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Sermon on Mark 10:2-12

Sermon on Mark 10:2-12 October 4, 2009 I’ve decided to preach on the passage I just read in Mark. But I’m a little hesitant. This is what Ralph Milton says this week about Mark 10:2-12. Those of you who are preachers—I don’t envy your job this week. There are lots of things in the church that I love to do, but preaching on Mark 10:2-12 is not one of them. Verses 13-16 is a piece of cake to preach on, but Mark 10 verses 2-12 is full of landmines! So I’m preaching on a text full of landmines. I hope I don’t step on one of them. The passage starts out looking like it is about divorce. That could be the first landmine right there. Divorce is a touchy subject. So many, many people have been stung by the pain of a once-loving-relationship somehow gone awry. But the text is not about divorce. I hope I don’t disappoint too many people by stepping over the topic of divorce, because I know it is an important topic. Maybe it will be for another day. The text is about a group of Pharisees carrying out an undercover sting operation, trying to bring Jesus down. Here’s how they try to do it: They hand over to Jesus a question that is full of landmines. Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? It might sound like a straightforward question with a simple yes or no answer. But it’s not. It’s a question with a dangerous answer. Here’s why, and Mark helps us make the connection. Please bear with me while I do a little teaching. Mark tells us that Jesus and all the crowds of followers are making their way to Jerusalem and they have made a side trip across the Jordan and are in the Trans Jordan area. This area is significant because this is the place where John the Baptist was arrested and executed. Does anybody remember why John the Baptist was killed? [He told Herod the king that Herod was breaking the law by marrying his divorced brother’s ex wife [Mk 6:17]. Herod promised his daughter Herodias, who had danced for the king, anything she wanted and she went to her mother and her mother said she wanted John the Baptist’s head on a platter.] You say something against the King and see what happens! These hard-hearted Pharisees are trying to get Jesus to say the same thing. It’s a dangerous question and if Jesus steps into it he’s a goner. But look what Jesus does. And this is really what I want to dwell on today. Jesus steps over the toxic question, and brings the whole ‘conversation’ to a completely different place. He brings it all into a place of life and creation. He says nothing about divorce—steps right over that landmine. Jesus talks instead about how God intended marriage to be loving. Love and marriage go together—like a horse and carriage. This I tell you brother. You can’t have one without the other.” But marriage is just an example. God intends all relationships to be loving. That’s what God wants and what God desires for all people. But God knows we’re humans who fail. We fail to love our marriage partners. We fail to love members of our families. We fail to love people in our communities. And we fail to love people in the world. Just open yesterday’s paper with Bishop Raymond Lahey, or David Letterman or even someone you know. We’re not perfect by a long shot. There’s a story about a newly-engaged man asking his friend if he had ever thought about getting married. He said, yes, I have and I travelled the world over to find a perfect wife. And I found her. But I couldn’t marry her because it turned out that she was looking for a perfect husband. We fail. I fail. So the passage is not about what is right or wrong with anything. The passage is about what is loving about everything. Jesus came so that all the people in the world could have life in all its fullness. And Jesus is doing that exact thing right here with the Pharisees. Jesus does this over and over and over again. It’s one of the reasons why I love Jesus so much! Jesus meets the Samaritan woman with all those husbands and steps over what’s right or wrong and does what is loving. The woman caught in adultery—same thing. He steps over what is right or wrong with her behavior and does what is loving. Zacchaeus, the tax collector in the tree—same thing. It’s not about what is right or wrong. It’s about what is loving. Jesus could easily offer judgement. But he so chooses to do what is loving. And sometimes so do we. When Mary Sawatzky’s mother agreed to look after the Ukrainian neighbor’s little girl one day, she let go of what was right or wrong and just did what was loving. Mary tells the story way better than I can but I’ll try to summarize it. Her own daughter spoke low German and the neighbor’s little girl spoke Ukrainian and ended up becoming good friends. And there was an unwritten law with the previous generation of people that it was wrong for Germans and Ukrainians to associate with each other. Mary’s mother did not choose what was right or wrong. She chose what was loving. And look at us today because people like Mary did exactly that. Just write on a piece of paper “Do what Mary’s mother did.”, and stick it to your fridge. That’s the message in this text. There’s a story about an old Rabbi who asked his pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day begun. One student answered: Is it when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it’s a sheep or a dog? No. Another student answered: Is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it is fig tree or a peach tree? No. The Rabbi said, It is when you can look on the face of any woman or man and see your sister or brother. Because if you cannot see this, it is still night. Today is World Communion Sunday, a day we are reminded to look into the faces of our all people in the world and see our brothers and sisters as we sit with them at the longest Communion Table in the world. We are reminded to step over what is right or wrong with the world and tend only to what is loving. What a great message for World Communion Sunday!