PROPER 22B- Job 1:1, 2:1-10; Psalm 26; Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12; Mark 10:2-16 –
4 October 2009 – A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado
Looking for the Best in Others
INTRODUCTION – Cleave?
Part of our Gospel passage today is a teaching from Jesus about marriage and divorce. It reminds me of a comic strip I read many years ago. The young man says to a young woman, “Father Coyne admonished me to find a nice girl and cleave to her. You, Mary, are that girl.” Mary responds in bewilderment. “Cleave?” The young man starts to walk away and says, “I’m going to go look that word up… and when I get back, you may not wish to be here.” (citation of comic strip couldn’t be found)
MARRIAGE – The intention
Jesus quotes from the first creation story in Genesis 1 and says, “… from the very beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’” (Genesis 1:27) Then he adds another quote from the second creation story in Genesis 2: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined [cleave] to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24) Jesus adds, “Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Mark 10:9)
The intention is for there to be a lifelong union, Jesus is saying. In our “Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage” liturgy in the Episcopal Church, the man and the woman set the same intention in their vows to one another. “In the name of God, I, ____, take you, _____, to be my wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.” (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 427)
Jesus is saying, and a man and a woman, when they pronounce their vows, are saying, “This is for life, for that is what God intends.” It’s a mind-boggling vow, when you think about it. It’s a vow with enough punch to make anyone go a little jelly-kneed on their wedding day, if they even begin to allow themselves to think about what they are saying.
DIVORCE – The too-often reality
You and I know something about the statistics around divorce in this country. It’s part of the reason Julia and I offer workshops for couples. We know that having a vibrant, lifelong marriage can be a terrific challenge, and we know something about how many marriages end in divorce. Divorce is always painful, and I believe we are just beginning to get an understanding of the ripple effects of divorce, especially the huge impact it can have on the children of divorce. There is enough blame to go around when a divorce happens. On a theological basis, we say, “Sin happens.”
But as in all cases where we begin to point our finger at one kind of sin, we must be careful. For sin, of course, is not just something that happens in the marriage arena. And sin is not just an issue for some folks and not for others. It is a power – a force – that gets a hold of all of us. Sin is defined in the Prayer Book as “the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.” (BCP, p. 848)
In our Christian tradition, we say that the answer to sin is not found in our trying harder, is not found in us doing something on our own to make ourselves right with God and with others. No, the answer to sin is found in a Messiah – Jesus – who comes to free us from the power of sin, so that we can again live in harmony with God, with other people, and with all creation. (BCP, p. 849)
There is the reality of what God intended from the very beginning – union with God. There is the reality of sin – of us doing things that separate us from the love of God and from being united with our brothers and sisters and with the creation. And there is the new reality of Jesus – the Messiah, the Son of God – who comes to save us from ourselves, and restore us to unity with God, with one another, and with the whole creation.
LOOKING MORE DEEPLY INTO TODAY’S GOSPEL
Beyond what we know about marriage and divorce, though, I’d like to take a deeper look at our Gospel story today. And I’d like to look at it from the perspective of how people approach each other, and especially how they approach Jesus.
In the beginning of Mark 10, we see the approach of the Pharisees. Mark tells us, right off the bat, that they came to test Jesus. This isn’t the kind of test that we have all taken in school to ascertain if we have mastered the material. This is the kind of test where you’re looking for a moment when you can pounce on someone, the kind of testing where you try to lay a trap for someone and then, when they fall into the trap, you can say, “Aha! I knew you weren’t any good!” They didn’t really want to know if Jesus thought it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife or not. Oh, he told them how he saw it. But they didn’t want to know, because their intention was to trap, to pounce, to find Jesus wanting, to show him up.
You and I can act this way with our spouses, with the ones we call our friends, with people that we think have wronged us in some way. At any given time, we can act just like the Pharisees, for yes, we religious folks can be just as good at testing and pouncing and trapping as any non-religious folks. We can assume the worst about someone, and set out to do something – to test someone in some way – that will prove, at least in our minds, that we are right. The Hendricks like to say that feeling like you are right might give you a short-lived adrenaline rush. But man, it can be a real killer as far as relationships go. (You notice that even Jesus, as compassionate as he was, didn’t warm up to the Pharisees a whole lot.)
When we act in this way, we sin. We fall short of who God calls us to be. We are acting sinfully – there is no other way to put it. And the moment we catch ourselves, we need to repent. I know when I act this way, and I catch myself, I feel something inside, sort of like revulsion. It’s not that false guilt that we sometimes feel, when we haven’t done something wrong yet feel like we have. No, no – this is true guilt, the kind that is very naturally associated with sin, the kind of guilt that leads us back to God, in a process that begins with confession. “Oh man, I did that, and that was really ugly, really spiteful!”
Or perhaps you prefer the words of David: “Have mercy on me, O God… for I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight…” (Psalm 51:1, 3-4)
There is another group of people in today’s Gospel story. They were bringing little children to Jesus, in order that he might touch them and bless them. These folks weren’t trying to test Jesus in any way. They weren’t trying to trap him, so that they could pounce on him. They saw something really good in Jesus, and they went up to him to ask him if he could share a little of that goodness – that divine goodness – in the form of a blessing on their children.
And the disciples, as they often seemed to do, thought they were doing the right thing, when they spoke sternly to these folks. You sort of imagine them saying something like, “The Master is in the middle of teaching the crowds. He can’t be bothered with these children right now. Get them out of here! He doesn’t want to bless your children!”
Mark tells us that when Jesus saw what the disciples did he was indignant. He was angry, and he immediately let the disciples know that he was angry. “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” Then he added, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” (Mark 10:14-15) And he took the children up in his arms and blessed them.
The actions of the disciples bring to mind that scripture we had from James recently, where James is talking about the power of the tongue. “With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.” (James 3:9-10)
CONCLUSION
If you want to have a better relationship with God and better relationships with other people, look for what is best in God and what is best in others, and put yourself in a position to receive it. For blessings will abound, both from God and from other people, to all those who are ready to receive them.
And if you want to keep God very far away, and if you want to be very alone in this world, spend all your energy putting God to the test, and try spending as much time as possible looking for the worst in others and setting traps for them, so that, when they mess up, you can say to anyone who will listen, “Aha! See! I was right!” And while you walk off thinking you are right, you will also walk off feeling very much alone.
Maybe the Pharisees weren’t totally alone. I suppose they had each other. But it sounds like most of them missed the Messiah. They were alive on this earth the very same time that he was, and heard him preach and teach, and saw him heal others, and yet, as far as developing any kind of relationship with him, they missed the Messiah.
The disciples, though they often didn’t get things right – as with the example of the children coming forward for a blessing – did do one thing really well. They kept opening themselves up to all that Jesus had to offer. They kept coming back. They kept listening and following and asking questions. And you know what? They developed a relationship with the Messiah. What they did, really, was cleave to him. They followed him, and stuck with him, and clung to him. Though they had their moments of unfaithfulness and betrayal, in the end they were faithful to him.
And they became totally different people – people Jesus trusted so much in the end that he sent them out to change the world.
How we approach Jesus, and how we approach other people, makes a really, really, really big difference, in terms of what happens to us.