God’s Intention: Enduring Love
Mark 10
Today is World Communion Sunday. All over the world, the family of God, brought together through Jesus Christ, will join together to receive the ultimate gift of God’s Intention for us. We share in the bread of our lives, and the cup of blessing that sustains us in all we do. What a day for us to profess our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, knowing our Christian brothers and sisters worldwide are doing the same. In this morning’s scriptures, we are called by Jesus to be a family, and share in the bread of life Jesus has given to us. This is God’s Intention for us.
It is also an anniversary for us here at Dennis Union Church. One year ago this weekend, I came to Dennis Union as a candidate for ministry. We met, we both voted, and we both agreed to be in ministry together. We acknowledged that we are brothers and sisters, children of God; and we made an agreement that is quite similar to a marriage. In fact, in the eyes of God, our relationship is a marriage. We made an emotional and spiritual commitment that is sacred in the eyes of God and our Church. It’s a reflection of the marriage between God and Creation that began ages ago. What began in scripture delivered by the prophets became life in Jesus as the one who binds us to God, in the image and likeness of our Creator. Jesus intends to point out that the early scripture is at odds with the reign of God, made real in Jesus’ divinity, life, and ministry.
In the Hebrew scripture Dale read, the author clarifies that in the early days of his ancestors, God spoke though the prophets – but now God speaks to us in His Son Jesus. Verse 3 says that Jesus is “the exact imprint of God’s very being and that He sustains all things by His powerful word.” In the mystery of God’s Incarnation in Jesus, we see Jesus taking on the sin of all creation, tasting death for everyone, so that we might live in Jesus as the family of God, brothers and sisters, children loved by the Creator. Jesus says,” I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.” (Verse 12)
In Genesis 1, we learn God’s intention as God creates humankind in God’s image. He blessed the man and woman he created saying, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over every other creature.” God saw that it was good. In Mark when the Pharisees ask Jesus whether it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife, they think they can trick Jesus into speaking against God’s law. I suppose they were the predecessors of today’s self-involved analysts and talk-show antagonists. By the way, these annoying modern-day Pharisees exist on both ends of the political spectrum. But Jesus was not creating new laws about marriage and divorce. He was clarifying that what God joins together, no person can separate.
The farther that we humans stray from God in our separations, the more likely we are to fall into the catch-all, rule-based sin structure of the Pharisees. But sin is less about breaking rules and more about the absence of God. Jesus calls us to be close to God in the unity of our human marriage to God and God’s grace. We can divorce ourselves from grace – or from any other relationship in our lives – but that is not what God Intended. Jesus is less concerned about the maneuvering of the letter of the law than about what God intended for creation. Jesus came to unite us in the love of God, not to parse out rules, laws, and exclusions created by a male-dominated culture that minimized women and children.
I believe the larger point Jesus is making is about the importance of the marriage between God and creation. How might we divorce ourselves form God? Only by living in the sin of denying God’s presence in our lives. This kind of denial leaves a void that we might fill with other pursuits
Sometimes we divorce our birth family or our church family for reasons that we see as justified. They might be, and they might just be a result of our personal demand to have it all be our way. Same thing can happen in marriage, as we know. We leave a relationship because of hurts we perceive that we can never forgive or forget. When we leave each other, when we divorce ourselves from one another, we might not have corrected the problem or issue because sometimes the problem is in us. That is where we need Jesus the most.
But what about divorce? Marital divorce is not the end of the world or life as we know it. It need not be the end of our relationship to God or Jesus. My wife Betsy and I were each married and divorced before we married 21 years ago. We both married our high school sweethearts because it seemed like a logical next step. We and our spouses were young and inexperienced. But I am often assured that the commitment Carol and I made that led us to bring Amy into the world is the call of God. Amy is a child of God. In spite of our divorce, Carol and I, along with Betsy and Carol’s husband Bill, are committed to Amy. Maybe you have a similar story about how your life turned after divorce.
I must also say that Betsy and I would not be here today, at Dennis Union and in life, had we not made a commitment to our faith as the driving force in our lives. In the midst of our post-divorce sadness, we found solid footing in our faith lives and in each other. I thank God for Betsy and the courage to commit to her. I have never regretted that day.
The second part of today’s scripture from Mark tells us how the disciples were trying to keep Jesus separated from the crowds. People are bringing children to Jesus to bless them and the disciples try to keep the children from bothering Jesus. Once again, the disciples fail to comprehend Jesus’ intentions. Once again, they don’t get it. They, like us, are humans, and often fail to see what Jesus is calling us to do and be.
In Verse 15, Jesus tells the disciples and us that whoever does not receive the
As children are often the least valued, Jesus calls us all to see the Love of God as a child sees life – full of joy and lightness. In this sense, Jesus teaches as a revolutionary leader. He rejects the cultural and legal positions of the day and defends the least of us. I submit he would be just as vocal today about our issues within the church He founded.
The very fact that these texts are presented together may well signal Jesus’ recognition of the pain and tragedy of divorce, and may be intended as a comfort to those who are divorced in any sense of the word, that they are not lost in God’s vision, that they are not unworthy of God’s Love. Is it possible that Jesus’ reference to “the least of these” might include those who have been divorced, as well as any of us who feel that the world perceives us as less valuable?
Is it any wonder that this week in our Bible study, led by Ted Walker, we had a rousing discussion about today’s scriptures? Different perspectives can bring about learning, growth and tolerance, if we can stay in the discussion with an open mind. In fact, that’s one reason why God wants us in community.
In our denomination, we the members of the United Church of Christ welcome all people to our congregations. Jesus makes no distinction between any gender, nationality, or social position. Jesus didn’t even have terms like gay, straight, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender to define either his followers or detractors. Most importantly, he doesn’t define us by categories of separation. He defines us as children of God, His brothers and sisters in the congregation of life. Just as He did then, challenging the complexities of legal, cultural, and religious laws and exclusions, he would stand firm today for equality and inclusion for all of God’s children.
When we followers of Jesus Christ commit our lives and our integrity to another person, regardless of how our genders align to cultural acceptance, we do so with this promise from Jesus in our hearts
“For it is to such as these that the
William Willimon says that in this part of the Gospel of Mark, we see how far Jesus will go for us – all the way to the cross. On His way to death on the cross He teaches us how to love even those with whom we disagree and differ. God’s limitless divine love for us, in all our flawed humanity, remains true in spite of our failure to love in return. As Jesus came to show us the way to the
