“I Will Proclaim Your Name” 

Mark 10:2-16

Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12 

Mark has many hard teachings.  This week is one of those that seminary professors warn students not to preach in their first few years.  An experienced pastor still has difficulty with this passage; one of his parishioners told him that he should never address it again; he should tear it out of the Bible.  However, if we do not let Scripture confront us, challenge us, force us to examine ourselves, then we may miss God's transforming grace as well.  So, being braver than wise, let us look at this week's passage from Mark. 

It starts with a question.  Questions.  Are you a Packers fan or a Bears fan?  A common question where I grew up; of course, it assumed that you weren't from some far off place with misplaced loyalties and that you cared enough about football to have an opinion.  Are you a Democrat or Republican?  What about voting for the best qualified candidate or an independent party?  Or psychological questions:  Which is the worse fault: people not knowing what they personally believe -or- people not being well organized ?  Do you prefer riding a bicycle or camping?  Neither; both. 

How we ask a question provides an insight into the answer that we expect.  It was expected that folks where I grew up 1) cared about football and 2) cheered for one of the two closest teams.  Likewise, the way the Pharisees asked about divorce provides insight into what they expected to hear.  At that time, as today, the reality of divorce was assumed.  The Pharisees were really asking whether Jesus agreed with the followers of Rabbi Hillel, quite lenient in their interpretation and permitting a man to divorce his wife for any reason, even the burning of his food. Or did Jesus agree with the school of Rabbi Shimmai which was much more strict and taught that divorce was only allowed for pre-marital adultery.  They were not asking about divorce, they were testing Jesus to see which group he would support, and which group he would alienate.  They were trying to establish the legal limits surrounding divorce. 

But Jesus went beyond the trick question, went beyond the law, to address far deeper issues.  The Pharisees asked a legal question, expecting a legal answer; Jesus answered a question of the heart.  He addressed two issues: the hardness of heart that brings about divorce and the intention of God.   

There was a popular song about a hard hearted woman; one who would love you and then break your heart as she walked away.  Yet, that is not what the Pharisees heard when Jesus used that term.  They would have thought about all the times that Pharaoh refused to let God's people go because of his hard heart.  They would hear Isaiah 63:17 come to mind: “Why, O LORD, do You cause us to stray from Your ways and harden our heart from fearing You?”  We should hear Mark 3:4-5 as the Pharisees tried to prevent Jesus from healing on the Sabbath: "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?" But they kept silent. After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, he healed him” or Ephesians 4:18 (the gentiles are) “darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.”  

Hardness of heart is not being open to God, not allowing God to open our eyes, not allowing faith to grow within us disobeying God.  Hardness of heart is disobedience.  In this first part of his answer, Jesus clearly made this an issue of seeing God's kingdom, of seeing what God desires for us.  Jesus did not place legal issues first.  Nor should we. 

Then Jesus addressed what God intended for a man and a woman.  Adam was given dominion over all the world, yet he could not find any creature to share in this work, to cure the loneliness inside.  There was something missing, he felt incomplete.  God answered this need.   

We talk of cloning today, starting with a DNA sample and producing a new creature, a copy of the original.  So what's new?  God did not go back to the dust to create a partner for Adam; this is not some new or different type of creature as were all of the other animals.  Instead, God started with Adam, took a sample from his side, and cloned a helpmate.  As the Biblical commentator Matthew Henry describes this 'cloning': “Not made out of his head to top him, not out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.”  Adam is to love Eve as he loves himself. Ephesians 5:28-30 echoes this idea for us today: “So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body.”  

Adam was searching for a helper.  The very term 'helper' that is used in most English translations misleads us; makes us think of someone in charge, someone domineering another who is reduced to servitude, to following precise instructions.  Listen to how the words helper and God are used together in the Psalms: 10:4 God “you are the helper of the fatherless.”  or 27:9 “Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Savior.”  I do not think that the Psalmist is saying that God is our subordinate, that the one who needs help is superior to the one who helps. 

Adam was not complete without Eve.  With Eve, the two are joined from two incomplete creatures, mutual helpers back into one complete being.  This is what God intended, this is what marriage should be like.  But it isn't always this way; we are not ideal people in an ideal world.  We are not that different from the Pharisees.  There is the reality of divorce today.  To this fact, it is as if Jesus were saying, “OK, this is the ideal, now why do you want to talk about something else, something that tarnishes this ideal?”  Jesus would rather talk about how to change us into the ideal than reduce the ideal to what we are. 

Still, Jesus recognizes that we live in a world that is marked by hardness of hearts.  His answer avoids both Rabbinic schools of thought and puts the Pharisees, us, on the spot.  First, this is what God intended, why are you changing it?  Second, if you want legalism, if you can not get beyond your hard hearts, then here it is: a man can divorce his wife, a wife can divorce her husband; both commit adultery when they remarry.  What?  A wife has the choice to divorce a man?  This equality is not something that they could hear, did not want to understand, could not accept the consequences.  And the prohibition on remarriage is harsh. 

But Jesus does not leave us hanging on the negatives, nor focuses on the legal issues, nor leave us suffering in pain when we fail to measure up to God's ideal.  Many are divorced; many are never married; some remarry.  What then, Jesus?  The answer, again, is in the children.  This is not a sentimental reference to innocence or childish attributes.  Rather, it is a very calculating, even demeaning, reference to their existence.  Children have no status, no rights, no freedom, no wealth or power.  Yet, these are the ones to whom the kingdom of God belongs.  We can only receive the kingdom of God if we are like a powerless child, poor to the point of utter dependence on God, as we forfeit whatever freedom we may think we have.  We have nothing to offer God that allows us to claim his love, no right to enter God's kingdom.  We receive it, we only receive it as a gift.  And we all receive it equally: married, single, divorced; even the hard hearted can be changed. 

The Hebrews passage takes us beyond being children.  The wonderful opening verses are like an overture, a preview of the great themes of Hebrews.  Long ago, God spoke to our ancestors by prophets; recently God spoke to us through His Son.  Jesus is the exact imprint of God; he is God.  Yet, he was made flesh as a human, like us, a mere image of God.  After he made himself a sacrifice for our sins, he took his place next to God in heaven. 

Chapter 2 expands some of this opening theme.  The one who sanctifies us, the one who makes us clean and pure in God's sight, has the same father that we have.  Sinner and sanctifier are of the same family.  Not only do we receive this gift called grace, but we get a new name.  A name that I can hardly comprehend.  A name that I could never claim to have.  Jesus calls me, calls all of us, his brothers and sisters.  And this isn't something said in quiet, it isn't as if he is whispering about that member of the family that just never quite turned out well.  No, he calls us brothers and sisters and does so without embarrassment; he is not ashamed of us.  Jesus knows us, all about us, all about the marriages and divorces that may be in our lives.  Yet he still accepts us as brothers and sisters, still proclaims us to the rest of the congregation, the other believers that worship God. 

Jesus proclaims us his brothers and sisters.  Us, the hard hearted.  He knows us yet he is not ashamed of us!  Jesus proclaims that we are part of the family of God, living in the kingdom of God, even as we concurrently struggle in this imperfect kingdom of man, as we struggle with marriage and divorce. 

If I ask the question “Are you living in the kingdom of God or are you living in the kingdom of man?” then I have assumed that this is an either / or answer.  The Pharisees assumed that they had asked Jesus an either / or question about divorce.  Yet the answer Jesus gave them went far beyond what was expected, what seemed a simple question.  Jesus made them look into their hearts, even soften their hearts.  Jesus confronted them with the challenge to live as God intended us to live.  Jesus challenges us as well.  Are we allowing ourselves to be transformed?  Are we letting Christ into our marriages so that this one will be the last one?   Christ tells us to be like children, without any merit or claim, freely receiving, not earning or buying or demanding, the gift of grace.  And then calls us brothers and sisters. 

And so it is with the kingdom of God.  This is not an either / or choice.  It is a yes /  both.  We do live in the kingdom of man.  We do have hard hearts, we may never marry or may have multiple marriages or may have marriages far from God's true intention for a man and a woman.  We also live in the kingdom of God.  We are all brothers and sisters together in that kingdom.  We have been welcomed, renamed, by Jesus.  By the same Jesus who has rescued us from the death of this kingdom through the gift that was his life, given for each of us, each of us poor and powerless children. 

Let us be like children.  Let us receive this incredible gift that can transform us, our marriages.  May we listen with softened hearts as Jesus proclaims our new name! 

October 8, 2006

Rev. Alan Hammond

First Presbyterian Church

Logan, Utah