“Loving & Blessing” Colchester Federated Church, October 6, 2024, World Communion Sunday (Mark 10:2-16)

We will be spending the month of October exploring the Gospel according to Mark.  Today we begin with Jesus teaching about divorce and blessing little children.  Now divorce is a complicated topic and we’ll have different perspectives and experiences. What may be helpful to hear is that Jesus and some of the Pharisees also had varied ideas about divorce. 

Jesus is challenged by some Pharisees about the legality of divorce according to the Torah.  The initial question begins a fascinating back and forth argument.  The Pharisees share that Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and divorce his wife.  Jesus responds that Moses had to write that because of their hardness of heart.  Though Jesus personalizes his words, “He [Moses] wrote this commandment for you because of your unyielding hearts.”[1]  That would have felt personal.  One has to wonder if some of these men who were questioning Jesus had divorced their wives (or were contemplating divorcing their wives) and what the circumstances happened to be. 

Jesus puts this question back on them and returns to the beginning of creation in the book of Genesis.  Obviously Genesis predates what Moses would have worked out about divorce.  To quote from The New Oxford Annotated Bible, “To the Pharisees’ focus on divorce as a male prerogative, Jesus insists upon the equality of marriage intended in the creation stories . . . Jesus’ formulation with both the man and the woman as active agents stands in contrast to the ancient assumption that adultery was an offense against the husband.”[2]  We’re dealing with a highly patriarchal society.  Adultery was offensive from one man to another because it went against another man’s honor and property rights.  Who cares about those helpless women anyway (rolling my eyes here)! 

Within Judaism in the First Century, divorce could be initiated by a husband and not a wife.  If the couple was barren, the woman was blamed and divorce would probably follow.  Even in the Greco-Roman world, wives could rarely initiate divorce from their husbands and had to come from families of wealth and influence to do so.  As a result, women being divorced meant economic insecurity.  Jesus has stricter views on divorce than the Pharisees because he’s thinking about and being protective of folks who are vulnerable.  In this case, women whose husbands divorce them and leave them with next to nothing except being ostracized by basically everybody.[3]  Jesus is introducing equality between men and women at this time in his own way by being even stricter in his interpretation of the Law.  It’s really amazing.

As Jesus teaches about the Kingdom of God—men aren’t valued over women any more than adults are valued over children.  To prove how this new societal order works in God’s Kingdom, Mark immediately turns to the disciples speaking sternly to people who were bringing children to Jesus in order that he might bless them.  Jesus sees what the disciples are doing and becomes indignant, “Allow the children to come to me.  Don’t forbid them, because God’s kingdom belongs to people like these children.  I assure you that whoever doesn’t welcome God’s kingdom like a child will never enter it.”[4]  Then Jesus hugs the children and blesses them—actions that would have been associated with women more so than a single man in his 30s like Jesus.  The cultural idea that children are to be seen and not heard is being challenged when Jesus takes the children from the margins and places them right there in the center with him. 

Teaching about divorce and blessing little children seem to be odd to talk about together.  Though these Gospel stories are linked because Jesus is teaching Kingdom Ethics and looking out for peoples’ well-being.  Jesus is embodying what he’s been preaching.  As Jesus taught, the first will be last and the last will be first.  People shouldn’t lord power over one another because following him isn’t about being the greatest.  It’s about serving one another with humility.  The Kingdom of God is about welcoming and protecting vulnerable people in Christ’s name.  It’s about examining ourselves and our words and actions, knowing that we have the capacity to cause great harm and to spread God’s extravagant love.  It’s on us which way we choose to go because we have free will.  God isn’t going to force us to love God, to love one another, and to love ourselves.  God isn’t going to force us to have a relationship with God at all, not when God desires authenticity and genuine love. 

In the end, these Gospel stories revolve around how Jesus envisioned a just and loving world.  One way to look at this is Jesus talking about marriage and children in the Kingdom and how his views differed from the way society was operating then and even now sometimes.  Jesus shows us how it could be if we grounded ourselves in God and expanded our horizons to receive the Kingdom with the openness of children.

Today is also World Communion Sunday.  We remember that we don’t practice our Christian faith in isolation.  In fact, it seems next to impossible to practice Christianity alone given Jesus’ Kingdom Ethics!  Author and journalist Judith Valente tells a great story about Basil (who was one of those Desert Fathers in the 4th Century) being questioned about living in community as opposed to living in solitude.  Because couldn’t Basil live a more holy and devout life if he lived alone as a hermit out there in the desert?  “But then,” Basil asked, “whose feet would I wash?”[5] 

We are not in this life alone.  Humans are social creatures not meant to live in isolation.  We experience community in worship on Sunday mornings here at CFC whether we are in-person or online.  Our church is also part of two denominations—the American Baptist Churches and the United Church of Christ.  World Communion Sunday is observed in most Mainline Protestant Denominations and we happen to belong to two of them.  And we belong to Christianity worldwide—there are something like 2.4 billion Christians around the world.  This is a day where we can celebrate Christian unity and ecumenical cooperation.  We remember that Jesus’ prayer for us was that we would all be one.  We are heirs of the Kingdom of God no matter our marital status or our age as Jesus explained in Mark’s Gospel.  We are heirs of the Kingdom no matter who we are or where we are on life’s journey.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] Mark 10:5, CEB.
[2] Footnotes in The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Fully Revised Fourth Edition, 1810.
[3] Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, “Gospel of Mark” in Women’s Bible Commentary (Third Edition), Eds. Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley, 487.
[4] Mark 10:14-15, CEB.
[5] Judith Valente, How to Live: What the Rule of St. Benedict Teaches Us about Happiness, Meaning, and Community.

Photo by Khamkéo Vilaysing on Unsplash