Mark 10:2-16
Fake Questions and Kingdom Ways
James Sledge October
7, 2018
I
don’t think we’ve done it here during my time as pastor, but both of my
previous congregations did a stewardship program called the “Grow One
Challenge.” This challenge was based on the fact that very few church members
tithe. Never mind how often a pastor calls for the offering with “Let us bring
our tithes and offerings…” statistics show that tithers are as rare as liberal
Republicans.
And
so the “Grow One Challenge” is a plan both to help church members move toward
the biblical notion of the tithe, giving the first ten percent, the first
fruits, to God. Recognizing that the typical Presbyterian gives something
closer to two percent, this challenge knew that asking people to jump from one
or two percent to ten was an impossible task. And so people were encouraged to
grow one, one percentage point that is, toward the tithe. The pledge cards
accompanying the program even had little charts on the back that would help you
do the math.
The
program seemed to work pretty well. We had some pretty big jumps in giving when
we first used it. But I also had a rather experience. It happened in both
churches and it happened repeatedly. People
asked me, “Am I supposed give ten percent of my income before or after taxes?” They
almost always grinned as they asked.
I
don’t think there was ever I time where this was a real question. They weren’t
filling out their pledge card and wanting to know if it was this amount or
that. More often it was just a joke, but sometimes it was a way of muddying the
waters, of charting loopholes.
The
Pharisees in our scripture aren’t making a joke, but they may well be grinning.
Their question is not a real one. They already know what the law says. They’re
merely hoping Jesus’ answer will make some folks angry. There were
disagreements in Jesus’ day, not about whether divorce was legal, but about
valid reasons for it. The Pharisees hope Jesus will come down on one side and
upset those on the other.
But
Jesus doesn’t take the bait. After getting his opponents to demonstrate that
they already know the answer to their own question, he then talks, not about
divorce, but about marriage, about God’s intention for loving relationships. Later,
in private with his disciples, Jesus addresses divorce directly, but in doing
so he invokes the commandment on adultery in a manner that it wasn’t typically
understood in ancient Israel. Adultery was not about marital faithfulness but
essentially a property crime. In a day when women were considered a man’s
property, adultery robbed some male of that property.
As
such, adultery could not be committed against a woman, only against a husband
or the father of an unmarried woman. But Jesus reframes things, likely out of
concern for how divorce often left a woman destitute and on living on the
street.
But
I don’t think Jesus is giving any new regulations on marriage or divorce. He is
stating how things would be were it not for the “hardness of heart” that led
some men in his day to toss aside a wife like trash, were it not for our human
tendency to be selfish and self-centered, to always want more and so, very
often, to hurt both neighbor and loved ones in our efforts to grab and grasp
what we want.
Jesus
repeatedly proclaims that he has come to bring the start of a new day, a day
when God’s will, God’s intention for the world and humanity will be lived out
on earth “as it is in heaven.” This new day, this kingdom, won’t be
characterized by grasping or grabbing but by self-giving love, by an
overwhelming concern for the other, no matter who that other may be.
Of
course that day is nowhere near fully arrived, and the stark contrast between
this kingdom that Jesus says has “come near” and the reality of the world we
humans have made perhaps explains the rather startling contrast in today’s
scripture.
When
Mark’s gospel moves to a new topic, it typically changes locale or does
something to indicate the shift. But in the verses we read, Jesus is in the
house, talking to his disciples about divorce, when we hear, “People
were bringing little children to him…” This lack of a transition seems to say that the teachings
on marriage and divorce are somehow connected to the teachings about children.
2000
years ago, children were not seen as cute and innocent. No advertising was
aimed at them, and they had no money to spend. They were not doted on and
didn’t stay children for long. Very small children, like those brought to
Jesus, were utterly powerless and totally dependent on their families, and
Jesus says that the kingdom belongs to such as these. It cannot be grasped or
grabbed. It can’t be gotten by figuring out the rules, much less by twisting
them to one’s advantage. It can’t be hoarded or accumulated. It can only be
received.
The
kingdom, God’s new day, operates on an entirely different set of principles and
values than a consumer culture, than our world. And Jesus invites his disciples,
invites us, to begin living now by the values and principles of God’s coming
dominion, where no person can simply be discarded and where those thought to be
worth nothing are highly valued.
But disciples, both those in our reading
and we here today, are all shaped to some degree by the values and principles
of the world. And so the ways of God’s new day are strange and difficult for
us. Often it is those on the margins, those who do not fare so well under the
values and principles of our world, who find it easier to follow Jesus.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Some
years ago, our denomination published a book on stewardship that contained a
collection of essays, articles, sermons, and anecdotes on the topic. One told a
story about the offering being collected after a sermon on “total giving.” The
plate came to a pew where a small boy was seated, and he asked the usher to
lower it. The usher assumed the boy wanted to see what was in it so he lowered
it a bit. “No,” said the boy, “a little lower please.” The usher lowered it
some more, but the boy said, “More; could you just put it on the floor?” The
usher complied and the boy stepped into the plate and said, “This is what I
give to the Lord.”[1]
I
suppose it is a cute story, in a way, but that little boy had clearly not yet
learned the ways of the world. But then again, wouldn’t it be wonderful to feel
so safe and secure in the arms of God’s love that we were able to do that?
[1]
[1]
Reported in William Phillippe, A
Stewardship Scrapbook, (Louisville: Geneva Press, 1999), p. 115
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