. Covenant is central to our identity as Christians! It just makes sense that God would intend for us to keep our covenantal promises while at the same time, offering grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation when those covenant’s are broken. I had the wonderful privilege last weekend to do a full immersion baptism of one of our youth, Stephen Fox. Baptism is about covenant. In fact if you look in the hymnal, the liturgy is titled, Baptismal Covenant. All sorts of covenants were being made in that service between mother, father, son, family, friends, pastor, church and God. I believe God spoke to Stephen through his church claiming the promise, “You are my son, whom I love and with you I am well pleased.” It is a covenant of relationship. No question, God intends for us to honor our covenants. I know what some of you are thinking. What about the marriage covenant? Does this mean we are sinners if we divorce and remarry. Actually, we already are all sinners. That’s a given. “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23. What I think Jesus is speaking to is our failure to live as fully as possible, our covenantal relationships. If our identity is that of a covenant people, then our covenants should not be entered into lightly, nor easily discarded. Some marriages fail. It happens. Speaking from a strictly pastoral perspective, there are some marriages that need to fail (particularly when abuse is involved). But just as Jesus promises us grace in the face of broken promises, so he commands we do everything reasonably possible to keep them healthy. Writes Theologian William Willimon, “God is on the side of unity, community, and togetherness. This gives order 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," would be a heartless, unstable, and chaotic place.” After all, healthy relationships contribute to a healthy world! Through our covenant keeping Jesus proclaims, “My Kingdom is at hand.” We live in a broken world; where people make and break promises, where people find it difficult to keep their commitments, and where people have promises broken by other people. Jesus is clearly on the side of those who are hurt by such human chaos. Covenant is central to our identity as Christians and a sign of God’s Kingdom come. Theologian Walter Wink writes: In his Beatitudes, in his extraordinary concern for the outcasts and marginalized, in his wholly unconventional treatment of women, in his love of children, in his rejection of the belief that high-ranking men are favorites of God, in his subversive proclamation of a new order in which domination will give way to compassion and communion, Jesus brought to fruition the prophetic longing for the “kingdom of God” – an expression we might paraphrase as “God’s domination-free order.” -The Powers that Be: Theology for a new Millennium We are a covenant people, called to a radical new way of living in covenantal relationship with God and others, while at the same time receiving grace and mercy in our time of need. Is it really so unbelievable? That we might be able to live the radical life Jesus calls us too? Whatever your doubts, don’t tell the children…They believe anything is possible with God! |
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