Holding Two Opposing Truths

John 11:32-44

When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” 

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

One of the most annoying things about this life of ours is that two seemingly mutually exclusive things can still be true at the same time.  We have a great example of that annoying reality right here in today’s Gospel.  First we have the truth… the full on, genuine truth, that death is NOT more powerful than God!  That is truth.  Lazarus is raised, unbound, and let go!  The OTHER truth, which is just as fully true, is that death still happens!  Lazarus died and stayed that way for four days which is the Bible’s way of telling us he wasn’t just faking it.  So, God is more powerful than death AND death still happens.  UGH!  I hate it!  

We find the same super annoying phenomenon of two seemingly mutually exclusive things being true at the same time happening here in our world THIS WEEK!  The first truth is that the same God who has conquered death… THAT is OUR God… so no matter what happens this week with this election, how it is contested, what violence might ensue, or what the future of our country might be... NO MATTER WHAT… THAT God who has claimed each of us in Baptism with unconditional and irreversible love… THAT God will always be with us, through anything and everything, and in the end… THAT God will raise each of us from death into new life.  

So that’s the first truth we have to hold onto this week.  The God who is stronger than death is OUR God.  However, AT THE SAME TIME, we are all experiencing another full on, genuine truth, which is that we are all currently living with a mountain of very real, and absolutely understandable, overwhelming anxiety.  It is the anxiety of facing the possible election of a man who invited a comedian to open his rally in Madison Square Garden last Sunday by saying that Puerto Rico is “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean” and joked about Black people carving watermelons instead of pumpkins for Halloween!  Other speakers at that rally insulted Latinos generally, Black Americans, Palestinians, and Jews.  Then, as if that were not enough already, Trump’s advisor Stephen Miller claimed that “America is for Americans and Americans only” which directly echoed the statement of Adolf Hitler that "Germany is for Germans and Germans only.” 

Both God being more powerful than death AND our collective election anxiety are VERY real truths AND we are all having trouble holding them together today.  God’s unflinching love and Gods unwavering presence in our lives on the one hand.  Genuine racist, Nazi rhetoric from a presidential candidate in the other.  I know that I for one, am having just as much trouble holding together those life and death truths that face US this week, as Mary and Martha must have had holding together the life and death truths that they faced in this Gospel story!  It is so hard in fact, that I feel like I might just explode at any second!  Does that just about cover it for you?  I thought it might.  

So how do we make it through a week like we have coming up? How, in any situation, do you hold two radically different truths together at the same time?  Maybe, on All Saints Sunday, we need to look to the couple of Saints in this story who did that same impossible task.  So, how did Mary and Martha manage it?  Well, they yelled at Jesus.  They wept.  They gathered with others from their community... they openly and angrily questioned WHY it had to be like this, freely expressed their utter disbelief that it could possibly get better, and finally there was some prayer.  

Mary and Martha have given us Biblical permission to do any and all of that ourselves as we face anything in life that demands we hold things together that just shouldn’t go together.  We too can yell at God!  We too can gather and weep and openly question how we could have possibly gotten to this place and time.  We can voice our disbelief that we can ever move past this self destructive and horrifying time, and we can pray.  

NONE of what Mary and Martha did stopped Lazarus from dying and for us, NONE OF THAT will stop this week from being what it will be.  BUT it does give us permission to walk into the week ahead fully expressing and loudly sharing ALL of the emotions we will feel.  It reminds us that we have every right (and Biblical permission even) to yell at God at the top of our lungs about this time and these truths we are facing and say, “THEY STINKETH!”  They full on, dead four days in the desert heat, STINKETH! 

It also reminds us that we should not try to do these sorts of weeks alone.  Not taking out our anxiety ON one another but feeling free to share exactly how we feel WITH one another. Our emotions and feelings are a gift from God.  It is healthy to share the entirety of that gift in the week to come, with one another.  Sharing THAT truth will help give each of us room to continue to also hold the OTHER completely genuine and immutable truth of this moment… that somehow, in some way... a  way that seems impossible to even imagine right now... particularly hard to imagine for those so demonized in this campaign… but SOMEHOW God WILL call out to us in our present darkness and God’s call WILL unbind us from all the stinking bonds we've been bound in for way too long...  slavery, genocide, hatred, racism, misogyny, fascism, trans and homophobia, lies, deceptions and evil.  And with God's Call, WE WILL COME OUT and WE WILL LIVE AGAIN in the light!    Amen.  

Lies and the False gods Who Tell Them

John 8:31-36

Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Jesus says here that when we continue in his word… in other words, when we live our lives the Jesus Way and walk through life on the path of love, compassion, inclusion, generosity, and grace… the WALKING of that path is what makes a person truly a disciple.  When you walk through life THAT way, you will discover the truth.  And the truth is, THAT way of walking makes you free.  Jesus goes on to let us know that when we DON’T walk the Jesus path, we inevitably end up walking a path of hatred, cruelty, exclusion, crudeness, and selfishness… a path that then traps you, imprisons you, and enslaves you in a life without dignity, purpose, or meaning.  

500 years ago Martin Luther discovered that although this truth from John’s Gospel was clear to him, the regular people who sat in the pews were lost.  They had been so confused and manipulated over the years that Luther felt the need to go back to the very beginning to teach this truth.  For him that meant starting with the life-walking-path God first laid out… the Ten Commandments.  He did that by preaching hour long sermons. You’ll be relieved to hear… I ain’t doin’ that today or any day!  Instead, let’s just look at a couple to get a feel for how the commandments are meant to guide us walking the Jesus Way.

Luther’s method was to lay out the commandment:  “You shall have no other gods” is the first one. Then he would ask rhetorically, “What does this mean?” Then he’d give his answer, “We should fear, love and trust God above all things.”  If you look at Luther’s Small Catechism you’ll see he starts the explanation to every commandment with “We should fear and love God” so we need to get straight from the beginning that Luther isn’t telling us we need to be SCARED of God.  God loves us without limit and without condition after all.  Instead, Luther’s trying to remind us that we need to always keep in mind the unmatched POWER of God… the All Knowing Nature of God… that when it comes to knowing what is best for humans, God literally wrote the book!  No one else even comes close, which is why when people suggest they know a better way than God’s way, it always leads to problems.

In the summer of 1934, Dorothy Thompson, who at the time was writing for the Saturday Evening Post about the rise of Hitler and the Nazis was suddenly expelled from Germany.  When asked why she had been expelled she said, “My offense was to think that Hitler is just an ordinary man, after all. That is a crime against the reigning cult in Germany, which says Mr. Hitler is a Messiah sent by God to save the German people…. To question this mystic mission is so heinous that, if you are a German, you can be sent to jail.  I, fortunately, am an American, so I merely was sent to Paris. Worse things can happen….”  

Breaking this first commandment happens when a person either elevates themselves or others elevate a person to a place they suppose is equal to or even superior to God.  Breaking this commandment happens when people dismiss or distain GOD’S guidelines for living in this world (these ten commandments) and adopt or promote a different way… their own WAY.  That is why whenever any of the other commandments are trampled, this first commandment always gets trampled as well in the stampede.

Let’s use, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” as an example of how that happens.  Luther asks, “What does this mean?”  He says, “We should fear and love God, and so we should not tell lies about our neighbor, nor betray, slander, or defame him, but should apologize for him, speak well of him, and interpret charitably all that he does.”

The sin doesn’t just stop with the lie itself you see, because in telling the lie… the lier is insisting that they have a better way of living (lying) than the way God has laid out for us to live (telling the truth).  Now, lying isn’t exclusive to politics, but our current political climate makes for some ready examples.  Lying, as Hannah Arendt tells us, leads the followers of those telling the lie into a cynicism where they begin to actually admire the tactical cleverness of using lies!  With that admiration, the liars continue to lift up lies as a better WAY, a better Truth and a better LIFE than God’s Way and their followers then begin walking the path of lies themselves.  And there it is!  A leader who has set themself up as having a better path for people to walk than the path God and Jesus call us to walk and then insisting their followers walk their path, instead of God’s.  Lies are never good, brazen lies are worse, and lies that lead others down a path where they end up running roughshod over all the other commandments inevitably leads to greater and greater horrors in our world. 

So if you continue in Jesus’ word… (in other words) if you continue to walk the Jesus Way… the Way of God’s Commandments (which Jesus summed up as loving God and loving neighbor)… that means you are truly Jesus’ disciples; in the walking you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.  For those who continue in another person’s word?  For those who walk and promote a path other than the Jesus Way?  The person selling that alternative path is not only lying to you but is also telling you they know better than God.  THAT, my friends, is not the way, the truth, or the life and… IT IS NOT SO AMONG YOU!  Amen.   

Against Hate, Fascism, Nazis, and Tyranny

Mark 10:35-45

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

You know that among the Gentiles (those outside of the faith), those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and the ones they call “great” are tyrants over them… But it is not so among you.  IT IS NOT SO AMONG YOU!  

Tyrants are as old as the ages.  In Jesus’ day the Roman Empire was ruled by tyrants who in turn found local rulers who were more than willing to lord their power over the people with threats, violence, and fear.  That doesn’t sound like something that would be very popular, but on the contrary, Jesus tells us that much of the world out there believes that tyrants are actually the greatest kind of leaders.  Jesus, however, tells us… those who do our best to cling to the faith… to walk through this world on the Jesus Way… Jesus tells us that when it comes to embracing the ways of a tyrant… IT IS NOT SO AMONG YOU!

Martin Niemöller came to stand against Hitler, the Nazis, fascism, and the Third Reich in their tyranny.  He would say that in hindsight he was slower to stand against them than he should have been, but in the end, he recognized it all for what was, and confronted that tyranny in spite of the consequences.  His preaching and his actions reflected the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel for his time: “You know that among the Gentiles, those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them… BUT IT IS NOT SO AMONG YOU! 

Decades ago, as I really began to dig into these words of Jesus and the stories of Niemöller in seminary… people who dared to confront the tyrants of their age, I was in awe of what they did… in awe of their faith… in awe of their courage.  I thought, way back then at the close of the 20th century, that should anything like that ever happen on my watch, I hoped that I too would do the right thing… the scary thing, yes… but also the faithful thing… the courageous thing.  Back then though, it seemed to be a thought experiment.  A hypothetical.  Not something that would happen in real life!   

But now, here we are.  What we are facing today is no mere thought experiment and it is more exactly like what Niemöller stood against in his day than I ever thought remotely possible.  This past week saw swastika flags at a Trump rally in Florida and no one at that rally lifted a finger to take them down.  As someone on the internet said, “Remember: if you go to a rally and there is even a single Nazi flag that no one is demanding the removal of, you are at a Nazi rally.”  That unthinkable reality is born out in Trump’s words as well.  He has embraced the Nazi play book, dehumanizing entire groups of people to give his followers a group of “others” to hate.  Remember Martin Niemöller’s famous poem… In his time the targeted “others” were socialists, trade unionists, and Jews.  In our time it is Mulsims, brown and black people, and immigrants. 

The would-be tryant of our age is doing EXACTLY what Niemöller ended up regretting speaking out against in the moment... when speaking out mattered most.  This candidate for the office of President of the United States is telling his crowds that all their problems are because of these “others”.  He is saying that they, along with their Democratic accomplices, must be rounded up, deported, or executed, with the help of the military.  This language is directly from the Nazi playbook.  He now promises that he alone can save the country from the people he is actively de-humanizing by calling them “animals,” “stone cold killers,” the “worst people,” and the “enemy from within.”  This is nothing less than a full-throated embrace of Nazi “race science” and fascism.  General Mark Milley, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and certainly no flaming liberal) agrees.  He says “Trump is the most dangerous person ever… I realize he’s a total fascist… A fascist to the core.”

Those words from Jesus about the ways of tyrants should be ringing out loud and clear from every pulpit… from every deacon, priest, pastor, and bishop, lest they find themselves on the other side of this time in history needing to confess, “I didn’t speak out for them and eventually there was no one left to speak for me.”  These words of Jesus from today’s Gospel, should be preached and proclaimed as clearly and firmly as Jesus spoke them to the disciples… as clearly as they must have rung in Niemöller’s ears!  These words of Jesus that we read in today’s Gospel must be made to ring in our ears and be shouted from our mouths in these days, because for those of us who strive to follow Jesus… for those of us who do our best to walk the Jesus Way through this life we have been given… That way of Tyrants… That way of fascism… That way of endless lies, endless hate, endless violence and endless fear … THAT WAY IS NOT SO AMONG YOU!  IT IS NOT… SO… AMONG… YOU!  

I know I am preaching to the choir.  But this moment calls for all of us to do more than simply preach to our fellow converts.  This moment calls for all of us to proclaim from the rooftops and make clear to the entire world, that although tyranny is an option on the ballot… for followers of Jesus, the way of tyranny is not so among you.  Amen.

  

Note:  I will not tell anyone who they should vote for or against.  I will speak against the sin of lying, fascism, hate, racism, oppression, and tyranny.  

22 Days

Mark 10:17-31

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Jesus said, it’s easier for a real, live, long necked, large humped, vomit spitting, 1300 lb. dromedary to go through the eye of a standard No. 5 sewing needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.  Some folks like the idea  that the “Eye of the Needle” is actually the name of a gate in Jerusalem that you can get your camel through if you just unload all the stuff it is carrying.  Maybe.  But I suspect Jesus was being more hard-core than that.  I think Jesus was talking about both, a real three quarter ton “ship of the desert” camel AND a literal, tiny sewing needle.  So the question remains… how will we get THAT camel… through THAT needle AND how are we going to do the thing Jesus says is HARDER THAN THAT, which is to get rich people (who, if we’re honest, is ALL of us)… how are we going to get all of US into heaven?

We can assume the rich, young man in this story had tried all the usual ways.  He had tried to PAY to have his camel pushed through.  He’d tried to be good and virtuous enough to EARN his camel passage through.  I’m sure he had born the guilt and shame he thought might get his camel through.  He might have even tried to lie and say, “We have the greatest camels and we got them all through.”  No matter what he tried, in the end he found… you can’t do it.  YOU can’t get your camel through the eye of a needle and YOU can’t get yourself into heaven.

 

You see, he was (like us rich folks usually are) used to solving problems on his own.  He had jumped over countless challenges and been successful without any help.  Whether it was his money, talent, privilege, experience or a combination of all of the above, he was used to… convinced even… that HE could tackle anything the world might throw at him BY HIMSELF.  You can see that in the way he asked the question of Jesus, “What must I DO to inherit eternal life?”  What must I DO?  

Jesus knew, that because he had been successful in so much relying ONLY on himself, it would be almost impossible for him to believe there was anything he could NOT do by himself.  Jesus told him, “To get your camel through the eye of that needle you’ll need to GIVE UP.  Give up the idea that YOU can make it happen.”  This guy had never given up!  All his success had been built on the fact that HE could make anything happen.  So he turned his back on Jesus and walked away to keep looking for a way that HE could buy, earn, fix, wheel, deal, scheme, or lie HIMSELF into an inheritance of eternal life. 

In this parable, Jesus is asking us to believe what that rich, young man just couldn’t:  That for mortals, it’s impossible to buy, earn, fix, wheel, deal, scheme or lie yourself into eternal life… but it is not impossible for God.  For God ALL things are possible… it’s possible for God to pull a 1300lb. camel through the eye of a No. 5 sewing needle.  It is EVEN possible for God to pull the likes of you and me through the needle’s eye of death and into eternal life.  

But wait, there’s more!  For God it’s not only POSSIBLE to do all that… but as it turns out for us… God’s already done it!  God’s reached through the eye of that needle that we call the Cross of Christ, grabbed hold of you and me, and whether we like it or not, God’s even reached through and pulled that rich young man through as well.  God, in fact, has pulled ALL of creation through, from death into life.  And if God can do THAT… then… well, what other completely hopeless, terribly frightening, totally impossible thing for YOU to fix, turns out to be something that God can handle without even breaking a sweat? 

So, what is one, horrible, anxiety flooding, sleep depriving, totally out of your control thing that you find yourself facing today?  Hmmmm?  I wonder?  Golly, what could it be?  Maybe something, I don’t know, let’s just pick a random number… how about something maybe, oh, I don’t know… 22 days away?  Anything?  Any worry?  Anything out of your control?  Well, if you come up with something let me know.  In the mean time though, for us mortals… the first take home from this sermon is that ALTHOUGH… YOU OR ME trying to get ANY of those hope stomping, joy trampling, justice wrecking camels that we might think up later through the eye of the needle is soul crushingly impossible… NONE OF IT!  NONE…OF…IT... is impossible for God! 

That was SO hard to believe for that rich young man that he went off sad and alone and the second take home from this sermon is THAT might very well have been his BIGGEST mistake.  Because, here’s what I want you to remember over the next 22 days at least (remembering this for more days would be better, but we can start with just 22).  What I want you to remember is that when we face the impossible, one of the reasons God has given us one another is so that we can get together and remind one another that when we face the impossible GOD HAS…. GOD IS…. AND GOD WILL… do whatever needs to be done… including pulling what appears to be hopeless, horrific, and dead, through the Cross of Christ and into eternal life.  Let’s all do our very best NOT to go off alone in these next few weeks but to gather here in these next 22 days so we can remind one another that God really does have the whole world, in Their Loving, Divine, Hands, okay?  Okay.  Amen.  

Digging Required

Genesis 2:18-24

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.” Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Mark 10:2-16

Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “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.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

Last week was millstones around the neck and cutting off body parts.  This week it’s gender and divorce.  Bishop Jack and I laughed about these kinds of weeks last week at coffee hour but in the end we both agreed that even in these sorts of weeks, there is Good News to be found.  It’s just that in weeks like this, a lot more digging, a lot deeper in the mine, is required!

So the first bit of digging we need to do this week is into the word “man” in that Genesis text.  Dig into the original Hebrew and you’ll first find that the word Adam is NOT best translated as “man” as in a gender.  The Hebrew word A-dam best translates into English as, something like, Earth Person.  In my mind I imagine the A-dam 1.0 model as a sort of proto-human, a person containing the entire spectrum of human gender but without a specific gender or sexual expression.  Why did God create the A-dam this way?  Because, God thought that was the way to go!  So what happened?  The A-dam turned out to be lonely.  Loneliness was not God’s intention.  God had made a mistake!  Gasp!  So what did God do?  The Divine worked out a fix!  And God’s fix for loneliness was and is… relationship!

To do that, God took a rib out of A-dam 1.0, right?  Actually, the Hebrew implies that God cut A-dam 1.0 right down the middle and therefore made two, completely equal “flesh and bone” beings to be in relationship with one another.  Humanity 2.0 was created to have multiple beings, which together would make a fully equal, not lonely, relational whole.  This wasn't about sex or gender.  Let me say that again... This wasn't about sex or gender!  It was ALL about creating a fix for the human problem of loneliness.  How beings should or shouldn't be mixed or matched with regard to sex and gender in the future in these equal, mutual, loneliness-fixing relationships isn’t addressed here at all.  Worth the digging, right?

The next digging to be done is into Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees.  What you find with just a little shovel work there is that divorce in their time was like Trump vs. Harris in our time... An all consuming political issue filled with fear, anger, rage, and divisiveness.  The pharisees knew if they could get Jesus to commit to one side or the other, (they didn’t care which) the other side might just rid them of their Jesus problem.  The pharisees were picking a fight but Jesus chose not to show up for it!  Jesus told them, “It is your hardness of heart” that has you asking this question!  You are trying to use the wonderful, divine gift called “RELATIONSHIP”… God’s fix for humanity’s loneliness… and twist it into something that does the exact opposite!  You’re trying to use it to divide and conquer!  That, Jesus says, is some heard hearted nastiness right there!  

The last bit of digging we need to do is into the conversation Jesus had with the disciples about divorce.  In Jesus’ day we need to remember that women had no legal status.  Without care from a man… father, brother, son, or husband... women could be left literally homeless and destitute.  That gender inequality is NOT how God created humans to live (we learned that digging in Genesis) but it WAS the reality in Jesus’ day, SO that’s the reality Jesus had to address.  Therefore what Jesus was forbidding in this lesson was a man (who in that culture held all the power) FORCING the fate of homelessness and destitution on a woman (who in that culture had absolutely no power)!!  That’s it! 

Now, here’s what Jesus was NOT saying:  Jesus was NOT saying people should stay in intentionally or unintentionally abusive or irreparably broken marriages of any sort.  He was NOT saying that people should stay in a relationship when, for whatever reason, that relationship is no longer able to DO what God created relationships to DO... to cure loneliness and help one another toward becoming the fullness of what God created them to be.  Jesus is NOT saying people must stay in a relationship, when for millions of different reasons, that relationship is no longer able to build one another up in an equal, mutual, and jointly beneficial way, but instead (intentionally or unintentionally) is tearing one or the other, or both, down.  Divorce is always painful but that does NOT mean it is always the wrong thing to do.  Sometimes, one of the hard facts about being human is that doing the painful thing is sometimes the absolutely RIGHT thing to do.  

Relationship and every sort of Gender expression was created as a Divine GIFT from God!  God created those things as tools to move all human beings toward the wholeness and abundant life God created us each to live!  They were given and meant to be shared equally with one another.  They were NEVER meant to be used as a means to denigrate or to dominate the other.  They have always been meant to be tools to lift one another up!  Never were they meant to be used to tear one another down.

These are very hard texts.  Mostly because they have been badly misused for thousands of years.  Undoing all of that damage and pain will take a very long time.  Much longer than one Sunday sermon can possibly last, so with that... let's call this sermon done for now, and say... Amen.    

Terrible Pun Fully Intended

Mark 9:38-50

John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.

“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.

“For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

In a previous episode of the Gospel of Mark, a father brought his son to Jesus and his disciples.  The son had a demon that threw him on the ground, caused him to grind his teeth and foam at the mouth, and sometimes this would cause him to fall into the fire, or into the water!  The disciples gave it a shot first, but they couldn't get it done.  Shaking his head, Jesus said, “You faithless generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you?”  So, THAT stung the disciples… A LOT!

Now, in this week’s episode of the Gospel of Mark we see the disciples come upon a person casting out demons in Jesus’ name.  Unlike the disciples, this guy had been SUCCESSFUL in the exorcism business.   So, THAT stung… A LOT… AGAIN.  So what did the disciples do?  They told him to stop!  Of course they did!  Because having fewer people walking around this world with seizure-causing demons isn’t AT ALL what Jesus and the disciples are about!  Jesus and the disciples are all about protecting the brand!  Right?  NO!  The goal Jesus had and the goal Jesus was trying to get through the thick disciples’ noggins… disciples then and disciples now… is supposed to be… as Bishop Curry says, “changing the world from the nightmare it is for so many, into the dream that God has for it.”  

Here, in this gospel lesson, Jesus outlines the two ways we can move the world closer to God’s dream.  BOTH are very legitimate and Biblically sound ways of getting to the same goal, and BOTH come with difficult and sometimes nearly impossible demands on those disciples who want to move in the direction of God’s dream for the world.  

The first method is to follow the Law completely.  Follow it like you were driving your car straight down the center line.  Do NOTHING to waver from that center line.  No changing stations on the radio, no sip of coffee, no trying to read that Berkstock sign.  Another car is coming at you?  NO wavering.  A deer?  No wavering!  Not even an inch!  Perfect… and I mean ONLY PERFECT following of the law will change the world, so if something causes you to waver, do whatever it takes… I mean WHATEVER it takes to stay on that center line up to and including chopping off or gouging out body parts.  Hard core, right?  But it is Biblically sound.  You are fully in charge.  It’s completely up to you.  Follow the Law and the world changes.  

The OTHER way to change the world… that is, if you are interested in another way?  You are?  Okay, just wanted to check… the other way to change the world is to be “for” Jesus or I think Jesus would say, to at least not be AGAINST those who walk the Jesus Way of living in the world.  And what is living the Jesus Way in the world?  It is the way of love… doing what is in the other’s best interest.  It is the way of compassion… caring for the least, the lost, and the last.  It is the way of generosity… giving what you have, even if all you have is a cup of water to drink.  Brother Curtis from the Society of St. John the Evangelist, an Episcopal monastic group here in Massachusetts put it this way “There is something about participating in life as a gift, not clinging to it, not hoarding it, but cherishing it, then sharing it with a kind of reckless abandon that is the real deal, because that’s like God. We are invited to be generous with the things in life to which we’ve been entrusted, as well as with our kind­ness, attentiveness, gratitude, gentleness, and interest for others.” 

Nice, right?  A better way than the choppy/gougey way?  I think so too, but it isn’t less difficult… in fact this way might actually be MORE difficult because it isn’t as “clear cut” as the other (terrible pun fully intended!)  This way of changing the world asks for our egos to step fully aside and allow the power of God to do its thing without us worrying about who gets the credit.  This way of changing the world asks us to give a cup of water to someone who is thirsty and then it asks us to keep working on ourselves so we continue to grow into a place where we can give more and more and more of who we are and what we have.  This way of changing the world asks us to live our lives each day living so generously that we approach the point where, as Paul says, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”  

The disciples, fresh from their own failures and stinging from seeing someone from the other party being successful, wanted Jesus to bring down hellfire on this other guy who was working outside the LAW.  Jesus reminded them that while the LAW is an option, it literally cuts both ways (again, terrible pun fully intended) and there is no one who can follow that path and remain unscathed. 

Instead, Jesus tells the disciples… the disciples there and us disciples here… that he recommends the Way that, as Brother Curtis says, treats life as a gift, not clinging to it, not hoarding it, but cherishing it, then sharing it with a kind of reckless abandon, because that too will change the world into the dream God has for it… not with any less difficulty on our parts for certain, but with a lot less gore.  Amen.