NRSV MARK 10:2-16
10 He left that place and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered around him; and, as was his custom, he again taught them.
2 Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3 He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” 5 But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
10 Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 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. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
As many of you know, we make a lot of trips to Charlotte, North Carolina. Not so much lately, we have left them alone for over a month now so that they can get used to being a family of five. But I am glad to report that everyone is doing very well now, and I thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers for all of them, especially little Bennett Michael.
Whenever we do go to Charlotte, we know by now not to give them an approximate time of arrival. Even with the wonders of modern technology – otherwise known as a GPS – our time of arrival on that route is at best a dangerous guess. The reason is that we can be really trucking along until we get a little bit past Salisbury, North Carolina. That spot, which should be just a little under an hour from Charlotte, is where all of our hopes and dreams of an early arrival burn up in the exhaust.
The reason for that is because at that point I-85 goes from being a four-lane highway to a two-lane road. Cars and trucks jockey for position, people get aggravated for others cutting them off, traffic slows down, sometimes to a crawl, sometimes to a complete stop. It’s all the result of a major American metropolitan area of two and a half million people thinking they didn’t need a four-lane highway to accommodate all the people who want to see the Panthers, the Hornets, or, like us, their grandchildren.
It’s enough to make you want to magically change make the whole of I-85 from Salisbury to Charlotte – well, maybe just a little bit past Concord – one nice big four-lane highway that wouldn’t get backed up so easily.
But that’s the way that road is, at least until they finish working on it. Which may be forever, because that’s how long it seems they have been working on it.
Maybe like us.
We are all on a journey. We, too, feel like we are zipping through things, making great progress. But then a bottleneck occurs – a death, a divorce, a breakdown in health, dreams are shattered, finances dry up; the list goes on interminably. We are blocked in our journey and the frustration to just get moving, just to make some progress, can be overwhelming.
This section of Mark’s Gospel is like that. It’s a journey. Jesus and his disciples have been on the road since the start of the Gospel, but especially since that moment on the Mount of Transfiguration where they saw the glory and were given the heads-up that from now on it would be especially important to listen to Jesus. Jerusalem is beckoning with all of its tragedy and ultimate triumph. On the journey there are healings and there are teachings, just like there are plenty of bottlenecks, especially in this part of Mark.
But first I have to stop because I am fully aware that for many people getting past these words of Jesus – especially the words about divorce and adultery and remarriage – is tough. It is something I have heard from good Christian folks many times over the last 33 years, especially those who have suffered through a divorce. They hear these words and think that Jesus is condemning them for not hanging in there, for not tolerating abuse any better, for giving up and calling it quits; and for those who have remarried, they hear criticism for struggling and finding a love they would not have known otherwise. I know they hear that – you may hear that. But I have to think that Jesus is not saying that here.
I say that because in all of my reading of the Bible I have a hard time seeing Jesus beating up on people who are already down. Our Lord does just the opposite – he lifts up people that others have given up on. And here it is no different. The bad guys are not those people who have suffered through a divorce. They have suffered enough. Some marriages make it, though always with plenty of scars. But some do not. That is just a fact of life.
But the good news of this text, if you go deeper than the surface meaning of the words, is that Jesus does not give up on any of us. Jesus’ reach is wider and deeper than that.
The Pharisees come to him and try to set a trap. This whether or not to allow a divorce issue was a hot button topic in his day, like who do you believe, Brett Kavanaugh or Christine Blasey Ford? Only here it was two schools of thought on whether divorce should be strictly prohibited or given a pass. Jesus doesn’t take the bait, though. He doesn’t talk about divorce; he talks about marriage. He does so in a way that tosses out the issue of whether or not a man was allowed to divorce his wife. Instead he offers up words that lift up both parties as being responsible for the relationship. In a patriarchal world where the men ruled and women were treated as little more than just another piece of property, this was huge.
Yes, Jesus says some hard words about adultery and people who remarry, but he does so with both parties responsible. They are, after all, made one flesh by God’s grace in marriage. It is not God’s intention that anyone should get a divorce. But years ago Leslie Weatherhead, pastor of a church in London, preaching to a congregation that was attacked by missiles from Nazi Germany, offered up distinctions about the will of God; the intentional, the circumstantial and the ultimate will of God. In this case Jesus is saying that the intentional will of God is that all stay married. But circumstances happen; not all marriages make it. Then the ultimate will of God is that people be treated with respect. Especially women, who were the most vulnerable in that culture when a marriage broke up.
That is, except for the children. Ask anyone who has gone through it and they will tell you that children usually bear the brunt when a marriage comes to an end. And in this passage you can almost see them hovering around the edges of the scene as Jesus talks with the Pharisees. They are there, the little ones, waiting their turn to talk to Jesus, to be close to him, while the Pharisees try to trap him. The little ones are not there to trap Jesus; they are full of innocence and trust and wonder, and they just want to be with him. They come up to him while there is a lull in the conversation, but the disciples try to keep them away. Don’t bother him, they say, can’t you see he needs a break after being attacked by the religious purists?
But Jesus will have none of that. Just like he would have none of the practice of a man casually dismissing his wife because she burned the guy’s breakfast. Let the children come to me, and don’t hinder them, he says. He could also be saying, Let the women come to me and don’t hinder them. Let the married who are struggling come to me and don’t hinder them. Let the divorced folks come to me and don’t hinder them. Let all vulnerable people, all people who are tired of being beaten up for who they are, people who seek to innocently trust my words and my way, let them come and don’t hinder them.
This is not a picture of Jesus casting out people because their marriage didn’t make it. This is yet another picture of Jesus taking the vulnerable and reassuring them – taking and reassuring us – that there is nothing that will keep them away. We are all wrapped up in the incredibly long and deep and wide reach of Jesus.
One of my favorite teachers, the late Dr. Charlie Cousar, wrote about this text in a book on Bible passages and he closed out his writing this way: “…whether we are successful or unsuccessful at our marriages, whether we have managed to achieve the profound union God intends or from ‘hardness of heart’ have wound up in a divorce court, the receiving of the kingdom like a little child still holds. We have no bargaining chips to trade in, nor does our history of failure disqualify us. It is just this incredible picture of otherwise rejected children welcomed and given a blessing that sustains both the happily married and the painfully separated.”
The wide reach of Jesus not only embraces us in whatever marital state we are – or are not – in. It embraces us as we come to this table to remember our connections with him and with others around the world. This is a particularly profound day; it’s one of my own personal favorites of the whole Christian year. Yes, Christmas and Easter are wonderful, Pentecost scarily unpredictable, All Saints warmly embracing. But World Communion is special. It is the wide reach of Jesus extending from this table in this place here in central Virginia, connecting us with followers of Jesus all over the world.
It connects us with people we know overseas, and it connects us with Christians of other churches in our own hometown. On this particular day, it connects us with Christians in the Carolinas who are still struggling to bring some semblance of order after having their homes devastated by Hurricane Florence. It connects us with Christians in the nation of Indonesia, still reeling from a massive earthquake and tsunami that took the lives of over 1,200 people.
It connects us with people with whom we have serious political, social or cultural disagreements. It connects us with Brett Kavanaugh and with Christie Blasey Ford; it connects us with those family members who drive us nuts with their positions that disturb every family gathering. It connects us with people we find threatening, and it connects us with people we have offended. It connects us with those we know well and love well, and it connects us with others we do not know at all.
Jesus’ reach is wide. It is deep. It is long. It embraces people we might otherwise not want to have anything to do with. But we dare not scorn this reach. Because this reach touches us in the midst and the depth of our own vulnerability – whether it is a failed marriage or memories of inappropriate activities of long ago, or words that we spoke in anger or haste to someone special. There can be all kinds of bottlenecks in our lives, all sorts of frustrations. But Jesus connects us in a way that opens us up to new possibilities, and a new life that embraces all in a spirit of peace and love. The reach of Jesus connects us. The reach of Jesus forgives us. The reach of Jesus empowers us.
The reach of Jesus gives us his body, the bread, and the words, “eat of this in remembrance of me.” His touch gives us the cup, the blood of his sacrifice, with the words, “all of you, drink of this and remember me.”
The reach of Jesus touches us and cleanses us. And then it sends us back out into the world to be that love, that grace, that mercy that someone else needs. Be that reach of Jesus; the reach that knows no bounds. Amen.