Good Morning! As many
of you know I have worn a number of hats in my short time on this earth. I have been a construction worker, a law graduate,
and now a pastor, but in this particular instance I was a security guard. I was the night lead for that particular
property and I was the first responder for my shift. We worked in what was essentially a factory
setting and as 1st responder that meant I received special medical
training above and beyond first aid in order to deal with the injuries that
would happen on site. My job was to lead
my other officers in the case of an emergency and no matter what we were to
keep the injured person alive long enough for the ambulance to arrive. So you see as a man trained in law, theology,
and emergency response you might just be the first congregation to hire a truly
full service pastor. I can bring you
into this world, keep you in this world, see you off joyfully into the next and
even help you with your estate after you’ve left.
There
was a lot we did at that job, we helped people with chemical burns, diabetic
issues, nasty cuts and even strokes, but all that didn’t phase me. The building could burn down, a tornado could
come by, a can of experimental chemicals could spill and turn everybody into a
flesh-eating mutant, I could handle it.
What I hated about that job was midnight. I hated midnight because midnight was shift
change and shift change meant that HE would show up. Now I had nothing against this particular HE
but from almost the very outset he had something against me. I remember when he first came there; he
didn’t talk much. I made sure to be
polite and tell a few jokes, but soon afterward, let’s call him Tom, Tom became
very belligerent. He didn’t exactly say
nice things, things I wouldn’t dare repeat in a sermon, and he made it very
evident he didn’t like me much. One
night when he came in I was sure he was in fact going to hit me. He took an intimidating stance, was a foot
taller than me and twice as wide, he stood inches away from me, and looked me
in the eye with his fists clenched. I
looked him in the eye also, but gently, and kindly gave him plenty of room to put
his stuff down on the security desk.
Quite
frankly the situation confounded me.
Literally having said only a handful of words to the man, words of such
nefarious intent like, “Hello and how are you” his anger, no his hatred was
simply inexplicable. I decided to make
the best of the situation, however, and so every day he came in I decided to shower
him with kindness. I gave him his space,
told him what he needed to know from the previous shift, and made sure to wish
him well every time I left. His attitude
didn’t change toward me, in fact it made it worse, but I made it out the door
without any violence to my person either.
Now,
many of you might be wondering, Keven, why didn’t you tell your supervisor
about it? Oh, I did. But we were inevitably the only guards when
he did these things and he was always very sure to stay off camera, so whatever
I said was always a he-said-he-said kind of a thing. And while he was intimidating, belligerent,
and abusive he also did so in ways that never technically broke the rules, at
least in a way that anybody could prove.
This information would turn out to be very important. You see, after months of this kind of abuse,
little things could and would slip out.
Tom, you see, was an ex-cop, and not only was he an ex cop, he was a
self-righteous ex cop who, as it turned out, had a passionate hatred for not
only attorneys, but also for clergy. How
does the saying go, “If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all,”? To Tom, the Bible was written in Plain
Language and the nonsense that someone would have to be trained to understand it
so they could perform the duties of God’s religion was simply of the
devil. To him, I was the worst sort of
shyster and a charlatan, more crooked than the mafia itself. The fact that I had graduated law school, and
was going to seminary, only cemented in his mind that I was the worst sort of
person imaginable.
Despite
his actions and overall terrible attitude, that is not really what I remember
him most for. What I remember most about
Tom are the stories he would proudly tell of his days on the force, stories of
dragging and roughing up suspects who hadn’t even been found guilty, and his hopes
and dreams of what he’d do to criminals if he were only allowed, things that,
by the way, would have killed them or left them horribly, psychologically scarred.
These were the stories of his own endless righteousness. It was a world of light vs dark, good versus
evil after all, and he knew that he was God’s shining sword. I have never met a more compassionless
man. A man who knew every rule, followed
everything to the letter and knew every loophole to get what he wanted. A man who saw righteousness in rules, and
despised anybody who had the authority, legal or spiritual, to contradict
him. He was a holy bully.
Now,
you may wonder, saying this all well and good Keven, but what does this have to
do with our gospel text? In reality,
everything. You see, we are a culture of
rule lovers. We read everything with an
eye for some new law, some statute that we can gleefully pin others under – the
reality is I’m afraid that people like Tom do not spring from a vacuum. They learn our culture’s obsessions with laws
and the power they grant very early on, and some learn its lessons very well
indeed. You see, we read this text
hungry for new rules. Look! We say,
Jesus is going to hand down a new rule.
Moses gave one rule, but Jesus is giving us the REAL one. The reality is, however, rules were never really
the point; it was the people that really mattered.
Our
story begins with the Pharisees and they pose to Jesus a question of the
law. “Is it lawful for a man to divorce
his wife?” they ask, a topic that for its day was a woman’s rights issue. Jewish law, as it had been interpreted and
enforced, said a man could divorce his wife for any and every reason, leaving
his partner and the mother of his children on the side of the road to essentially
all but starve. A woman’s only means of
survival in that day was the men in their life; a divorced woman would be very
unlikely to remarry and her only hope would be if her father would retake her
back into the family, which not every father did or even was alive to do.
Jesus,
however, as he is apt to do, changes the tone of the entire conversation. Rather than entering into a quagmire of laws
and their interpretation he relates the entire issue down to a person. He answers their question with a question of
his own. “Why are you asking this? What did Moses command?” Well now that we know what Moses commanded;
did you think to ask why he commanded it?
Was it because Israelites are so righteous? Is it because their hearts are in line with
God? No, Jesus tells them, Moses wrote
this rule because your hearts were hard.
Instead of asking about rules, why not ask about God’s intentions for
human relationships? Was God’s intention
to have people use each other and throw them away? No!
God’s intention was for you to find your other half, to enjoy a life of
partnership and intimacy. Yes, you can
call yourself law-abiding if you divorce your spouse, but that doesn’t necessarily
mean you’re being faithful.
Now, I
think it important to say at this juncture that I don’t believe Jesus intends
to be exhaustive here, either about marriage or about divorce. I don’t think he intended to cover every
possible coupling and uncoupling that would occur in human history. Indeed, given that Paul feels free to
recognize an exception in the case of a partner leaving their spouse, it tells
me that Jesus was far less concerned about creating a rule to fit every
situation than he was in raising up a compassionate people able to handle every
situation faithfully. I don’t think Jesus
intended to be convenient for us, and so I think we must take Paul’s example
when it comes to marriage and divorce, that we must realize exceptions to what
we think is ideal exist and we must be compassionate and gracious in the very
real brokenness of our relationships.
But it
is precisely this compassion the disciples do not get, this difference between
what is loving, and what is legal. They
ask him again when they get a moment and again Jesus discusses the matter not
in terms of rules and laws but in terms of the damage being done to another
person. A person who divorces their
spouse for any and every reason, because that was the law of their day, they
are not just committing adultery, Jesus says, they are committing adultery
against a person, a real human being. Listen
to Jesus words, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery
against her”. This is not some mere
rule violation, a traipsing across arbitrary boundaries, it is taking your
life-mate and dashing them against the rocks and trying to look holy and
justified as you do it.
But the
disciples still don’t get it, and when we see them again they are still
enforcing society’s rules, keeping pesky children away from the rabbi. “Our master has more important things to do
then entertain your little brats,” they say and it is here at this juncture we
see Jesus does something very rare. He
is indignant toward them and tells his disciples “Don’t you dare.” 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, my disciples, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little
child will never enter it."
Children,
you see, are wonderful little learners and take what they are taught on faith,
but even more so have a very unique understanding of the rules. Children are very concrete thinkers and do
not understand rules as we do, they do not think in terms of breaking some
abstract precept but rather they understand broken rules in terms of the people
they will disappoint or the loved ones they might hurt. Amongst children,
people are always the point and Jesus says that his disciples need to think
that way, too.
Friends,
let us learn these lessons and learn them well.
Our society is already one that produces rule mongers and legalized
tyrants, people who have a rule for every situation so they might prowl around
as a roaring lion, looking for another to devour. Let us not participate in a bankrupt world
that sees no difference between immoral and illegal, but rather let us claim
the freedom that Christ promises. Let us
joyfully enter the kingdom of the compassionate where the only law is Love. Let us be citizens of heaven and have little
regard for earthly rules and the hellish sorts of people who revel in them. Let
us live as a people so good and so obedient that no crime could possibly be
charged against us and let us not think in terms of rules but in terms of
people. Amen.
