The Christian Journey - Pentecost 21 (October 25, 2009)

Jeremiah 31:7-9
Psalm 126
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 10:46-52

The following sermon was preached by Fr. Jack Holman on his last Sunday as Associate Rector of Good Shepherd Church. He and his wife, June, are moving to a retirement community in Minnesota. They will be greatly missed.

A major metaphor of Christian life is that of a JOURNEY. This image captures the sense of our being on-the-way and of being accompanied and guided by SOMEONE. As a people, our journey begins with Abraham, leaving home, as with Moses, During the Exodus, we travel through the desert in which we learned where we were going and with whom... then came the Diaspora, the scattering. Many of the separated members of the People of God found themselves in different locations, areas, and towns.

Our Christian history, like that of the Jews, is marked by a deep ambivalence in this pilgrim journey. A desire to settle down, sink roots, establish a stable life is up against the need to move on…… following a Revelation, with endless surprises and turns. Our term “PILGRIMAGE” contrasts with St. Augustine’s image of the City of God, as a stable, boundaried municipality. The journey of the People of God exists alongside the conviction that “a mighty fortress is our God.” While we Christians are settlers and builders - our fidelity is pledged, since Abraham and Moses, to a mobile God whose revelation requires uprooting and repeated departures, leaving comfort and relative security and heading out into the unknown. But the metaphor journey has in it another image, that of PASSAGE. Christian scholars have been exploring the passages, which pattern modern religious maturing. Apart from the classic passages of birth, adult initiation, marriage and death, other perilous transitions affect our lives. Each of these passages, is a critical period of opportunity and danger, which shapes the direction of our life journey. We need to remember that the central paradox of a passage is always loss and gain, a time of peril and possibility. During a passage we become vulnerable to both personal loss and unexpected grace. Some vivid examples of losing and gaining are One, the loss of a parent or Two, when we fall in love. In the death of a parent we lose our beginning and our security. While love poses the question: If I admit this person I will have to change. Thus, a passage begins in disorientation and the threat of loss. It matures into a second stage as we allow ourselves to fully experience and name this loss. In the reluctant, gradual letting go of a parent or the slow, gingerly admittance of a love, we are both losing and finding ourselves.

Passages are oftentimes described as “something we undergo” or as going on a voyage on uncharted waters. Both passages include leaving the familiar, traveling for a time while uncertain about the destination and, for the Christian, expecting to meet God on the way.

Psychologically, we grow by letting go of parts of ourselves no longer necessary or adequate for our journey, we are purified of parts of ourselves that do not fit the future. The reordering of our lives that a passage promotes is also a disordering.

I once recalled to you the images on the History Channel showing a wagon train on the way West and leaving behind, along the wheel tracks, beloved and heritage items that hindered their progress to the promising land. As did the traveling Israelites who jettisoned their family and tribal gods picked up in Egypt as they came to realize these gods had nothing to do with the One True Living God. It’s true that we all whether as a family, a church, or a nation, acquire things, thoughts, ideas, cultural attitudes, etc., or a library, in our journeying through life that eventually we are compelled to leave along the roadside.

The British anthropologist Mary Douglas writes about the “potency of disorder”. And this potency is not only psychological, but also religious. This time of vulnerability and loss is also a time of potential grace.

In the threat and even chaos of a life passage, we experience the opportunity for extraordinary growth. We find unsuspected strengths; we are startled by our ability to risk and to trust. It’s generally only with hindsight do we recognize the gracefulness of a time of passage. From that threat and loss, we emerge not just different and wounded but stronger. In the darkness of that passage or in the uncharted waters of our voyage we found a new direction and confidence in our lives.

This experience of the grace of a passage illumines the third stage: emergence and re-incorporation into the community changed and matured. The journey of Christian maturing is patterned with many different passages. We ARE a people in movement, pledged to and in pursuit of a not always discernible God. Movement and change, then, are of the essence of religious growth. The call of the Spirit is constant, to which we need and will respond.

It is not surprising that a person might yearn for the good old days. But we need to anticipate and perhaps move from one camp, one structure to another. We may either in exasperation or in calm confidence ask: How many times must we be ready to begin again? How does seventy times seven sound? That is, in fact, the real miracle of Christianity. It is set in the Testament of the New, ordered to the fresh possibilities rather than the old mistakes of life. It proclaims the availability of the Spirit who would breathe on the earth and make it a New Creation.

Christianity is a faith of HOPE that reassures mankind, the Church, even a parish, that we can become renewed in Christ Jesus. Our redemption as well as our maturity is achieved precisely in the shifting human condition where beginning again or carrying out one’s responsibilities, adhering to principles, is a daily challenge. Ever since Christ’s first followers had to begin again to preach the good news at Pentecost, the Spirit has been our strength for the new beginnings of life. The Christian life is not a die-straight road into the future. It is more like a maze laden with wrong turns and dead ends, with surprises and difficulties. We make our way through it by always finding ourselves again, redeemed by the thousand resurrections of His spirit through which we are healed and can move forward.

The difficulties of our present world, nation, church and personal seem enough to discourage the strongest of us. The temptations to drop out, turn aside in search of a private peace with the ever-changing secular world are very great. But the Christian who lives by the Spirit knows that there is no end to our need to pack up, strike the tent, and begin again. We also know that God’s promises are the guarantee that we CAN ALWAYS BEGIN AGAIN. That is what the resurrected life of the Spirit looks like. In living it, as church, as Christians, we are a source of hope, a real sign of constancy, of salvation for the whole world.

We, you and I, as members of the Body of Christ, will always be faced with choices and decisions that mark a difficult passage. We can refuse a grace¬-full possibility shrinking back preferring to remain dormant in Egypt or to begin, to continue our journey retaining, carrying with us only our life-giving, strength-giving Ark, Holy Scripture, the sustaining, Word of God, our Eucharist, both is our beacon, our pillar of fire, our column of cloud, guiding us into a more mature existence and deeper commitment to live in Christ, to participate with Him in His mission to reach out in love and concern for the world and all those who dwell therein.

Remaining faithful in the keeping of unity of Christ, wherever it leads us until finally at the last, we leave everything on the side of the road to join with Him who runs to greet us joyfully with outstretched arms and the words: “Fidelis servus et prudens. Well done thou good and faithful servant. Come, enter into the kingdom which has been prepared for you.”

Jesus on Marriage and Divorce - Pentecost 18 (October 4, 2009)

Genesis 2:16-24
Psalm 8
Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12
Mark 10:1-16

Contrary to what many people think, Jesus did not come into the world to be social reformer. His mission was not that of an ethicist or moral engineer. Unlike the great rabbis of his time, he did not bequeath to his disciples a systematic interpretation of the Law of Moses; it was not his intention to establish a great rabbinical school in the name of Rabbi Jesus. Yet when pressed to render his judgment on issues that exercised the greatest legal and ethical minds of his time, particularly on social matters, he did not pull any punches. So profound were his insights, so radical was his perspective on things, so transforming his ethic, that common folk could not help but sit up and take notice. On many occasions the crowds were amazed that he spoke as “one with authority,” and not as the scribes and teachers of the law. It is for this reason that Jesus was pressed throughout his ministry, particularly by his opponents, to weigh in on the controversial matters of his day.

And what issue could be more controversial than marriage and divorce (a subject that still creates controversy in our day). Not surprisingly, the two main rabbinical schools of Jesus’ day differed on this issue. Rabbi Hillel had taught that a husband could divorce his wife for any reason that displeased him, like burning the evening meal. Rabbi Shimei on the other hand taught that a man could only divorce his wife on account of sexual impurity. So which side would Rabbi Jesus take in this debate? The Pharisees ask him: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” (Mark 10:2). In typical custom, Jesus responds with a question of his own, “What did Moses command you?” They answer, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and divorce her” (vv. 3, 4).

Now here is where the dialogue gets very interesting, but I caution you to remember what I said earlier: Jesus did not come into this world to be a social reformer or moral engineer. The only reason we know anything about Jesus’ views on marriage and divorce is because the Pharisees were attempting here to test him. It just so happens that his answer was so radical for its time that it was remembered and recorded for posterity sake in the gospel accounts (so radical in fact that the gospel writer Matthew felt compelled to soften the impact of his teaching by including an adultery exception like that of Rabbi Shimei.) But as far as we know, Jesus never ever preached a sermon on marriage and divorce (which is ironic since his followers cannot seem to preach enough on the matter!).

But as I said, here’s where the dialogue gets very interesting, because Jesus and his detractors are both able to appeal to Moses. Naturally, the Pharisees argue for the legality of divorce from the provision for divorce in the Mosaic Code. Jesus, however, appeals to the beginning – to the creation account of Eve in the Book of Genesis, which as part of the Torah was believed to have been written by Moses. Jesus infers from the creation account of Eve that God never intended for a man to divorce his wife.

So then is there a contradiction in the Law? Not at all, for Jesus goes on to explain: “Because of your hardness of heart [Moses] 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” (vv. 5-9). Later on, when asked privately by his disciples (who were no doubt baffled by his earlier statement), Jesus will be even more direct and blunt: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (vv. 10-12). Now, mind you, there is no indication that Jesus ever offered this judgment outside of the goading of others. The account reads almost like the classic “Jack Nicholson” moment in the film A Few Good Men: “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!”

Now, my friends, that is God’s standard. That’s the ideal. That’s the way God intended things since creation. And Jesus is not about to qualify this teaching, or water down the text, or suggest loopholes – not for them, and not for us. But, on the other hand, he’s not going to deny the reality of human sin either – i.e., the hardness of the human heart. Nor do I think it was Jesus’ intention here to abolish the divorce laws of the Mosaic Code. Rather, as on other occasions, his intention is to put the Law into perspective, i.e., to show that at most the Law is intended to curb sin, for it is powerless to prevent it! And it is certainly not intended to promote sin! After the creation of humankind on the sixth day, "God saw all that he created and it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). However, in a world broken by sin, divorce may be permissible, but it is never good.

Obviously there has never been a time in human history – not then and certainly not now – when we humans have ever been able to live up to this standard. In fact, all have fallen short of God’s standard, whether we’ve been married to the same person for fifty years or have been divorced three times. NONE of us has been able to live according to the standard of fidelity and mutuality that the Genesis creation account invokes. There are periods of brokenness in every relationship, no matter how outwardly strong they appear to be. And societies have always found it necessary to navigate and negotiate the course of human relationships. That’s not going to change.

But here’s the point. While the world around us may not change, while there may always be a need in society for the legal and ethical redressing of areas affected by the Fall (e.g. the legal recourse of divorce), we, the People of God, can be changed, we can be transformed, we can be renewed. And that is the beauty of Jesus’ teaching, for the appeal to the Genesis account of our creation is an appeal to what is authentically human about us. In and of ourselves, this may be impossible, but in Christ all things are possible for he is the “authentic Human Being.” We may not be able to go back and fix the past, and I’m not suggesting that we even try, but we can begin to work on the present – to be authentically human to each other – where we are now in the relationships we have now with each other. And when we fail (as we are bound to do from time to time) we must remember that in Christ is always the hope of redemption and of resurrection - for ourselves and in our relationships: in our marriages, in our friendships, in our families, with our parents, with our children, with our brothers and sisters; yes, even in the Church.