Don’t you just love the portions of the Gospels where Jesus and the Pharisees are contending with each other … especially when the Pharisees come up with a debating point that oftentimes seems like a trap?

It’s rather like the religious games that often get played today between Christians who inhabit various places on the Tree of Faith.  One stringent group sitting on a particular branch pulls a verse or two from Scripture (completely out of time and context) and uses it as a weapon with which to bruise another group.  And if the attacked group offers a suggestion that slicing up the Bible in order to prove one thing or another is really out of order, then the Bruising Group retorts with that age-old challenge, “So, you don’t really believe in the word of God!?”[1]

That’s the problem with Bible Bruisers; they try to get everyone away from actually reading the story as the Story, and into a debate about whether the Story is literal history or Story of Faith.

If we are going to read Scripture – and we seem to be engaged in the business of doing just that, at least once or twice a week in our worship – then we must understand the time and place, that is the context, of what we are reading.

Instead of just adopting Sunday School thinking of Pharisees as the enemies of Jesus, why not actually try to understand who they were in the time of Jesus?  Let’s spend just a moment summarizing this, although my words will be much more of a simplification that I would like.

The Pharisees were one of at least four major schools of thought in Judaism around the 1^st Century (i.e. the time of Jesus) … the other groups being the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the Revolutionaries.

The Pharisees held to an Oral Torah alongside a Written (or Book) Torah. They were most prominently in opposition to the Sadducees (who took the Hebrew Bible literally), and they were very interested in how to apply Torah to daily life … and in that vein included in their teaching the comments and interpretations of various Teachers.  The rabbinic movement comes from this group following the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 CE.

Now, put the scene that we read this morning from the Gospel According to Mark into play.  Here is Jesus (who some scholars think might have come himself  from the Pharisaic movement and therefore the incidents we read about in the Gospels are more akin to debating tournaments among teachers than they are verbal combat between enemies) …here is Jesus who has been going around the countryside of the Galilee teaching about a way of understanding God that brings into question any understanding of God that is limiting and secluding and oppressing.

The group of Pharisees come up to him and begin the debate … “Ok, Jesus, here’s one.  Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

Jesus is asked a legal, technical, down-to-earth, question about everyday, lived reality.  The group from the Pharisees (note it is a few of them, not every Pharisee in the land) are referring to Deuteronomy 24.1-4.

Almost no one preaching upon this part of Mark’s Gospel ever reads that passage from Deuteronomy aloud (including myself!), so I want to do that now.  Here it is:

“Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house ²and goes off to become another man’s wife. ³Then suppose the second man dislikes her, writes her a bill of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house (or the second man who married her dies); ⁴her first husband, who sent her away, is not permitted to take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that would be abhorrent to the Lord, and you shall not bring guilt on the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession.”

When Jesus answers their question he does so by asking them to quote these verses; and they do – albeit in a summary manner.

Now, right away when we read or hear those verses we understand the difference between a patriarchal system thousands of years ago and the system in which we live today, where women are rarely if ever referred to as defiled, and it’s not acceptable for a man simply to get rid of a wife is “he finds something objectionable about her.”

 

Thank God!

Bible Bruisers of course take a different track here, but let’s see how Jesus proceeds.

His Pharisee friends and debating partners ask about divorce.  Jesus – you will notice – changes the subject to marriage itself; that is he moves from escape clauses to embracing a unity of partners that reflects the heart of God.

Once inside the house (the sort of technical term by which the Gospel Writer Mark indicates an “in house” conversation of his church) the conversation takes a little different turn and has to do with the influence of the Romans (and the Greeks before them) in the manner at hand; for that culture which allowed divorce – not just of the wife by the husband, but of the husband by the wife.

Jesus continues … not legislating that there can be no re-marriage, but by talking about what happens to a broken relationship, about it’s pain, and yes, he proclaims an ideal, the impossible, but that proclamation itself moves the whole conversation away from the “what if this and what if that?” discussion of human relationship and into the realm of what it should look like, what it could look like, what God has in mind for us humans as we become intimate with each other … as equal partners.

Take that, Bible Bruisers!  Instead of loading a verse into the barrel and pulling the trigger, why not look at what Jesus is really emphasizing? 

Jesus, you will notice, never allows condemnation, never opts for death (He does not invoke Leviticus 20.10 that allows for adulteration to be taken care of by killing the parties involved) … Jesus does not speak of punishment … but always insists on the inclusive-open-welcoming-forgiving-loving arms of God as the mark of the kingdom.  That’s what we call the Gospel.

Well then, another not so small and insignificant event takes place, attached immediately in today’s portion to the question/answer/discussion about marriage … and that is the business of children.

I love the hidden power of the words …

“People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them.” 

What did they say?  How stern could they be, having just heard Jesus’ words of elevated love and ideal?

Did they talk like W. C. Fields?  “Get away, kid, you’re bothering me!”

Did they chastise the parents?  “Visiting time for children is tomorrow morning!”

Were they trying to protect Jesus from children?

In any case, “ … 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.’”

I love that part too.  It’s what makes me feel good when I see children coming up here as we set the Table for Holy Communion, entering into a space that was in my childhood forbidden, and Dear God, would my Pastor have ever let me hold the Chalice in my hands, or pour wine into it?  (Actually my Pastor would have done that, if we children would actually have been allowed inside the Chancel … which we were prevented from doing by the might of a very large and influential Woman of the Altar Guild.)

But you see what is happening here?  Among other things, Jesus is proclaiming, teaching a Gospel of Equality.  In the kingdom, in the arena of God’s rule, in the place where God is in charge as Eternal, Teacher, Lover of what God has created … there (and Jesus would say “No, not there but here”) women and children are equal to men … everyone has a place at the Table, everyone gets into the kingdom, all are welcome, no one is slighted …young and old, rich and poor, privileged and un-privileged, citizen and immigrant … and today on this Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, we might also add animals and pets and their owners … so welcoming, equalizing, including, and open is the realm of God and God’s love.

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Let us pray.

Sovereign God, you make us for each other, to live in loving community as friends, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, wives and husbands, partners and companions. Teach us to choose love that is committed and devoted; teach us like little children to wonder and to trust, that our loving may reflect the image of Christ. And, let us say: Amen.

+ Deo Gratia. Amen.
The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III, Pastor

 

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