Deepening Peace: "Awe…or Law?"
Psalm 26; Mark 10: 2-16
October 8, 2006

Bet you're wondering if I'm gonna deal with the divorce issue today. Yes, it's a part of the story, but just a part. In it's day, this teaching of Jesus on divorce is a huge step forward in the rights of women and for children and families, and even for men

…for where one is artificially held down, one is being artificially held up…both pay a price…albeit the one being held down pays quicker and more intensely!

Jesus is teaching just and stable relationships for all.

We are called to stable relationships that are just and called to commit ourselves to them. Yet, we all know there are times when Jesus calls us to leave relationships because they are harmful or abusive or unloving…"cut it off/tear it" out from last week’s scripture lesson.

And, Jesus is calling us to a higher standard than what may be legally allowed.

God calls us to live our lives beyond what laws expect of us. Laws don’t bring justice, people do! It’s awe…not law…we are to aspire to and ascribe to in our lives!

It was a man’s world. It was against a backdrop of extreme patriarchy Moses gave a new instruction. Just as an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was a huge step forward in the justice world of the Old Testament, Moses’ decree requiring a man to have a certificate of divorce was a huge step forward in its time.

Previously, men could divorce their wives…of whom they had many…divorce for any reason, at any moment, and she had no recourse…and often no where to go…and the children?

Women could be charged with adultery. Men were not charged. Women and children were as property. There was no just relationship, no mutual value, no rights….in the law. Moses said there must be a process and a reason….and a woman declared free.

Jesus’ called this a good step because our hearts were hardened, but only a first step.

Jesus recalls at creation God’s intention of mutuality, respect, relationship…making male and female, all people, equals in God’s sight. This is God’s deepest desire for us…just relationships of mutual respect and dignity.

To tear apart a relationship is indeed painful to God and to us. There are few good reasons do so…but there are reasons…as Jesus pointed out in last week’s lesson:

no relationship, no habit, no mind-set or choice

should ever be allowed to rot our lives and kill us off and bring us to a hellish existence. This is outside of God’s intention for our well being.

Jesus says there are no excuses for not responding to such situations. Nothing can keep us from God and the fullness of life except our own denial of the way things are and then continuing to choose poorly!

The story goes on, and with the disciples, Jesus surpasses Moses’ understanding and calls forth yet another huge step forward in justice…do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Saying both men and women can divorce but neither one can do so on their own, or else it is nothing more than adultery. Just as it takes two to be in relationship, it takes two to go out of relationship…a collaboration.

Such a decision is no small thing and cannot be made by one party outside of conversation with the other…without mutual agreement. Jesus elevates women’s value and their God given right to be on an equal plane with men.

And for the second time in just a few chapters, Jesus follows teachings on right relationships between adults with an invitation to treat children with the same dignity and respect with which we awe-ght to treat adults. Right relationship…our heavenly lives depend upon it. Jesus says so.

You see…power-over, manipulation in relationship is often masked sadness…pain that has no where to go and so comes out as anger. Hope feels blocked, we act out at the other, and the suffering (of both parties) takes on a life of its own.

We know from the teachings of Jesus this is not God's desire for any of us…to suffer…faith isn't about enduring suffering.

Faith is about reframing our suffering…seeing it differently. Perhaps today's lesson is about how we can reframe suffering, the suffering of an adult world of problems…reframe it with a child-like faith.

What differentiates the faith of a child and that of adults? What are the qualities of a child-like faith? Children are…Trusting. Dependent. Vulnerable. Playful. Direct.

Yes. But all these qualities lead to one thing. Kids aren't defensive…they accept things and move on expecting something good to happen next.

They don't expect pain and so they haven't built up walls…walls of ideas and resistance…walls around situations.

And so, they remain open

to a new thing happening,
to good coming from bad,
to new approaches to every situation,
to asking new questions of life.

It never would occur to a child that it is anyone's intention that they suffer. And so, even when they do, they hold it as temporary.

They do not blame, they engage life. They look to life.

It's so simple for children. It's so hard for adults.

We carry grudges.
We vow never to get burned again.
We keep asking the same old questions of life
over and over again.
We spin our wheels and get angrier and angrier.
We blame and shame.

What makes it so difficult is that to be child-like we have to unlearn being adult-like. We adults often have to unlearn something in order to learn something new.

The disciples had the idea that Jesus was going to be a David-type king. They had to unlearn that.

They thought the people clamoring around Jesus needed to be kept away or brought to order. They had to unlearn that.

They thought that Jesus came to free them to live in their own land. They had to unlearn that…Jesus came to offer freedom within your own life.

They had to unlearn so they could learn a new thing and a new approach to life.

What do you have to unlearn in order to come to life less defensively with a curious and open mind?

What are you defensive about…your weight, your right to have things, your right to be the boss at home, your right to remain non-committal, your right to take care of others, your right to be angry…to leave or stay?

We've become too complicated. Perhaps we need to focus less on what we've learned, how we’ve been burned, and focus more on how to use our child-given imaginations as we approach life.

All the learning in the world won't help you face a tough situation that has a lot of suffering in it.

What will help?

Imagining a new response to what's happening in your life…a new way to be in what's happening.

It's imagination, not education, that gets us through the suffering, the problems. Education and therapy help you see what you have to unlearn, but how do you do it?

You have to start being different by seeing yourself
the way God does.

How do you get the energy to respond to life differently? It begins by imagining life can be different…a spiritual approach. It's a leap of faith.

Can you imagine a different life in the life you have?

Maybe begin by imaging Jesus...imagining Jesus in your life, standing by you in the midst of the problem…the arguing, selfish pride, divorcing, literally and figuratively.

How would you respond differently to your life
if Jesus was right beside you?

Too tough to think of Jesus standing there while you are acting out as an adult?

Then begin by imagining Jesus inviting you to come close enough that he could touch you, even when others would prevent it.

Imagine yourself worthy of Jesus.

Imagine yourself being touched by Jesus and remembering he wants your life to be full of the joy of a child, to be just, to be full of trust in the providence of God moment to moment.

Providence of God? That's when God's timing and your timing come together…it's when God's deepest longing for you and your longing for yourself meet in daily relief and freedom.

Freedom? Isn't that what you long for?
You are free to imagine a different life for yourself.
Jesus says so. God wants it for you.

Jesus is calling us to be impish children, not well-behaved by adult standards. Fully engaged.

Jesus is calling us to come and to trust and to be open to new solutions to old problems by letting down our defenses long enough to ask a different question of life and find a new answer, an unexpected one.

Are you angry, suffering? Your faith is in pain.

Take two children to play, and call God in the morning.

Peace.
Deepening Peace.