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Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (Trinity 16), 5. October 2003
Sermon on Mark 10:2-16 (Revised Common Lectionary) by David Zersen
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LOVE FOSTERS MORE THAN LAW CAN COMPEL?
Some ten years ago, after we had first moved to Texas, I gave a speech in Dallas in which I used the word “niggardly.” During the discussion which followed, an elderly black woman rose to say that the time was long past when we should use such words in public. It was an easy mistake to make because the word she was worried about has a similar sound. However, the two words have completely different derivations. Her word is from the Romance languages and means “black (negro from Spanish and Portuguese),” while the other word has a Scandinavian origin and means “stingy,” “miserly,” or “grudgingly mean.” In reality, although the Romance language word came to imply a racism and meanness of spirit on the part of users in America, the Scandinavian language word refers to something far more sinister and profound. Niggardly people are focused on themselves, on what’s in it for them, on operating with the least possible standards. They are the centers of their own being. Being niggardly is WORSE than it sounds!

Sometimes texts also carry a problem far worse than appears on the surface. Today’s text is avoided by preachers and shunned by hearers because it seems to contain a law-oriented message which holds up standards higher than those capable of being met. If all who divorce are committing adultery, and adultery is a grave sin, one for which people are still stoned to death in Islam, is there any hope for people like us when divorce has become so common? Perhaps this is one of those texts best taken out of the preaching series so that we don’t have to fumble and bumble around with it. On the other hand, perhaps there is something going on in this text which is far more complex than the disobedience to the Sixth Commandment and a law-oriented reprimand for those who are disobeying it. What do you think that might be? I would suggest that it is niggardly behavior on the part of the Pharisees who are testing Jesus with their questions. Let’s listen to what they’re saying and see if we can understand why niggardly behavior for them and for us is WORSE than it sounds.

When New Attitudes Press Us Farther Than The Law Can
On the surface, some Pharisees seem to be asking Jesus whether he considers it religiously appropriate to divorce one’s wife. In reality, however, they were asking a niggardly question more like “what’s the least possible standard with respect to marital fidelity that we might be able to get away with?” To understand why their question was miserly and grudgingly mean, we have to understand their approach to religious law at that time, and specifically with respect to the matter of divorce. There were many layers of religious law (Torah) from written to oral (Mishnah) to interpretive (Halakah and Gemara) all of which sought to apply God’s intent to minute practical situations. In reality, however, the various interpretations often made it possible to avoid the original intent of the law. In the case of divorce, for instance, Rabbi Hillel had provided so many causes for divorcing one’s wife (including burning a husband’s dinner) that divorce was an extremely common practice by Jesus’ time. When some Pharisees reminded Jesus that Moses had allowed them simply to dismiss their wives with a piece of paper, Jesus retorted, presumably in disgust, “it was because of your hardness of heart.” Niggardly attitudes had allowed people to treat one another in ways that God’s good law never intended.

Jesus’ response to this attitude seems surprising, but he is taking his hearers into the heart of his message about the Kingdom—and we shouldn’t miss this. He overrides the Torah, the very Law of Moses, in implying that while Moses may have been generous to self-centered men who are stingy with their love by divorcing their wives for any cause, God had greater plans for them when he made them spouses to each other through his blessing. And, he might have continued, “when you simply hoard God’s love in a covetous fashion and become grudgingly mean in your attitudes to your spouses, this sin, this adulteration of God’s blessing of oneness, is without excuse.” Of course, such words are intended for people who consider themselves to be a part of God’s people. Those who have not would not accept the thought that God had made them one. However, that is precisely Jesus’ point. These were people who had accepted the Scripture that what God had joined together, humans should not separate. Why were they running from that blessing and privilege?

Does this mean that this Jesus is harder and tougher than the Jesus who preached God’s love and forgiveness to sinners? Not at all. He was asking disciples like you and me to replace a niggardly question such as “how little can we get away with in marriage relationships?” with a bolder question such as “how committed could a person who has accepted God’s love and blessing in a marriage like yours really be?” In other words, who you are says a great deal about what you can do. If you accept your place in the dawning divine movement in which extravagant kindness reigns, then one doesn’t settle for the least that can be scrounged out of a stingy heart. One goes the extra mile, gives the last coin, forgives seventy times seven, and thanks God an equal number of times for his blessing of marriage before considering divorce. In a Kingdom where God’s good news motivates and drives us, parsimonious passes at legal hedges stand less of a chance.

When New Attitudes Affirm Surprising People
There’s another big question which this text is raising for some Pharisees in Jesus’ audience as well as for us. It is the question for spouses about how far a new ethic of love can really drive them? This question may seem to have been answered in our own time, but it was very real in Jesus’ day and there are dimensions of the question we can press in the here and now. The question has a dual dimension and might read something like this: “Can you legitimately relegate people to lesser roles with which your own need for recognition is comfortable?” (the niggardly question), or “Will you not rather offer women and children opportunities commensurate with your own extravagant kindness and their talents and abilities?” You see, in Jesus’ time, even though it was permissible for a woman to divorce her husband on four stipulated grounds in a court of law, only men had the right to dismiss their wives just by deciding to do so-- on almost any ground they chose. At the heart of Jesus argument against his accusers was also the concern to have women play an equal role in the dawning reign of God. However, in a patriarchal society such a role could only be given by those who knew their hearts to have been enlarged enough to share the very love they had received. And, for that matter, such a role can only be given to immigrants, the mentally challenged, street people, or HIV victims if new attitudes in New Kingdom people in our own time affirm them.

Equally surprising, Mark and our pericopal series includes the story of Jesus blessing of children, objected to this time not by Pharisees but by niggardly disciples. After all, children had no rights and nothing to contribute in that era, so even though it was a custom for parents to bring children to a rabbi for a blessing, this took time and blessings (remember how Jacob ran out of blessings for Esau!) away from those who on this day coveted them for themselves. Yet in Jesus’ alternative, topsy-turvy Kingdom where the least are often the most and the poor inevitably the rich, children can be models for us all. In fact, Jesus says, if you don’t claim this Kingdom like a child, you will never really enter it. What could this possibly mean?

This last Sunday at a picnic I watched a five-year-old son of a friend of mine interact with my wife. He was filled with energy, enthusiasm, curiosity and caring. He wanted to try all the picnic foods, move from one activity to the next and help with setting everything up, as well as clean up after. He was oblivious to the adult concerns for time, propriety, and patience, but he trusted all of us totally, and wanted to experience the fullness of all that we seemed to consider meaningful. It’s a charming model for those before whom Jesus lifts up his vision of a Kingdom or a world in which people enter with an eager and innocent spirit because they trust that God has prepared something greater therein than they have concocted in this world for themselves. This is the child-like attitude which Jesus holds up to us and the beautifully designed world he invites us to enter.

Of course, a child-like attitude could grasp all of this if it could get rid of the niggardly questions like “what’s the least that I have to do in order to perform acceptably in this world?” This, you see, is a legalistic question which always ends with boredom, arbitrary attitudes and unsatisfying answers. A childlike attitude could grasp the notion that even in a marriage on the rocks, there is more yet to be discovered if the same extravagant love with which God claimed me can express itself through me. It could seize the prospect that larger than my needs for hoarding my time and money are the opportunities to make changes and differences in people’s lives which enrich all of us. A child-like attitude can overwhelm the senses and sweep people off their feet because of gratitude for an affirming love that lives wherever Jesus’ name is spoken. Do you understand that Jesus is not giving a moral code in these words, a code which seeks to challenge and condemn us? He is much more providing examples of what can happen when the reign of God enters our sphere of influence, when God’s extravagant kindness takes its rightful place in our lives. He is telling us what can happen when we understand that niggardly behavior is far worse as a practice than it sounds as a word. He is loving us to the end because such love gives greater expression in our human relationships than any law could compel.

Prof. Dr. Dr. David Zersen, President Emeritus
Concordia University at Austin
dzersen@aol.com

 


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