Episcopal Church of the
Incarnation
The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 22B]
Genesis 2.18-24 Psalm 8 Hebrews 1.1-4; 2.5-12 Mark 10.2-16
May the Lord be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart,
that I may rightly and truly proclaim His Holy Word. Amen.
It will,
perhaps, not come as a great surprise to you that our Gospel lesson today is
one which comes up in seminary classes on preaching. Why?
Because it is considered to be a “hot potato”. In every congregation there are a number of
divorced people, and Jesus does come across as pretty strong, so seminarians
are alerted that preaching on this Gospel “requires sensitivity”.
Now, you
may consider me to be foolish, but I am bound to say that I don’t agree that we
have a hot potato here. We never need to
apologize for Scripture. What we have is
Good News, the same Good News that we each promise to testify to, both in word
and in deed. Jesus does take a strong
line about human conduct, but in doing so He makes it clear that when we fall
short of the mark it is because there is a mark, there is a plan, there is a
state of holiness to which we are called and for which we have been created.
The
Pharisees pose their question in order to test Jesus. In turn, Jesus asks what Moses
commanded. When He asks this, He is
asking what the divine Law provides. He
is speaking to people for whom the first five books of what we call the Old
Testament are known simply as the Law, and are understood to set forth the
specific commandments of the Lord
for how to live in covenant with God.
So, what Jesus is really asking is, “How are you to live in covenant
with God?” The Pharisees don’t really
answer this question. They quote procedure
to Jesus, not the substance of faithful adherence to the covenant, and Jesus is
quick to point out that procedure and substance are two different things: “Because of your hardness of heart [this
procedure is allowed]” (Mark 10.5).
Jesus is
speaking in a society in which a woman is expected to be subject to a man. She is expected to be married, or under her
father or another male relative. (This
society still exists in much of the
In teaching
about marriage and divorce Jesus is teaching about creation, about God’s plan
for humanity. We are called to holiness,
to wholeness, to the image of God in which we are each created. But we are fallen, and we fall short of the
mark, all of us, and so in calling us into a right relationship with Him, God
offers Himself. He trumps procedure with
substance. Like the Pharisees, we want
to focus on procedure, which is why we should pay attention to what happens
immediately after Jesus has taught on divorce; what happens when children are
brought to Him.
Two weeks
ago we had the example of Jesus placing a child in the midst of the
disciples. He did this after the
disciples had been disputing among themselves as to who was the greatest, and
taught “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me ...” (Mark
9.37). He cut the disciples down more
than a notch by pointing to one who had no rights or status whatsoever. In the Gentile territory in which Jesus was
teaching, a child had no rights–zero, none–even to life. Under Roman law a child’s father could have
the child sold into slavery, or even killed, and the law would not consider
this to be an issue.
But the
disciples still don’t get it. They try
to keep the children away from Jesus, and Jesus becomes indignant. He teaches, “... whoever does not receive the
When you
give a gift to a small child, how does he or she react? Some of you may remember an old advertising
campaign for wristwatches, in which a woman is showing to a friend the very
expensive wristwatch she has just received as a present. She looks a little sad, and says in a flat
voice, “It’s nice, but I wanted a Longines.”
She’s focused on her desires, on what she wants; not on the gift. A very young child does not do that. They may end up playing more with the box the
gift came in than the gift itself, but they will receive the gift for what it
is, something offered; something that is not a reward, but a gift.
We want
rewards. We have expectations. No matter how blessed we may be, we often
think that it might be nice, but we really wanted a “Longines,” something else
we had in mind that we defined to be better.
The same disciples who try to keep the children from Jesus are those who
have recently been arguing who is the greatest.
They are focused on status, on power.
The children aren’t, and Jesus blesses them. In Mark’s Gospel we have by now read that
Jesus has taught people, He has healed people, but He has not been described as
blessing anyone. Now He does, and who
does He bless? Those who come to Him
without expectation, without seeking to have their own wills affirmed.
To receive
the kingdom of heaven as a child is to receive it in innocence of
expectation. It is to realize that
heaven is a gift, not a reward. There is
nothing that we can do to earn or merit salvation. No matter how good and righteous we are, no
matter how pious and generous, these will not save us. Jesus will, and the salvation He brings is a
gift. In teaching about this gift right
after He has taught about God’s plan in creation, Jesus is emphasizing that
blessedness is offered to those who accept that creation is blessed already;
that all we have to do is turn to God to experience His grace, and to offer our
praise and worship, our thanksgiving.
Jesus does
not really make an explicit connection between what He has taught on marriage
and divorce and what He teaches about accepting the kingdom as a child, but in
placing the two teachings side-by-side Mark is making a point. He’s pointing out that divorce can result
from self-focus, from focus on our own expectations to the point that we can
think of the gift a this marriage and think, “It’s nice, but I wanted a
Longines.” In every marriage which is
ended by divorce there is at least one person who has focused on himself or
herself enough that he or she begins to measure the blessedness of being joined
by God against the standard of their own expectations, to the point where he or
she no longer sees the gift of creation in this blessedness, and instead seeks
after self-fulfillment. This is not to
belittle marital difficulty; all marriages have conflict. But when the word “me” comes after “us,” and
the word “us” comes after “Lord,” then we can accept the great gift–the
greatest gift of all–that we are called into that perfect family, that perfect
bond, which is the kingdom of heaven.
Thanks be
to God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it
was
in the
beginning is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.