October 8, 2006
Mark 10: 2-16
I am a cradle Episcopalian, and so I have a skewed understanding of most other versions of Christianity, but I know enough to know when something major is being changed. One of the reasons I am an Episcopalian, an Anglican, is that Anglicans have traditionally been able to rethink religious truth, and reevaluate the core message of the faith when cultural changes called for it. Because I, like most denominationally loyal Christians, think my denomination is best, I have always thought most other Christians to be fairly well set in their ways...not really open to new understandings of the faith. I’ve always thought the Romans were bound by rigid systems of laws, and that Evangelicals were bound by rigid understandings of the Bible.
And so I am watching with some interest as the Catholic Church rethinks its position on Limbo, you know, the idea that unbaptized children don’t go to heaven, but end up in Limbo, waiting for their chance at heaven. The Catholic church is thinking about doing away with that concept. That seems like a major move. A big change in the rules.
And then there is Brian Mclaren who was written up in the Washington Post a few weeks ago as a kind of renegade evangelical. Brian is an evangelical, who says that getting into heaven isn’t as important as doing justice and serving as Christ in the world. I always thought that evangelical meant someone who thought getting into heaven was the only real goal for Christians. Mclaren is shaking up the evangelical world and many former heaven-is-the-only-goal type Christians are listening to him. Many Episcopalians and Catholics and other Christians are listening to him too.
I would have told you that Catholics and Evangelicals were bound by laws and theological limits that precluded the changes that are taking place. It seems that a lot of what I have thought I’ve known about Christianity, Christians, the rules, and how it all sorts out---the faith in general--all these I may have to reconsider. I feel old.
I’m sure it was kind of like that for the Pharisees in Mark’s gospel today.
When Jesus quotes the torah in his exchange with the pharisees, he challenges the way the story of creation has been interpreted for generations. He is asked about limits....what is lawful....what can we and can we not do? His answer acknowledges Moses rules about divorce, and here we have to remember that Moses was the great law giver who set a course for Israel through the wilderness by means of those laws. To live well and faithfully in Jesus’ day was to follow the teachings of Moses. Jesus acknowledges Moses’ authority and Moses’ standard about giving a letter of dismissal, and then he tells the pharisees that in making such a harsh law Moses was doing the best he could at the time. Jesus takes on the prophetic voice when he tells his questioners why Moses made such a law. He doesn’t say to them, “it was because of your ancestors’ hardened hearts”. He says, “it was because of your hardened hearts”.
Later, his disciples ask him again about the matter. Jesus sets a new standard of of mutuality and equality in marriage when he says the bonds of marriage are as binding for men as they are for women. Of course, this new understanding is offered to the disciples in private....not to the pharisees who couldn’t hear it.
In Mark’s gospel once again, the disciples are the ones able to hear the new teaching from Jesus. Jesus lives and works in a religious system defined by its laws, laws that seem fixed and ancient and unquestionable. Over and over again Jesus challenges that system as he asks what might be the purpose of the law. He asks his hearers to focus their sight not on the statute, but beyond it to how it does or does not serve the higher law of loving God and neighbor. For his disciples, traveling with Jesus means learning about the heart of God; it means having that heart revealed in ways that sometimes challenge the religious teaching we have inherited. It is not an easy journey, this journey from the safety of rules into the heart of God, but it is the invitation Jesus extends when he asks us to leave our old lives behind and follow. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t need to give up some of what they “know” about God.
When I meet with couples who are about to be married, I try to help them see that they are really just beginning to know each other. In the best of relationships we sort over time what we know about the other, rethinking what is important, what we know, what we thought we knew but really didn’t. We discover new depths; we come to love the other in new ways--all as part of a deepening appreciation of what lies near their core.
Deepening our relationship with another person, or with Jesus involves being able to appreciate the other in new ways in new situations. Lovers...and disciples...enter into the new relationship with their guard down. Open. Responding to an invitation to leave good sense behind in the hope of finding what the heart needs. Open....able to follow one’s heart...able to make a new beginning. Where can people with weary, calloused hearts learn such faith? We are surrounded by prophets...messiahs...gurus.... the story today continues.
“People were bringing little children to him 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...”
If you want to enter the kingdom, says Jesus, do it the way a child would.
Treat this relationship as a new world.
Enter into the realm of God ready to be amazed, moved, shaken, changed, loved.
Enter wide eyed, with your feelings on your skin, unprotected.
Enter with needs spoken, expectant.....trusting.
Watch the children around you. Learn how resilient they are. Marvel at their ability to risk again and again. Look at how they greet each other, at how glad they can be to see each other. Ask yourself if there is any limit to what they can imagine. Note the way in which they just assume that the primary relationships of their lives define who they are. “I belong to this one....she belongs to me.” Watch how easily they put themselves into a good story.
Today we hear a story about Jesus. One in which he meets some people who are very set in their ways. He talks to them for a while and then he takes some of the people who are open to adventure and says some special words to them.
Then he takes some children in his arms and blesses them.
Today in the story we have some very cautious religious leaders.
We have some disciples who are trying to understand.
And we have some children whose whole new life lies in front of them.
Who in this story would you want to be?
JMB