AND, AND, By God, AND!

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.”

All Saints Day asks us to hold opposites together.  It asks us to hold heaven and earth together... to hold death and life together… all at the very same time.  In our current world, where there are days I wonder if we could even manage to hold a glass of milk and an Oreo cookie together at the same time, that seems to be a very tall order.  But that is exactly what All Saints Day asks of us today.    

The lesson from Isaiah has my favorite image of heaven.  A beautiful table set with the very best food and drink.  Now that’s heaven!  The lesson from Revelation is a lovely vision of heaven as well.  A place were mourning and crying and pain are no more!  And in the Gospel, the dead are raised, even when it seems impossible... even after Lazarus had begun to “stinketh” as it says in the King James Version... God raises him from the dead.  So in heaven we’re assured that God will do the same for us as well!  

So these lessons ARE about where we go when we “fly away, sweet Jesus”…AND! AND! By God AND!… All Saints Days ALSO insists that we hold that together with living THIS LIFE!  Right HERE!  Right NOW!  That passage from Isaiah after all says that God will make that beautiful feast on THIS mountain… not just on THAT mountain “when I die, Hallelujah by and by!”  All Saints Day tells us we better get started setting that feast table right NOW!  Because THAT’S a feast for then... AND... it is just as much a feast for us to enjoy right HERE!  Right NOW!  

That lesson from Revelation talks about heaven… about “a land where joys will never end.”  But All Saints Day ALSO insists that the Holy City… that New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband…  That’s not JUST a city “on some bright morning when this life is over!”  All Saints Day insists it is JUST AS MUCH a city for NOW!  That place where every tear is wiped away… THAT’S a city for our HERE!  THAT’S a city for our NOW!

And in John’s Gospel, right before the bit of the story we read for today, Martha basically says to Jesus, “I know he’ll rise on some day in the sweet by and by.”  BUT THEN Jesus goes ahead and raises Lazarus right THERE… Right THEN to show Mary… to show Martha… to show you… to show me… to show this world... that Eternal Life isn’t JUST something we get on “God's celestial shore” but it is JUST AS MUCH about living the Abundant life we rise up to each morning, right HERE too!  All Saints Day insists that Eternal Life is not just about a life "when we fly away to glory" but it’s equally about living the eternal, abundant life we've been given... a life we’ve been given as a glorious and perfect gift... A gift that's been set into our hands by our overwhelmingly generous, outrageously loving God, RIGHT NOW!    

Our job, as people of faith, is to live our lives looking forward to the wonders of heaven, with it’s feasts and it’s mansions in a pain and tear free paradise... AND, AND, by God!  AND!  Our job, as people of faith is to live our lives working to create the very best representation of that feast filled, death fighting, tear wiping, pain soothing paradise right here on earth!  Even while the world STINKETH around us, we’re called to roll the stones away, unbind those who are bound up in any way and set them free!  Even on the days when our world doesn’t feel so much like a party, we’re being called to set the table and invite our neighbors for a feast!  Even on the days when the hatred, bigotry, and just plain evil of this world create WAY too many tears, we’re being called to wipe each other’s tears away and do all that we can to take away the world’s pain.  All Saints Day insists that even on the days that "stinketh" we're being called to "come out!" and and show the world how God created us to live!  

Today we celebrate the truth of God’s BOTH/AND!  Today we reject the world’s insistence that everything from people to politics, from heaven to earth, from Oreos to milk, must always be EITHER/OR.  Today we celebrate BOTH the promise of the life to come AND the gift of the life we share together now!  Today we look forward to that feast of rich food filled with marrow that is to come AND we come to THIS table NOW to keep that very same feast, snitching just a bit of bread from God’s table, and taking just a sip of wine from the cup until the day we will sit with God and all the Saints at the feast which never ends! 

On this All Saints day we look to that “sweet by and by” where we sit at that feast in heaven, where we live in the holy city and where we are raised from the dead on the last day… AND…AND… BY GOD AND!  We also roll back the stones that keep people from having life RIGHT NOW.  We unwind the bands that deprive our neighbors of their full dignity as humans, RIGHT NOW.  We wipe away the tears from our neighbor’s eyes, seeing in their eyes the eyes of Christ and we work to take away the pain of the world RIGHT NOW, so that ALL of creation might experience God's loving gift of LIFE, in heaven, AND… AND… by God, AND!  On earth!  Amen.

The Sin of Antisemitism

You may have heard that the terrorist at the Tree of Life Synagogue used a verse from the eighth chapter of John’s Gospel to justify his actions, citing particularly verse 44.  In that verse, Jesus tells the people he is arguing with that their father is the devil.  I suspect that everyone who is associated with our church knows in their hearts that Jesus was NOT speaking literally and your suspicions would be correct!  He was NOT!  We know in our hearts what Bishop Curry is fond of saying out loud, “If it’s not about love, then it’s not about God!”  I also suspect though, we might all appreciate a little help understanding what Jesus WAS trying to say here since the Gospel of John is the most mystical of the Gospels it is never exactly straight forward or easy to fully understand.  It is a Gospel that MUST be read and understood through a mystic’s lens. 

I am also painfully aware that this person’s horrific misinterpretation of Scripture has a long history in being used to fan the flames of the sin of antisemitism through the centuries.  As a church connected with the Lutheran tradition, we have a particular responsibility and must be constantly vigilant not to even passively repeat the horrible mistakes of our tradition’s past.  Therefore in repentance for those past sins and in faithfulness to our true faith which is grounded in love, we must now always speak loudly, publicly and boldly when this scripture and our faith is again horribly misused to fan the flames of the sin of antisemitism.  This is a task each of us needs to understand as our both our church’s task AND our individual task.  This we MUST DO in order to live deeply into our Baptismal covenant as we “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.” 

The first thing to understand about this bit of Scripture is that it is a part of the whole Gospel of John which was written primarily as a mystic theology first, and historical remembrance a very distant second.  You may have noticed it doesn’t follow neatly with the other Gospels and that’s because the author wasn’t at all trying to write a history!  He was writing a mystic theology!  Because of that, almost everything in this book has deeper meaning than what is read on the surface.  For example, there are only seven “signs” or miracles in John’s Gospel. That’s not because John was napping while Jesus did the others, but because the number seven is a mystically “perfect” number, so THAT is the number Jesus would have done!  So when I say that everything has a deeper meaning, I mean EVERYTHING.  

The second thing that is vitally important to remember, is that when Jesus refers to “The Jews” in this Gospel, he doesn’t mean the entire Jewish people.  Remember, Jesus was Jewish.  His mother was Jewish.  His disciples were Jewish.  They weren’t Christians.  They were the Jewish mother and followers of a Jewish rabbi, named Jesus!  When Jesus says “The Jews” in John’s Gospel or talks about the “Scribes and Pharisees” in the other Gospels, he was specifically referring to the Jewish leadership with whom he was arguing.  These were Jewish leaders who had joined with the occupying Roman government as a means to gain for themselves wealth, power and influence at the expense of the poor, hungry and struggling regular Jewish people.  When Jesus calls these leaders out, he is calling them out in the long tradition of the prophets like Jeremiah, Amos, Hosea and Micah who also called out Jewish leaders who took advantage of other poor and powerless Jewish people over the centuries. 

   

Throughout history and into today, people of every faith (just watch the news!) have been tempted away from the way of love by the seductive voice of power, wealth and influence.  Which leads us to the main point of this reflection.  When Jesus uses the metaphor that this group of Jewish leaders’ father is the devil, he is telling them that they, like Adam and Eve in the very beginning, have been tempted away from the way of love, which is God’s Way.  He does not mean they are literally the devil’s children.  He means they, like all of us from time to time, have metaphorically been tempted to follow a seductive, tempting voice onto a path other than God’s.  Jesus’ argument with the Jewish leadership is a moral argument.  Jesus was telling them they are walking a path other than the path of their authentic faith, a faith that cares for the widow and the orphan, that welcomes and cares for the stranger and the alien, a faith that does justice, loves kindness and walks humbly with God.  He is telling them they are walking the wrong path with the wrong crowd for all the wrong reasons. 

When Jesus is asked in Matthew’s Gospel, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”  He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  

Those neighbors are in this moment, specifically our Jewish neighbors!  In this particular time we need to be very specific, vocal and direct about who those neighbors are.  They are Jewish!  Therefore, I recommit myself and our congregation to stand with our Jewish friends and neighbors in their every need.  We are ready to be called and directed by them as their allies in any way in which they might ask.  I recommit us all to prayer with them and for them, and to continue to actively work to further build our relationships, both between individuals and between our faith communities, and with one voice in our shared community to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with OUR God.  

We are blessed at Christ Trinity to have Jewish “members” of our church!  Lovely neighbors and dear, dear friends who join us for events, sing with us at beer and hymns, help us at our fair and count us as their friends as we count them as ours.  Let us reach out to those friends in particular this week.  Check in on them.  Send them a card.  Let them know you and our church are holding them in our prayers and that the people of the Synagogue in Pittsburgh are in our prayers.  When you remember those who were killed, say “may their memory be for a blessing.”  It will be appreciated.  Remind them when you see them that we do now and always will, stand with them no matter what goes on in the world.  

We need to do more than simply know in our hearts that we follow the Way of love and hold our neighbors in our prayers.  We need to make that widely, vocally and profoundly known in our community and in our world and now is the time for us to do that! 

A Mighty Beer Drinking Song

Psalm 46

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.  The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Come, behold the works of the Lord; see what desolations he has brought on the earth.  He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.

“Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.”

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Martin Luther took the 46th Psalm and set those words to a beer drinking song (that’s actually true!) because the people he cared for were living in stormy times.  Today, people tell me they’re hitting the wall, approaching despair, becoming exhausted in our stormy times.  Tossed and battered day after day… one crisis follows another.  Storms, both natural and human made, are deadly and unrelenting.  The earth changes, mountains shake, the chaos of the sea rages on shore at near category five levels.  Lots of Psalm 46 kind of days these days!  

So much fear and anger out there.  Some people actually cheer as others are hurt or killed.  Horrible actions are dismissed or covered up… our upcoming elections are filled with hate, fear, and lies.  Voter suppression is rampant… the dignity of human beings is ignored.  Then there’s the church!  Those of us who used to be younger remember the church used to feel like it was on solid ground and now it feels more like sinking sand.  But into ALL that, God makes US that same Psalm 46 promise that God made when it was written and when Luther set those words to a beer drinking song!  The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge! 

Now, I think it might be good to talk about this “God of Jacob” for just a little bit because the God of Jacob ain’t just any old god.  The God of Jacob is tricksy.  The God of Jacob is sneaky.  The God of Jacob isn’t above a low blow.  The God of Jacob helped Jacob’s mom, Rebekah, cheat his older brother Esau out of his birthright.  The God of Jacob helped them trick Isaac, Jacob and Esau’s, blind and dying father, into blessing Jacob instead of Esau which just wasn’t at all very nice!  The God of Jacob is THAT sort of God!

The God of Jacob sent Jacob BACK to meet up with the brother he had cheated, just a few chapters later.  That, as you might imagine, scared the ever lovin’ poo out of Jacob!  The God of Jacob is THAT sort of God! The God of Jacob is the One who wrestled with Jacob in the middle of a river all night long to keep Jacob moving toward that scary encounter.  The God of Jacob is the One who won that fight by “Putting Jacob’s hip out of joint” and by “hip” he meant a much more sensitive area that’s around the same HIGHT as a hip, but around the corner from the hip, if you know what I mean!  

THAT’s the God of Jacob.  Sneaky!  Bold!  Brash!  A break the rules, sneaky and even low-blow dealing God, willing to do whatever it takes to get the world moving where the world needs to move!  The God of Jacob is willing to get your attention in the most attention-getting ways!  THAT’s the Lord of hosts that’s with us; THAT’s the God of Jacob who is our refuge.  

You would think THAT sort of God would be able to keep our attention, but the storms of life THESE days are SO distracting, aren’t they?  They make it SO HARD to remember EVEN this attention demanding, God of Jacob!  The mountains of breaking news, shaking our pockets and purses with alerts are so hard to ignore, like the sound of waters raging around us, it all demands our constant attention no matter what we try.  

It reminds me of that story of Peter wanting to walk on the water.  To me our world feels like that!  It feels like I’d LIKE to step out of the boat and walk on the chaos of the world toward Jesus.  I’d LIKE for the chaos of the sea to be kept firmly under my feet, but like Peter, that works only as long I keep my eye on Jesus, but as soon as I get distracted by all that raging chaos around me… just like Peter… I'm SUNK... washed up… ALL wet. 

I don’t think that makes you or me or Peter unfaithful.  I think what that makes us… is human!  It’s human to get distracted by the chaos of the world and like Peter, end up all wet.  Peter, it turns out wasn’t Divine like Jesus.  Walking on water was not his Spiritual gift… and it’s not ours either… unless you’ve been holding out on me!  This is why we NEED each other... NEED to gather together every week with one another, to remind each other in our very understandably distracted human lives, that even while the mountains shake and the seas rage and we find ourselves getting more than just a little bit soggy… THAT’S NOT the end of the story!  Even after Peter got distracted… even after he was sunk… he got pulled out.  The Lord of hosts was with him!  The God of Jacob grabbed him by the collar and pulled him into the refuge of the boat! 

This Psalm is a great reminder… Luther’s beer drinking song using the words of this Psalm is a good reminder…  celebrating Reformation Sunday today is a good reminder… Both of the ways the God of Jacob has worked in the past AND the ways the God of Jacob IS STILL working in our world today!  It’s a good reminder that the God of Jacob might very well be working in ways we don’t expect and that the God of Jacob works, not by eliminating chaos but by diving into it and wrestling.  The God of Jacob doesn’t dry up oceans to save folks like Peter… the God go Jacob reaches right INTO our chaos, and pulls us all right THROUGH it!  

The chaotic, loud and obnoxious voices of hate, fear, racism, exclusion, sexism, gender bias, anger, lying and violence will continue to yell out from under the rocks and up from deep-dark pits where they live.  It will all continue to sound genuinely horrible… feel completely unbearable and drive us understandably toward despair.  But through it all, through all that noise, through all the chaos, through all the unrelenting storms… the Lord of Hosts IS with us! A mighty fortress IS our God!  The God of Jacob IS our stronghold and reaches through EVERY chaos… through EVERY storm… through EVERY form of hate… through EVERY assault on human dignity… through EVERY injustice… the God of Jacob reaches through it ALL… down through the waters of the world's worst chaotic storms, down through our Baptisms, grabs us by our collars, and pulls us out of death and into a NEW and abundant life each and every day.  The Lord of hosts IS with us.  The God of Jacob IS our refuge.  Amen.

Jesus and the Petulant, Pouty, Privileged, Preppy

Mark 10:17-31

As he 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.”

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.  So how are we gonna get THAT sort of camel through THAT sort of needle? 

To get our camel from this side of the needle to the other, people have paid to have it pushed through.  They’ve tried being good enough to earn it through… suffered enough to guilt it through or done the currently popular thing of bullying the camel through.  They’ve thrown away their integrity and contorted their moral-selves into an ugly, inhuman shape to try and beat it, thrash it and ram it through at ANY cost.  Then of course there’s MY way which involves an enormously large blender which sadly I’ve been told won’t work because they don’t make a blender that big?  But when it comes to camels fitting through needle’s eyes, NONE of it works!  There is simply NO WAY for bullies, moral contortionists, you, me or anyone else in the whole wide world to get that 1300 pound camel through that tiny sewing needle’s eye!  It… JUST… CAN’T… BE… DONE!  

That was the problem of that privileged, popular, professional in the story today.  He loved winning!  He was a self made man… at least that’s the story he told and the papers all happily published.  He followed all the laws… (well, at least he’d never been caught not following them.)  He had a gorgeous wife, a son to carry on his famous name, a two humped sports utility camel and a one humped sports-camel with heated leather seats parked in the garage.  Now, he just wanted to know what HE needed to do to get this one last camel through the eye of the needle.

Jesus loved this guy because he didn’t understand.  I’m still working on loving this petulant, pouty, privileged, preppy… but Jesus is a better man that me.  This guy was a winner!  In business, in negotiations, with women, with fame.  Heck!  When this guy’s tushy touched the toilet, even THAT seemed to turn to gold!  There was nothing, NOTHING he couldn’t get.  Well, nothing except this camel through the eye of a needle.  Jesus knew that because of the way he had always lived, it would be almost impossible for him to give up his winning ways.  He’d never trusted or relied on anyone.  So Jesus knew he’d likely never be able to trust or rely on Jesus either.  

Jesus told him, “To get your camel through the eye of that needle you’ll need to give up the idea you can do it yourself.  Give up buying, scheming, bullying, lying and twisting everything to try and ram it through.  It just won’t go!  YOU simply can’t get THAT camel through the eye of THAT needle.  It’s impossible.”  Well, that wasn’t an answer this guy could buy.  He’d bought everything else!  He couldn’t believe that he couldn’t buy this too!  So he turned his back on Jesus and walked away to do more of what he’d always done and keep trying to get that camel through on his own.  He simply couldn’t understand. 

In this parable, Jesus is asking us to believe what that petulant, pouting, preppy just couldn’t:  That for mortals, it’s impossible… but not for God.  For God ALL things are possible… it’s even possible for God to pull a camel through the eye of a needle.  Even possible to pull the likes of you and me through the needle’s eye of death and into life.  For God it’s not only POSSIBLE… but 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 petulant, pouty, privileged, preppy through as well.  God pulls ALL of creation through, from death into life.  And if God can do THAT… then… what other impossible thing might just be possible for God?

How many horrible and completely impossible things challenge our world today?  How many terrible and completely despairing things does our country face… do you face today?  How many of these things twist us into painful, writhing shapes of worry, despair, anger and rage these days?  What hopelessness plagues you? What memory haunts you?  What betrayal, what regret, what personal failing, what sin torments you?  What does YOUR giant, enormous, 1300 pound, bile spitting, completely overwhelming, dromedary of dread look like?  What does that thing look like that you have simply been unable to shove, bargain, buy or blend through the eye of the needle, so that you might know peace?  

For us mortals… getting any of those hope stomping, joy trampling, justice wrecking camels through the eye of the needle that leads to peace seems, these days, to be soul crushingly impossible… but it is particularly in these times that we must come together often and remind one another always… and LOUDLY proclaim to a world in need of hope AN INFINITELY greater truth… that while for US it might seem impossible…  heck, for us it might actually BE impossible… NONE OF IT!  NONE…OF…IT is impossible for God!  And for God it’s not just possible… IT…IS…FINISHED!  

In a way I believe only through faith… When Jesus said, “It is finished” on the cross he wasn’t just talking about his life.  He was also telling us that the God of infinite love, compassion and grace (who also happens to be the God of infinite possibilities) was also finished.  Finished pulling EVERY SINGLE ONE of the universe’s most impossible, most vile, most heart breaking camels through the impossible eye of that needle and into the Kingdom of God!  

Do not be overwhelmed by the stampede of impossible camels trampling our world today.  The camels of poverty, sexism, immigrant child camps, climate change, gun violence, racism, oppressive hierarchies and all the rest.  We are loved even when we can not wrap our minds around this truth:  That our most terrible camels… our world’s most horrible camels… they are no match for our God... the God for whom ALL things… all things… ALL THINGS... really ARE… possible.  Amen.  

It's A Trap... Again!

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.

This is a doozy of a lesson and if you read this thing without regard to context or perspective you'll just see Jesus being an unfeeling poop and taking one terrible sounding law and swapping it out for something worse.  While that’s an option many unfortunately take, that’s not what Jesus intended.  

The Pharisee’s were out to trap Jesus by getting him to take a side on the hot button issue of the day.  In Jesus’ time, divorce and remarriage had the equivalent political heat of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings of today!  Jesus knew the Pharisees really didn’t care what Jesus thought.  They just knew that if they could get him to take a side, ANY side, a big group of people would start hating Jesus and THAT would be a “win” for the Pharisees.  

Jesus wasn’t about to do something that would further help the Pharisees divide people.  Jesus was about building up loving relationships, not tearing them down!  So, Jesus did his Biblical Aikido and took the Pharisee’s attack and turned it until they were suddenly talking, not about the law, but about people… real life human beings… and the real life human need to care for one another.  Jesus forced them to see that God’s desire isn’t so much for people to spend a lifetime in marriage, but for marriage to be a loving human relationship filled with joy, commitment, equality, health and wholeness that lasts a lifetime! 

Turning that trap on the Pharisees revealed God’s truth: that loving, mutually uplifting human relationships were what God cared about way more than a legal contract called marriage.  Jesus turned that trap from a focus on paper to a focus on people.  People who live real, messy, beautiful, horrible, wondrous, tragic and lovely lives!  THOSE are the people Jesus cares about!  People are who Jesus came to lift up!  

You see, Moses put the original law in place as a way to try to care for the most vulnerable in the midst of the inevitable broken relationships that happen in our messy, wonderful lives.  In Moses' time, women who were cast aside in a divorce would suddenly be without resources, without legal standing, without a home.  The original law was an attempt to care for people who had become the victims of human failings in a male privileged world.  While the old Law recognized that brokenness, Jesus simply couldn’t allow the Pharisees to twist something, which was created to CARE for people, into something that would allow people to ignore the reality that when people are divorced, for whatever reason, there is always a real, profound, and life changing pain.  

After dealing with the Pharisees abruptly, Jesus goes to talk with the disciples privately... to try and get them to really understand.  Jesus knew that because marriage involves humans, marriage would always be both a wonderful and imperfect thing… mostly because we humans are both wonderful and imperfect.  So, when marriage for a lifetime doesn’t work out, Jesus insists this is not something to take lightly.  He wants us to remember there are beautiful and broken people involved, above everything else.  Jesus used that over-the-top analogy with adultery because he really wanted the disciples to understand the pain involved.  No matter WHY divorce happens, divorce hurts, even when it's the absolutely right thing to do… it hurts.  It hurts the couple, the families, the community… it hurts.  Remarriage too, Jesus wants us to remember, will inevitably carry with it into the new relationship, some of the pain and hurt of the past.  That must not be ignored or the pain of the past will be carried into the new relationship.  Jesus isn’t saying, “No remarriage!”  Jesus simply won’t let the Pharisees or any of us just blow this off as no big deal!  Jesus won’t let us hide behind legal technicalities and pretend we can skirt the pain of broken relationships with legalese.  People are involved… REAL, LIVE, people… and NO law has the power to erase the people who have been a part of our lives, either for the good they brought or the difficulties they brought.  So when relationships break, Jesus is telling the disciples that what they need is our unconditional love.  That’s what Jesus was telling them with the last bit of this lesson.  

It’s not a coincidence that this lesson ends with Jesus telling the disciples to let the children come.  That bit's not here by mistake.  It’s here to help us interpret this doozy of a lesson.  As kids grow into the gift of life they’ve been given by God, they don’t ever do it flawlessly.  You’ve been a kid.  You know!  We all too often have to learn the hard way that our parents aren’t as dumb as we thought and that often consequences involve some sort of pain.  But regardless of how we screw up childhood, our parents open their arms to us, tell us to come in for some love and then tell us to get back up and live life.  God’s love is like that… Unconditional… and no matter what we do along the way of life, God loves us, forgives us and sends us back out into the world to give life another try.

So it is with God’s gifts of human relationships and marriage.  As we grow into those gifts we don’t ever do those flawlessly either.  You’ve been in a relationship.  You know!  We all too often have to learn the hard way that relationships are challenging and difficult, along with being beautiful and wonderful.  Often we need to learn the hard way that the consequences of broken relationships involve some sort of pain.  But regardless of how we screw up a relationship or have a relationship screwed up on us, our God opens wide the Divine embrace, just as Jesus did for the children, and tells us to come in for some love and then to get back up and go again.  

God’s love is unconditional and no matter what happens in our relationships with husbands and wives, partners and exes…  God loves us, forgives us and sends us back out into the world, to give loving, caring, mutually uplifting, compassionate and joyful relationships and even marriage another try.  Because it's in relationship that God shows us the best of living life.  Amen.