Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her." But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he 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." Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery." People were bringing little children to him in order 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. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.There was another bombing today, in Khost. Twenty people were killed, and the violence around the middle east continues. It's pretty gut wrenching to watch. I know a lot of people taking a tack that says that the entirety of the middle east is reacting in violence and we need to do something about those violent Muslims, like draw a red line. But the thing is that in attacks like this it's not just Americans or westerners that are killed, it's the local people, who share the same communities and religion as the attackers, and the suicide bombers and people leading the violence as just as much victims of ideology as the rest of them. This kind of thing is daunting because it demonstrates how pervasive sin and evil is in the world, that people who could train up their children to kill themselves in order to kill others.
We're so steeped in violence in our world; and steeped in the tragedies of illness and loneliness and pain and death, and how can you fight a rushing tide like sin? It's pretty easy to get angry about it. I fall prey to this too. When I see inflammatory political bullshit like pastors advocating that we should incite the government to tax churches in order to make Obama look bad, it pisses me off. I won't lie and say it doesn't make me angry. Sometimes this shit makes me so angry I want to punch somebody. But it also breaks my heart, because it's so ugly and unproductive and detrimental to any sort of progress. P and I went to see The Campaign this week, which is a satire that aptly demonstrates the ridiculousness of campaign mudslinging and dirty politics, and it's funny because as ridiculous and over the top as it is, it's TRUE. We're so busy throwing mud at each other that we're not looking at the real, insidious problems like poverty, violence against women, religious fanaticism, and corruption. It's heartbreaking. How can we mend the world when we can't stop slapping each other in the face long enough to see what the real enemies are? Everybody wants to feed their children. Everybody wants to live in a world where they don't have to be afraid.
The Gospel lesson this week is Mark 10:2-16, which is a well known passage where Jesus talks about divorce, and then again talks about Jesus welcoming children. This passage is awful to preach on because half our congregations are divorced, and we don't want to further divisions among us at a time like this. David Lose wrote an awesome blog post about this, basically talking about what marriage was at the time. It was an economic relationship, and divorce was initiated only by men, which meant that it left women (who were valued less already) extremely vulnerable. Lose writes that this conversation on divorce is less about forbidding something and more about caring for the vulnerable. The rest of the passage goes on to talk about children as being valuable; again Christ gives value where humans don't. God values God's people, particularly the marginalized and victims, and wants us to sow love and compassion in order to care for the vulnerable. The vulnerable of Jesus' day were children, women, slaves, non-Jews or non-Greek citizens, the poor, the disabled. We have some of these same vulnerable groups today, but I think this passage goes beyond that in light of what's happening in the world today. Marriage inequality, economic hardship, terrorism, war, political violence and mudslinging, people whose ideology is hateful, people who hate hateful ideology… To be honest, we're all victims to sin. That's not to take away personal responsibility, because we ultimately do choose our actions, but evil is a part of this world. It's pervasive. People starve to death because their governments hoard and control the food. People get AIDS because sex education is so poor. People are brought up to hate their fellow human being because s/he isn't white, is of a different tribe or clan, is of a different political ideology. That's sin, and it's a terrible reality.
Where the Gospel breaks in for me is in watching what Jesus does to the rejected. Jesus speaks on behalf of the marginalized, Jesus gathers the weak up in his arms and blesses them, and most importantly on the cross, Jesus continues to pray for those who have persecuted him. Jesus' love goes beyond loving the 'easy' vulnerable, to loving the people who hate us, who we might also hate. He goes so far to love the people that killed him. Our enemies are the weak, too. Terrorism is, I believe, rooted in an extreme fear of the other--a fear that the other will not give him the proper respect, a fear that the other will persecute him if he doesn't persecute first, a fear that someone different is a threat. In light of the attacks, protests, and other continued violence in the middle east, I think it's more important than ever to understand that sin is pervasive and we all fall victim to it in different ways. Being intolerant of the intolerant is still intolerance. It's incredibly difficult, but we have got to start looking at those we fear as those who are also direly in need of healing. My prayer is that we may let Christ break our hearts open to feel not only anger at the evil perpetrated against innocent people, but also to grieve for those people who are suffering in sin and mired in a world of death as we all are. In the breaking of our hearts, as in the breaking of bread, Christ comes into us and transforms us.
The Peace Prayer of Saint Francis "O Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Peace! Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is discord, harmony. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sorrow, joy. Oh Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life."
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