Made for Something More

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday October 4, 2009, the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Today we also celebrate World Communion Sunday.

Job 1:1, 2:1-10
Psalm 26
Hebrews 1:1-1, 2:5-12
Mark 10:2-16

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

Often, I wonder if the Lord doesn’t put his face in his hands and ask “what in the world are they thinking?” This reading and several more from the gospel readings coming over the next few Sundays produce that attitude from me. Maybe it’s “Why ask these questions?” “They just don’t get it some days.” Or the ever popular, “It just goes to show you…” Today, Jesus is given a test “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” We often think of this as a test to draw Jesus into the web of the Pharisees and trap him into a controversy so to hasten his way to the cross, but it may not have been that at all.

The controversy the Pharisees attempted to draw Jesus into was less about the Word of God and more about the way people thought about the Word of God. The Pharisees were trying to draw Jesus into an argument between rabbinical schools of thought, which are kind of like Judaism’s version of denominations, and their views on divorce. Evidently, controversy over divorce is as old as marriage itself.

Regarding divorce, the position taken by the Shammai School was very strict, while a more lenient stance taken by the Hillel School. Somewhere between the two fell the teachings of the Aqiba School.[1] If Jesus takes one position over the others, then the uproar begins. Sit on the fence and everybody gets upset. The Pharisees have set an argument before Jesus hoping he would fall into the controversy, dividing the people of God.

You know, it might actually have been better if this trap had been set to snare Jesus toward the cross. If the argument had really been about human relationships then it would have been more worthy than what the Pharisees were trying to get Jesus into. Then at least the controversy would have had some merit in the sense of eternal life. But no, this controversy is being used to divide people and set earthly powers and principalities; it’s about whose Rabbi is right. Instead of the argument going to answer the great spiritual questions of life, the universe, and everything; it becomes a contest to see who’s right and who’s wrong.

We know the game the Pharisees are playing, the gospel tells us that they came and tested Jesus. It doesn’t say whether Jesus knew they were coming to test him or not, but our Lord is more than wise enough to see the snare that was being laid out. Jesus knows the game that they are playing and he knows the truth is the only way to answer their question.

They ask “Is it lawful?” Jesus asks them back, “Well, what did Moses command you?”

Always willing to answer their own questions, the Pharisees said “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” With just a word from Moses, the woman becomes eligible for a pink slip. I imagine the Hillel rabbis were happy to hear this from the Pharisee. I am just as sure that those who sided with the Shammai were dismayed, ready to make their point before the Lord.

But Jesus will have nothing to do with their arguments over the interpretation of the law. Jesus, the Word Incarnate, turns away from interpretation and shares the Living Word with all who will listen. The reason Moses said this was not because of marriage, but because of the people who married. Moses said a man can write a certificate of dismissal not because marriage is hard, but because of the hardness of human hearts.

This word, hardness, has a specific meaning for the Rabbis and the Pharisees; it doesn’t describe something hard like a rock or difficult like ruling the people or perilous like crossing the desert. In this case, Jesus meant that the people of God were as stubborn and unyielding as they were when Moses used this word in Deuteronomy 10:16 summing up the essence of the Law saying to the people “Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer.”[2]

In this passage he stands more against adultery than for marriage. Jesus stands for what God wants. Jesus stands for the better way. Jesus stands up for people who are married more than he stands up for marriage. He stands for people sharing life together in the love of God rather than institutional wedlock. He stands for grace and love over law and certificates of dismissal. Jesus stands up for loving and caring relationships, not legal documents that either bind or unbind a couple. Jesus stands up for something more, something better, the things that make life worth living.

A life constrained by legal bonds and contracts is hardly a life worth living. Life was never meant to be lived in court; it is meant to be lived in the unconditional love of God. A love we are given not despite who we are—despite the fact that there is divorce and remorse—but because of who we are—because we are the children of God. It is as the children of God that we become who we are meant to be.

Jesus knows that this connection, this untainted love is best shown by children; children who do not know what we grown-ups horribly call real life. Children who in the best of circumstances could never imagine shattered relationships. Children who inherently trust; trusting and loving so graciously that Jesus says the kingdom of God belongs to such as these children. Jesus says “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

We live in a complicated world, and it just keeps getting more complicated everyday. The things that don’t get more complicated get bigger and faster. If I told you that it is easy to live in our world like children you would probably laugh and rightfully so. Yet no matter how hard this is, we are given what we need to live in the kingdom in our day and in our time.

About twenty years ago a nationwide poll asked, “What word or phrase would you most like to hear uttered to you, sincerely?” The number one thing the respondents most wanted to hear was “I love you.” The second is as glorious as the first, “You are forgiven.” The third seems removed from the others. It’s “Supper is ready.”[3]

Today, in worship, we hear all of these things. Today, the Lord our God tells us these things. Today we have heard God’s love, and we respond to God’s love sharing God’s peace and love with one another. We have confessed our sins against God and against one another and have heard “Christ who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin. In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.”[4] Soon we will hear the words of invitation to the table, the call that supper is ready as we celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

By the grace of God we are given what we need to live mature God loving lives, lives worthy of the kingdom of heaven, and the hard cold world we see all around us. We are given the blessings of God’s love, God’s forgiveness, and God’s nourishment. We have received love and grace, plate and cup; and we have received them from Jesus.

Earlier I asked if the Lord doesn’t wonder what we’re thinking. We keep trying to draw Jesus into our controversies when he keeps trying to draw us closer to his, the controversy of his incarnation, the controversy of his death, the controversy of his resurrection. We try to twist the law and the Lord into our wrangling while he made us for something more, something better, something holy.

The psalmist writes:

I will wash my hands in innocence, O Lord,
that I may go in procession round your altar,
singing aloud a song of thanksgiving
and recounting your wonderful deeds.[5]

We are called to come together and rejoice. We are called to come together and share. When we ask what we have to give one another, we must give from what we received. We must learn the songs of God in our own lives so that we may sing aloud our song of thanksgiving, recounting God’s wonderful deeds.

We are called to share what we are given with the world. We can spend all the time we want lamenting what we don’t have with one another because we live in a world where the Word does not seem to be in the world, not yet. But we must be willing to share what is here all ready, and in Christ what we have to share is everything that’s worth sharing.

By this, we share the gospel. By this, we build relationships. On this World Communion Sunday, we join with Christians around the world and celebrate what brings us together instead of what tears us apart. And today, to nourish all creation for this task, we are fed by the sacrament. Come, taste and see that the Lord is good.

[1] Williams, Lamar, Jr. Mark, Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1983, pages 175-177
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=1193, With thanks to James A. Harnish, "Walking With Jesus: Forgiveness," Tampa, Fla., March 22, 1998.
[4] Kirk, James G. “When We Gather, A Book of Prayers for Worship.” Louisville, KY; Geneva Press, 2001, page 233.
[5] Psalm 26:6-7 from the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship