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SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 10:1-16
Last week we explored amputation as a means of maintaining
the healthy corporate body of Christ and ended with being salty and the
admonition to be at peace with one another. After saying this, Jesus and the
disciples left there and headed out for Judea beyond the Jordan. Here, people
gather, and Jesus begins to teach them.
Into this tranquil place of being at peace with one another, the Pharisees come to test Jesus, not about being at peace but being at odds with one another. It is not a time of building up the body of Christ community but breaking it down.
“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” This question cannot, nor should it be, considered without considering the long history of marriage and divorce that precede it. Although marriage and divorce can describe the relationship between two people, they also describe the relationship between God and Israel/Judea. Divorce more often refers to God’s people committing adultery by worshipping other gods than the personal relationship between a husband and a wife.
Nor should this passage be considered without the blessing of the children at the end. The Pharisees’ question, the disciple-teaching in the house, and the women bringing children are all of a piece.
READING THE BLUEPRINT
And from there he got up and went into the territories of Judea
beyond the Jordan. And gathered around him again the crowd/multitude and as he
had custom, he was teaching them.
And having come, Pharisees, they were asking on him whether it is possible for a man, a woman to loose off? They were trying to discover what good or evil was in him. And [Jesus] answered said to them, “What to you commanded Moses?” But the ones said, “Moses allowed a small book of standoff to write.” But Jesus said to them “For your sclerotic heart he wrote to you this command. But, from the beginning of creation male and female he made them. On account of this, man will leave behind the father and the mother of him, and he will be joined toward the woman of him, and will be the two into the flesh, one. So, no longer they are two but are one flesh. What then God yoked together, let man not separate/sever.
And into the house, again, the disciples about this were asking him. And he says to them “Who might loose off the woman of him and might marry another, he commits adultery on her [his new wife]. And when she, having loosed off the man of her, and might marry another, she commits adultery [against herself and involves the man as well].
And they were bringing to him little children in order that him might touch, but the disciples shamed them. But Jesus, having seen, indignant against what is wrong, said to them, “Allow the little children to come to me. Don’t get up in their faces [now]. For such ones is the kingdom of God. Truly I tell you who might not receive the kingdom of God as a small child NOT will go into it. And having hugged them [to himself] he was blessing them, placing his hands on them.
ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE
The Pharisees’ question is not a “just thought of this to
trip you up” type of question. It had long been, and continues to be, debated. The
question that Jesus asks in response to the Pharisees, “What did Moses command
you?”, introduces us to that discussion and invites us to also consider the
issue of divorce in the context of all of Scripture, not just the writings of
Moses but also Paul’s writings and the context of Mark’s Gospel. John the Baptist criticized Herod’s divorce
and marriage to Herodias, resulting in his arrest and beheading.
The question also reminds us of God’s chesed—God’s grace, mercy, loving-kindness, especially as demonstrated in God’s steadfastness in relation throughout history with Israel/Judah and the Jewish people, including the liberation story of the Exodus and Jeremiah’s report of God’s words in 31:31-34,
“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be
like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand
to bring them out of the land of Egypt, a covenant that they broke though I was
their husband, says the Lord, but this is the covenant that I will make with
the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord, I will put my law within
them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall
be my people. No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other,
‘Know the Lord.’ For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the
greatest, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and remember their
sin no more.”
As last week’s text of amputation and enucleation is more about the corporate body of Christ, so now, the issue of divorce/putting off is less about the individual marital relationship than the relationship of God/Christ and the worshipping community/following Jesus. In the context of holiness (Romans 11), the root and the tree, the branches that have fallen off, the grafting of wild branches, and the hope of the fallen branches of again being grafted into the tree/cross and the Holy Root of faith—Christ—one comes to see that reconciliation of the lost limbs and relationship continues to be a possibility in the relational body of Christ even when it is not possible in our personal relationships (cf. Deut. 24).
The disciples, suspecting that the conversation about divorce is much more than they are understanding, wait until they get into the house to learn more, but find that they are not able to make the jump from putting off a woman personally to corporate separation from God and the adultery of society.
Into this mix come women carrying the ultimate oneness of two becoming one flesh, little ones. Not understanding the relationship language of Jesus’ teaching, living in a world where women and children are of less value, possibly frustrated by their own obtuseness, the disciples shame the women telling them they have no right to bother Jesus.
Jesus, indignant, having seen the actions of the disciples, reacts to what is wrong. As the Pharisees test/pressure/seek to know “good” from “evil”, so now, Jesus sees the wrong/evil of the disciples and reaches out to bless and touch the little ones/children in order to affirm the oneness of God’s making.
PUTTING UP THE WALLS
As I translated the passage this week, I was taken by the
action of the disciples as they run into the house. How many times have we seen
the disciples wait until they were in the house before they ask Jesus, “Just
what the heck were you talking about out there?” Running into the house for
explanation goes all the way back to the Parable of the Sower in chapter 4.
While I laughed at the almost cartoonish movement of the disciples, I realized we do just that today. We live in a world we do not always understand. We believe, but do not always understand, God’s presence and activity in history. Thus, we run into our worship houses for affirmation and understanding.
Like the first disciples of Jesus, we find that sometimes we do not understand God’s activity in our lives any better at the end of worship than we did before we came. We leave our worship spaces thinking that we have some authority over God’s capacity and willingness to welcome others. We find many ways to put things in the way of others to come to Jesus.
- You have to be baptized in order to come the Lord’s table.
- You must be confirmed to be a real member.
- If you aren’t [denomination], you really don’t understand what God is all about.
We get so involved in building up our fortress defenses that
we cannot anticipate God’s delight in claiming the goodness of oneness.
As I had the image of the disciples running into the house near the beginning of this text, at the end, I had this image of Jesus stooping down and rolling on the ground with the children piling in on top of him. As they rolled on the ground, I could hear Jesus laughing and welcoming the children. I felt him tousling their hair. I heard him thanking them for lightening up his day.
Then I wondered, “What does it mean to become one in the body of Christ? What does the oneness of that union look like in the world? What is the peace we can speak of in this divorced, broken family world we live in? What does blessing feel like today? Do we need to run back into the house to learn more?”
HANGING THE TRIM
We run to rooms to understand
And work each day by Your command
Then spread those rules throughout the land
To find our house on sinking sand.
Instead of peace, we rancor build
With worldly thoughts and dreams self-willed.
We plant our seeds in soil we’ve tilled,
Forgetting that by You we’re filled
To spread your hope throughout the land,
Restored and blessed by Your own hand.
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