Tuesday, October 9, 2018

October 7, 2018 - Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost - When The Issue Sometimes Is Not The Issue

Today was the Blessing of the Animals at multiple churches including Creator. Many brought their pets to service and there was a blessing in the narthex with Pastor Ray giving the blessing and Matt playing music for a sing-along.

Pastor Ray talked about wanting to have a sermon about animals but thought he the Gospel was the text to examine. He began his sermon saying of the Gospel that the issues is sometimes not the issue. What is brought up in this Gospel is Mosaic law regarding divorce  Among Jewish legal experts, Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was a key text, one that assumes divorce will occur and proscribes procedures for carrying it out. But other scriptures call the permissibility of divorce into question (like Malachi 2:13-16; Genesis 2:24).

The only other time divorce is talked about in the New Testament is when John the Baptizer called out Herod and Herodias over the king being divorced and remarried. This Gospel deals with this question of Mosaic law. Law is used to maintain order, resolve disputes and protect liberty and rights. The Pharisees become shorthand for law over the spirit of the law, empathy and love. 

In Mark 10:2-16 the Pharisees ask for answers. Jesus gives advice the Pharisees are unlikely to accept as an answer. After all this is not a question seeking the truth but is asked as a test. The Pharisees ask a question that is general and abstract. They start with "If a man". Jesus responds by turning the abstract personal. Instead of asking "What did Moses command regarding him?" he asks "What did Moses command you?" This is where the law will, by nature fall, short because it must deal generalities rather than particulars. Also, maintaining order may trump resolving disputes amicably or protecting the liberty and rights of particular groups, like women.
 

In verses 10-12, Jesus gives women an equal place in the marriage relationship rather than as an extension of property. By speaking of a man committing adultery against a woman (and not against her father or her past or present husband), Jesus also implies that adultery involves more than violating the property rights of another man. It concerns accountability to a partner, just as marriage does.

Finally we have the disciples speaking sternly to the people who have brought their children to be touched by Jesus.  Verses 14 -16 "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."

This ties the vulnerability of children with the spirit versus the letter of the law.

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