WHERE ALL ARE WELCOME!

Sunday, October 8, 2006

United Lutheran Church, Red Wing

Mark 10:2-16

               Grace to you and peace, you are welcome in Jesus’ name. Amen.

               I believe it’s fair to say that when most of us think of Jesus, we have come to believe that he is a loving and caring person. We think of Jesus as accepting, open, forgiving, and perceptive of our human condition. All very true! He seems to understand what it means to live in a very human world. Harold Bloom in his book, The American Religion, writes that “we Americans have one predominant faith and that is that God really, really likes us, that God is thrilled to be with us on any occasion, and that God couldn’t be happier with our moral progress.” Then he suggests that we are “basically good people in the embrace of a completely submissive God.” We may not hold to that as we think of other people, but there is something of that thought in each of us as God relates to us. We want God to go easy on us, to lean heavily on grace without holding us accountable for our actions or inactions. We want a merciful God and not a God who judges us too severely. We see Jesus as our friend, who encourages us, supports us, stands beside us but only rarely reprimands us. We don’t want him to turn away from us although we might turn away from him.

              We do see a Jesus who has changed the perception of some of the old religious laws. For example, instead of following the rules about lepers and outcasts in his time actually touched them, healed them, and embraced them.  In a conversation regarding the laws of obedience to the Sabbath he declares that “Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man.” He befriends tax collectors, street people, and eats with sinners. But when he is asked by the Pharisees, putting him to the test, he is asked by them, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Here he doesn’t turn the perception around on that but answers the question with a question, “What did Moses command you?” And they respond that Moses did allow for a certificate of divorce to be granted. Jesus in return answers, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you!” And then he answers with what is a more proper question, “What is God’s will concerning marriage?” He moves beyond dancing around the calculation of what is legally permissible to the nature and purposes of God.

              Those, Jesus relates, were revealed at the time of creation where it is stated, “One leaves father and mother, is joined to his wife (cleave), and they become one. What God has joined together, let no one separate.” God is on the side of unity, community, togetherness in order to give order and stability to life. Then, in the ensuring conversation regarding divorce, remarriage, and adultery Jesus' response is very blunt, seemingly harsh, and filled with words that still sting. There is little said, that softens his bluntness. But it does criticize the hardness of heart that allows husbands to divorce their wives on little more than a whim? For spouses cannot treat each other as property to be discarded.

              All of us either know people who have been divorced and remarried, have been so ourselves, or dearly love family members whose life experience is exemplary of those steps in life. Here I want to draw from some comment by William Willimon who has written on this text and these very matters. In ancient societies, where women rarely owned property, marriage meant a guarantee of support for the most vulnerable members of society—namely, women and children. Without the protection of the laws against divorce, women were totally at the mercy of their husbands and fathers who arranged marriages. In criticizing those who advocated easy divorce (and there were divisions among the Rabbis and their following during that time), Jesus puts himself on the side of protecting the weak and the most vulnerable. He justifies his stance in his appeal to the Genesis 1 text.

              For many, our world has become unglued with the rate of marital separation, with poorly enforced child protection laws and we see who suffers. It would be a “sad perversion” for the church, writes Willimon, to take what Jesus said against marital breakup and use it to beat up on any who, for various reasons, have decided to end their marriages and separate.To come down hard on those who have been victims of such action.Today’s Gospel, whether we sense it or not, defends those who have been victimized in marriage and divorce and it defends the little children. Willimon writes: “What Jesus says here is not an all-inclusive, once-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 up Jesus. 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.”

              Again and again, Mark’s lens captures Jesus who is constantly concerned about the outcasts and those with precious few options. Jesus not only directs his ministry towards those people but he actually joins himself to them; walking alongside them, breaking bread with them, dying for them. Not one seems to escape his notice.

              The reality is that we do not live in a perfect world. Hardly a revelation to you, I know. We live rather in a broken, sinful, and fallen world…where God’s greatest intentions for us run up against all the temptations and challenges that could possibly be imagined. We live in a broken world where people make and break promises, where people find it difficult to keep commitments, and where people have promises broken by other people. Now a broken promise, including the broken promise of marriage, is a serious matter, no matter what reason we might give in trying to justify the breaking of the promise. Yet this same Jesus who makes us feel uncomfortable (even guilty) and whose words are harsh, even judgmental, which call us to be accountable for life and our decisions in life…says over and over again that he has come to seek and to save the lost, to forgive and to heal us from all that has wounded us and to heal all those we have wounded as well. 

              Divorce is not the unforgivable sin, nor is remarriage, nor adultery. I remember the words of the Psalmist (Psalm 130), “O Lord, if you should mark iniquity, who could stand. But there is forgiveness with you.” We need to heard those words repeated over and over again in our conviction and in our guilt or feelings of unworthiness. We need to hear and receive them when we are no longer able to trust and when our spirits have been crushed. For the same God who demands much of us is the God who is willing to forgive us and enable us to begin life anew or to live up to those demands.

              I believe there is a broader meaning here as well, if we consider marriage as an image/ paradigm for all of our relationships. Whether in our relationships between parents and children, committed relationships, friendships of all types, even in our relationship with the body of believers (the church/congregation). For whenever we break our promises and hurt one another, that alienation and separation becomes a type of divorce from those we have held to be near and dear to our hearts. There is pain, there is resentment, there is a breach that only Christ can resolve through the offering of His gracious will to forgive and bring about reconciliation.

              Whatever Jesus or mark may have meant in these words, I believe we can safely say that the entire world is afflicted with hardness of hearts. There are times when all of us are unwilling to listen and learn from God. There are times when we don’t want to relinquish and release what has hurt us, the resentments we hold against one another. There are times when our experiences of life have jaded us and we find ourselves critically viewing from afar, distancing ourselves from the family of faith, fearing yet one more judgment because of what we have experienced in life. We need to recognize that hardness of heart which makes people feel excluded from the promises of God. I know of very few persons who got married with the intention of getting a divorce. Every couple makes a commitment with the intent “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, etc.” Yet sometimes the promises can no longer be kept, relationships break down, people break down. And when they do, the church is called to offer its hand of care. We need to say, “Come and join with us, especially if you are broken, and we will tell you about the Christ who binds up our wounds and holds us together.” If you are divorced/remarried you need to hear the church say, loudly and clearly, that you are welcome here, as you are, with whatever you bring.”

              We live in a fast-paced society and world that undermines our ability to know others deeply and intimately. Our culture worships self-fulfillment over patience, mercy, and steadfast love. It’s difficult to keep long-term commitments when all around we are deluged with instant gratification and it is not easy to pledge our faithfulness in a me-first world. Yet, our task as the people of God, is to continually reassure others, that Jesus loves us still and his body is a place where all are welcome and restored to the family…regardless of life’s experiences.

              There is a second image or paradigm within our text today and that is the imagery of the children who have been brought to Jesus. When the disciples shunned the children I don’t believe they were putting Jesus to the test. They were living in a culture when children didn’t hold the same status as adults and Jesus in this moment was teaching adults. But it was a teaching moment in another way as Jesus stood next to the most vulnerable surrounding him. He says, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the Kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

              I believe Jesus meant that to be taken literally—in the sense that the children are welcomed and given first class status in a world where they had neither welcome nor status. So he takes them in his arms, lays his hands on them and blesses them. The most vulnerable of all were welcomed and cared for deeply. Not as the possessions of others, but as the Children of God. This was a revolutionary concept. They were received into the faith family because in the sight of God they were valued and vulnerable. Members of the Kingdom even as children today are valued in the sight of God. Not just the future of the church, but the church today.

              Here in this place, we welcome them and seek to provide the kind of environment that will stimulate and nurture their faith. They are not the least in the Kingdom. Children, as I suggested, are a paradigm/symbol of every person's need to receive from and be dependent upon God’s care. We are not disqualified from God’s grace because of our status in the world nor because of our failures in life. The kingdom often demands a radical dependence that Jesus describes in the image of a child. This dependence which makes us open to receive from others, to learn new ways, to change what we value, and to receive all as gift. In the Body of Christ we always need to provide a safe place where children AND adults know they are welcomed, received, and embraced in the love of Christ. As Jesus demonstrated the welcoming God, so we in the Spirit of Christ must continually express and live out that welcome to all. For Christ has died and risen for all.

              It’s not the innocence of untested childhood that we need to recover; it’s the capacity to live in the world confident that what we need and will need comes as a gift from God. It’s the power to stake our lives on the promises that God has made—nothing else is of such value. Our very existence is gift and blessing. This dependence can make us open to receive and embrace love once again. Open us to trust once again.

              The final words of scripture are not about broken covenants but renewed ones, not about judgment but about mercy, not about falling away from a judgmental God, but being gathered up in the arms of a forgiving and loving one whose claim upon us helps turn our lives around. Whether we are married or in committed relationships, single, divorced, widowed, remarried, young or old, children or adults…the Body of Christ is WHERE ALL ARE WELCOME! For Jesus’ sake. Amen

                                                                                                                                                Pastor Clark Cary