Presentation of Our Lord/Candlemas, February 2, 2025

Luke 4

 16 When [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
  because he has anointed me
   to bring good news to the poor.
 He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
  and recovery of sight to the blind,
   to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

William Willimon is a retired American theologian and United Methodist bishop. Many of us preachers followed his wise writings and compelling sermons for decades, especially when he was the Dean of the Duke Chapel.

I remember when he was named as one of the 100 best preachers in the English-speaking world, he brushed it off saying something like: “How can I be one of the best preachers in the world when I’ve never been arrested for a single one of my sermons?” Preachers and prophets know they follow in the dangerous footsteps of Jesus, the Old Testament prophets, and many an ancient and modern martyr. Calling out the status quo and speaking truth to power are what we are frequently called to do. But the truth is, most of us are congregational pastors who shy away from such life-threatening work and opt instead to be a preacher who works to comfort the afflicted but not afflict the comfortable. 

An amazing Old Testament prophet who never had a book of his preaching published like Amos or Jeremiah, was the prophet Nathan. In 2 Samuel 12, Nathan confronts the beloved king, David, with the truth of his actions. He disguises the rebuke in a parable (read 12:1-6) of a rich man who stole and killed the one little lamb that was greatly loved by a poor man. The story made David angry at such terrible action. He vowed “that man” should be forced to restore what he had taken and then be killed. Nathan met his outrage by saying with a straight face, “You are the man.”

Then David’s horrible crimes of taking the Uriah’s wife while he was away in battle, then of arranging for the man’s death, were trotted out like the worst dirty laundry. God’s outrage burns through Nathan’s voice promising that David’s own family would be destroyed. And it was so, even though David was penitent as Psalm 51 sings.

In this Sunday’s gospel reading from Luke 4, Jesus’ first public act in this gospel is a proclamation in his home synagogue. He says that the words of another prophet of the coming Messiah are being fulfilled in him. A few paragraphs later, Jesus continues to talk with members of the synagogue over “coffee hour”. He received many “good sermon” comments but then the conversation took a turn. Jesus offers two examples of how God was more active in the past in the lives of foreigners than the people of Israel. They literally almost pushed him off a cliff. 

This problem of prophetic speech, the danger of speaking truth to power, became real again this week at the Inauguration Service on Tuesday. Totally unexpected, just another boring traditional worship service to sit through, some thought; until the mild-mannered bishop gave her “you are the man” speech to the President of the United States. The international media and everybody’s grandma on Facebook had something to say about what happened. There was no in-between reaction. People were either totally outraged or totally cheering. I expect t-shirts with Bishop Budde’s face to appear any time. My first concern when I heard the bishop’s sermon was a fear for her safety. But I also knew she had counted the cost and felt called to preach.

The Huffington Post interviewed that favorite homiletical curmudgeon, Will Willimon, who still to my knowledge has not been arrested or even had his tires slashed for preaching a prophetic word. Willimon said that Budde’s plea for mercy was “particularly moving.” “There’s no instance in the life, work, teachings of Jesus where mercy ever takes a backseat to anything else,” he told HuffPost, adding, “Not only is Jesus merciful, he commands his followers to be merciful.” Willimon also noted, “Mercy is a Christian virtue,” he said, later adding that “government officials are often not known for being merciful.”

As a Christian, as a pastor, it feels like a new Civil Rights time with Christianity being debated along policy lines. Our faith always has something to say about politics because politics is all about how we organize our resources, protect against enemies, and care for all people. Jesus had plenty to say about all that too. It’s not unusual for those in power to abuse it as King David did. It’s not unusual for prophets to be jailed, tortured, fired, or killed. Power resists critique, yet God demands it of all of us. 

 Isaiah 43

1 But now thus says the Lord,
  he who created you, O Jacob,
  he who formed you, O Israel:
 Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
  I have called you by name, you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
  and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
 when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
  and the flame shall not consume you.
3 For I am the Lord your God,
  the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
 I give Egypt as your ransom,
  Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.
4 Because you are precious in my sight,
  and honored, and I love you…

M. Craig Barnes (born 1956) is an American Presbyterian minister and professor who served as president of Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the author of this story about his life and how Isaiah 43 intersected with it. It was originally published April 19, 2017, in The Christianity Century. What a story for this winter weekend and this Sunday when we remember Jesus’ baptism and our own. He writes:

My father was a preacher who believed it was important to memorize verses of the Bible. On Mondays he’d give my older brother and me a verse written out on a little white card. We were expected to recite it from memory by dinner at the end of the week when our father would point to one of us and say something like “Romans 8:28.” If we didn’t start chirping away with “For all things work together for good for those who love God,” we’d have to leave the table.

By the time I was a teenager I had memorized a lot of the Bible, not out of love for the sacred text but because I didn’t want to be dismissed from Saturday evening dinner. I never paid attention to the words. But they were still in me.

When I was not quite 17, my parents’ marriage broke apart. My mother left our home on Long Island and went to live with her sister in Dallas. My father left the church he had started and just disappeared. My big brother dropped out of college, got a construction job, and helped me finish high school. I got an after-school job at a gas station. Together we got by.

Since we had lived in the church’s parsonage, it fell to us boys to move the family’s stuff out of the house. I don’t remember what happened to most of it. I just remember boxing up our family’s life.

Oddly, my brother and I didn’t talk about how our world had crumbled. This wasn’t just because we weren’t good at sharing our feelings. Mostly it was because we couldn’t afford emotion. We were too worried about the next meal and a place to stay.

The following Christmas my brother and I decided we would go to Dallas to visit my mother. We didn’t have the money for a plane or bus ticket, so we did what young people sometimes do when they’re not thinking clearly. We decided to hitchhike from Long Island to Dallas.

By the end of the first day we were somewhere in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia on Interstate 81. It was snowing hard, the sun was long gone, and we stood on the entrance ramp with our thumbs sticking out. As the snow got heavier, there were fewer and fewer cars. After two hours, we finally saw a pair of headlights pull over in front of us. It was a Virginia state trooper. We were expecting a lecture about how dangerous, not to mention illegal, it was to hitchhike. Instead he told us that the highway had been closed for two hours and that after attending to an accident up the road he would come back for us and take us to a diner that was still open.

We stayed put on the side of the dark highway in the blizzard. After months of hustling our way through the immediate issues of making life work, my brother and I were finally forced to talk to each other. We took a stab at describing our situation, but it didn’t go very well after I mentioned that we were basically disposable to the people who were supposed to love us. We tried to pass the time by quizzing each other on sports statistics. Neither of us had ever been very good at that.

Then my brother pointed to me and said, “Romans 8:28.” We spent much of that night asking each other to recite the verses of the Bible we had memorized but never truly heard. At one point I found myself saying the precious lines of Isaiah 43: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you . . . Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.” By the time I finished reciting those words, I was crying. That night, when a passage about the sustaining love of God cast out fear that was too deep for me to even acknowledge, became the turning point in my life.

I’ve told this story before and keep telling myself that it’s all behind me now. I’ve been blessed to be in one position of leadership after another. But what I finally learned in hearing that text was that my experience has stayed with me every step of the way.

I don’t keep taking chances in offering leadership because I expect to succeed; I take them because I know I can handle it if I fail. What’s the worst that can happen? Will I be alone, broke, and abandoned? Been there. Will I make humiliating mistakes? I tried hitchhiking on a closed interstate. And at the bottom, I found the relentless love of God who was with me and always will be, no matter how deep the waters.

When you find God at the bottom, it’s possible to enjoy life’s highs and lows without fearing you’ll fall beneath the love of a Savior. No one can be fully alive, and no one can lead, without getting rid of that fear.

Thank you, Craig! Blessed Epiphany.

Luke 1

46 And Mary said,
 “My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
  Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
  and holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him
  from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
  he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
  and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
  and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
  in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
  to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

On this fourth and final Sunday of Advent, the scripture finally brings on stage, Mary of Nazareth. In Luke 1, Mary traveled from her hometown to talked with her relative, Elizabeth, up in the hill country. Today, this is the town of Ein Karem on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The statue pictured here is in the traditional site of this visit. It was the home of John the Baptist’s parents, Elizabeth and Zechariah. Mary visits the older woman Elizabeth because they now have something in common – they are both unexpectedly pregnant. 

Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age after the angel Gabriel visited her priest-husband in the temple. Mary has just been visited also by this busy Christmas angel telling her she, who is a young virgin girl, will also soon be with child. So yeah, these women had a lot to talk about well beyond trading cookie recipes. 

The record of their visit is one of many stories in the narrative- heavy chapter of Luke 1. One of the most famous songs in scripture is here as well. From the Latin, it’s called The Magnificat as Mary sings, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Mary has much to sing about as she ponders her place in God’s history but she also sings about how God has acted and will act. Many of you may be very familiar with these words because of your knowledge of scripture or your love for classical choral music. 

This scripture is both familiar and curious. One curiosity is the verb tense. Clearly, in the conceiving and birthing of Jesus, God is doing a new thing. So, we expect Mary to sing a song in the present and future tense. She does sing in the present and the future as in, “from now on all generations will call me blessed.” But oddly, there are many past tense verbs in many of these verses. Take a look: he has shown strength with his arm; has scattered the proud, has brought down the powerful, has lifted up the lowly. Shouldn’t these be in future tense indicating now that Jesus is here all these wonderful holy things will happen?

As you may know, those with advanced degrees in biblical studies are required to learn how to read Old Testament Hebrew and New Testament Greek as part of their education. The main reason is that original languages are best in understanding meaning and intent. Our English translations are not perfect. The Magnificat can be confusing because the English lacks a verb tense that the Greek has. Because the English doesn’t have what is called the “aorist tense,” the best we can do is translate it all into past tense. But, when we do, we lose the deep meaning and intent. The aorist tense is used to express something that has already occurred, but it doesn’t specify how long the action took or if the results are still in play. In fact, the term “aorist” means “undefined time” or “not specified.” 

I recall when I was learning Hebrew, that this language has something similar. For example, when translating Genesis 1:1 that we read in English as, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” the verb “create” is not actually past tense. An awkward, but more accurate translation would be, “In the beginning of God’s creating of the heavens and the earth.” Creation did happen, is still happening, and will continue to go on. 

Mary of Nazareth sang of God’s mighty acts in the same on-going nature. The Magnificat sings of God’s work to reconcile all creation, a work that has already begun and will continue forever. Mary knew that we don’t just place our hope in a past event or a future reward; we live in it. Hope isn’t all in the future, it’s right now. Jesus wasn’t only a person who lived 2,024 years ago but lives right now and abides forever. What that means for us is that we, just like Mary, are intimately involved in God’s work to bring justice, hope, and peace. Like Mary, we have our own songs to sing.

 Philippians 1

3 I thank my God every time I remember you, 4 constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, 5 because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.

As Paris is celebrating the completed reconstruction of Notre Dame this week, which is a wonderful story of new life rising out of the ashes, I was reminded of another spectacular cathedral that has never been finished.

In 1882, the cornerstone was laid for the historic Basilica of the Holy Family, best known by its Spanish name: Sagrada Familia. The next year, architect Antoni Gaudi took over the project. He was determined to build a church unlike anything the world had ever seen. If you’ve been to see it, you might say he met his goals. Pictured here is a photograph of the inside. Go to the cathedral’s website and see other fantastic photos. I’ve thought the outside looks like a gigantic sandcastle.

Sagrada Familia has mosaic pinnacles straight out of a fairy tale; soaring stone columns carved as tree branches, creating an indoor forest; and rainbows of stained glass, carefully angled to refract the sun into a “temple of light. It is well-known around the world for its beauty, but even better known for an unfortunate fact: due to ongoing bureaucracy and funding challenges, its construction remains unfinished after 142 years.

Like so many visionaries, Gaudi died before his greatest work was complete. And even more tragic is that generations of its builders and architects have died without seeing their work complete.

When St. Paul writes from prison to the infant church at Philippi, he knows that the believers there are waiting eagerly for the second coming of Jesus, the moment foretold by John the Baptist when “all flesh shall see the salvation of God” (Luke 3:6, from Isaiah 40:5). Some of the Philippians are growing fearful that they may die before Jesus descends in glory. To them, Paul offers a promise: “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” God is the one who begins all good works in us, and God is the one who will continue working to complete what we have started, even if we don’t live long enough to see the result.

Paul closes this section of his letter with a prayer that the Philippians might be blessed with the insight “to determine what really matters.” And what really matters, in the end, is not that we complete every project but that we build faithfully upon the good works that God has begun. Every one of us will one day leave behind work that must be carried on by others and trusted to God. When we accept this reality, we can lean into what really matters and use our gifts well during this finite but beautiful earthly life.

Create your own masterpieces, like strong relationships that witness to love and grace, like new teachings and discoveries that will live beyond you, like training a new generation in what kindness and compassion can do. In this way and since it all belongs to God anyway, it’s always finished. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Mark 13

6 Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. 7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

[My article below was originally published in The Christian Century magazine in 2003.]

As the leaves fall from the trees and the earth goes brown and bare, the church contemplates the end as well—the end of our lives in death and the end of the world with Christ’s coming. The very idea that there will be an end is threatening to those of us who have pretty good lives and good plans for the future. For those of us who experience life as a roller coaster of ups and downs, on the other hand, or those who experience life as mostly downs, the idea of “an end to it all” may be comforting.

Those among us who are very elderly or very ill think often about the end of our lives. We prepare and put things in order. Those of us who aren’t ill or elderly are busy living in the middle of things. But what if we all needed to prepare for the end?

What if you knew you had only one month left in your life?

• Would you finish up important matters at work?
• Would you travel to a place you always wanted to go?
• Would you pray more, go to church more, do that
 generous act you always wanted to do for others?
• Would you find ways to leave a mark on the world?
• Would you reconcile a fractured friendship?

By answering yes to one or more of these possibilities, we indicate that in our last days we would be better stewards of all the things God has given us in this life—better than we are now. In the intensity of last days, we would live better, be better. We would be more generous, more focused on the most important things in life. The question is: Why do we need to be under threat of death to be better stewards?

Here’s another “what if.” What if we discovered that our congregation only had one more month to exist? If my congregation only had a month to live, I would want all the members to be together as much as possible. If only for one precious Sunday, I’d like to have everybody listed in our church directory together for worship. If our time as a congregation was almost over, I don’t think we’d have much trouble getting inactive or barely active members and friends to join us. End times have that kind of power.

As members of a congregation at the end of its life, we would also have the great opportunity to decide what we wanted to do with our assets. Provided God or the bishop left that up to us, we would have a few million dollars’ worth of real estate, cash and furnishings to disperse back into the local community and the Christian community.

How would we decide what to do with the money? We wouldn’t have time to fight about it. We’d have to focus fast and get our priorities straight. What would we support and what would we want our final legacy to be? We could help start a new ministry where none currently exists. Or we could support an existing one, endow scholarships, build a youth center in town or provide a better shelter for the homeless. We could do so much—if we had only a month left! We could be great stewards of our resources—if we only had a month to live.

The question is, why is it so hard for our congregations to consider this kind of stewardship if we have another hundred years to live? The Bible’s teaching about the end times reminds us that we have failed to see history from God’s perspective. There is a bigger picture than just the snapshot of our lives. We don’t live in the moment; we live in all of history.

Yes, there’s an impracticality to living as if it were the end when it’s not. If I knew my life would really be over in a month, I probably would jump on a plane and visit some places I’ve longed to see. But if I’ve got much more than a month, I have bills to pay and obligations to tend. Living as if it’s the end would be irresponsible. But does our best stewardship have to exist only in our imaginings of “what ifs”?

Jesus calls us to do both: to live with the intensity of last days while living our regular lives. He reminds us that we are not ultimately invested in this world, and he liberates us to work with courage and  with hope. End times call for tall towers of hope. They call for a lightning-speed reordering of priorities. End times call for alertness, sharpness. They tingle with expectation. They are times of uncertainty and fear only for those whose faith is thin.

While the end of the world could be millennia away for all we know, and while we expect our congregations to continue their ministries well into this new century, end times are around us. Church historians and culture-watchers tell us that we’re on the edge of an end time for the church’s traditional role in society. But this doesn’t mean things are over. As Jesus said, you will hear of wars and earthquakes and famines, but it doesn’t mean the end is near. You will hear of the comings and goings of institutions and cultures, but it doesn’t mean the end is near. It may only be, Jesus says, the beginning of what God has planned. End times are powerful times pregnant with purpose for those with ears to hear and eyes to see the advent of our God. Take heart.

Psalm 24

1The earth is the LORD's and all that is in it,
the world, and those who live in it;
2for he has founded it on the seas,
and established it on the rivers.
3Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
4Those who have clean hands and pure hearts,
who do not lift up their souls to what is false,
and do not swear deceitfully.
5They will receive blessing from the LORD,
and vindication from the God of their salvation.
6Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek the face of the God of Jacob.

My study of the scriptures for this All Saints Sunday led me down a wonderfully informative rabbit hole. I started with the simple question, “When and why did the festival of All Saints begin?” This is an old church festival on November 1 each year to remember all the baptized, living and dead. 

Originally, it was a time for the Christian community to remember those who had been martyred for the faith. Their sacrifice and their witness continued to feed the persistence and encouragement of the faithful who followed. “Remembering” is the key verb. It’s used often in scripture with the call to remember who you are and whose you are. Remembering our history as God’s people is critical to our present and future. Most Protestant churches now use All Saints Day (or the Sunday following November 1) to remember more local saints. The worshipers in my congregation are all invited to bring pictures of those they have loved and lost, and to place those photos on a table by the Paschal Candle next to the baptismal font. We will speak the names of our fellow church members who died in our congregation over the past year. For most of us, all saints are local.

In these two millennia of the church, even speaking the names of all those who have died for the faith from the first century to the twenty-first century would be impossible. Even naming all the local saints from a congregation’s many years of ministry would be difficult. So, we stay small for very practical reasons. But remembering is important because the long years of Christian witness are rich, and so very many of the saints before us have incredible stories that still provide undiminished power and encouragement for our present ministry. 

And that’s when I found Alcuin at the bottom of my All Saints rabbit hole.

When I started my study by Googling “the history of All Saints,” he received the credit for establishing it. Who is this 8th century guy? I’d never heard of him. But apparently many others have! For example, there is in Muncie, IN the Alciun Study Center. [His name is pronounced ˈælkwɪn.] Here is how that Center describes him:

Alcuin of York (735ish-804) is a giant on whose shoulders all of Western education stands, whether we realize it or not. He was a teacher of teachers as well as a curator and cultivator of culture. He developed the use of lower case letters and the alphabet essentially as we know it today. He revived and standardized the classical liberal arts that have been a conduit of learning for higher education for more than 1200 years. He spoke truth to power, insisting that rulers must be men of character, wisdom, and mercy. He taught and encouraged women students at a time when women were not supposed to be educated. He corrected Jerome’s Latin Bible (the Vulgate) to give the people a reliable copy of God’s word. He wrote poetry, produced books, built libraries, and invented the question mark. And we know from his letters to his friends—who were many and faithful—that he had a fantastic sense of humor.

Alcuin wanted nothing more than to cultivate the moral imagination in each of his fellow human beings and equip them to flourish.

And it seems, this remarkable educator and theologian in Charlemagne’s court, also developed the festival of All Saints in the year 800 on November 1. Further down the rabbit hole there is some informative stuff about why November 1 was an intentional calendar selection. I’ll leave that to your investigative interests!

Psalm 24 sings of the faithful people who are the generation of those who seek the Lord. I’m glad to remember this All Saints my mom and dad, my brothers-in-law, my uncle and my sister-in-law. They were great people and a blessing to our family. But I’d also encourage all of us, and especially preachers this Sunday, to learn at least one story of a saint barely remembered. Their stories are powerful. It will be a continued reminder that we are indeed surrounded, as the book of Hebrews says, by a great cloud of witnesses. They endure through their stories that remain so impactful unto this generation of living saints. Speak their names.

But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”

Does anyone else remember the famous movie from 1987, The Princess Bride? I may have only been one year old when this movie came out, but it is so good that it has stood the test of time. If you haven’t seen the movie, I’m sure you have at least heard some of the famous one liners that came from the film. Ones like, “As you wish.” or “Inconceivable!” or  “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father. Prepare to die.” While these are all nostalgia inducing it is another quote from the character Inigo Montoya that came to mind when reading this week’s gospel lesson. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” 

When the brothers, James and John approach Jesus with their grand plan of becoming his right and left hand men in glory their hearts are in the right place, but they don’t grasp the true definition of Jesus’ mission and ministry. It is hard to blame James and John for this misstep. They are following Jesus and hearing constantly about the glory of God coming down from heaven and that those who give up their lives to follow Jesus will be the first to receive this glory and honor, etc. They must be thinking, “Hey! That’s us! We’re doing that!” Their human nature takes over and they want to elevate themselves even more by asking Jesus to place them in seats of honor. In response Jesus asks them if they can do what he is doing and will do, can they drink from his cup (give up his life) or be baptized in the way he is baptized (be the beloved and chosen son of God). They answer yes, which immediately demonstrates that the glory of God does not mean what they think it means. 

To follow Jesus means to sacrifice things we may want for the greater good. While James and John certainly sacrificed many things they had not yet learned to let go of the need for recognition and praise. We all need to hear, “good job!” from time to time, but when the desire for recognition outweighs the importance of the work, then we have lost our way. We must be reminded, just as the disciples were, that there is only one Jesus, only he can carry out the mission assigned to him from God. While our mission may be similar, we are not Jesus and never will be. But that is ok because we aren’t called to do what only Jesus could! What Jesus did through his death and resurrection cannot be duplicated by any of us, but the actions that we can mirror are the ways in which Jesus loved and cared for those around him, to be a servant to all without the desire for glory and recognition. 

Pastor Elise Anderson will be your guest contributor for this week and next as Pastor Mary is away on vacation! Pr. Elise is Mary’s daughter and always a willing substitute for her mom when needed. She is also the co-host on their podcast, You’re On Mute, and currently serves as the pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Abingdon, VA. 

Genesis 2

18The Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” 

Mark 10

2Some Pharisees came, and to test [Jesus] they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” 4They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” 5But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

If you participate in a church that follows the lectionary discipline of scripture readings, trust me, your preacher is sweating out the sermon for this Sunday. For a lot of us, it’s our least favorite set of scripture readings that the church insists we address. I’m speaking of Jesus’ teaching about divorce and the interpretations of Mark 10 that say it’s sinful, wrong, and shameful. Considering that many pastors are divorced, as are their people in the pews, it can be immensely challenging to speak the truth with compassionate understanding.

While I advertise these weekly Bible studies as “Super Quick” it’s sometimes a tough task with texts that require some knowledge of the ancient languages, an understanding of Jewish law and 1st century culture, and some recognition of the many layers of interpretation through the centuries that are piled on top of these scriptures. What can happen, is that a preacher might create a sermon based on a 50-year-old interpretation of this text by a beloved Bible scholar or just going with the flow of their church’s doctrine rather than revisiting the scripture anew with fresh eyes and ears. The question is, “How can we best understand both the ancient Word and our current context with integrity?”

So, here are some things that might help with these scriptures in Mark and Genesis. In addition, I’ll give you an example of how some interpreters of our day are using them to speak to very current issues.

“Origin stories” seem very popular today, especially in books and movies. It’s not enough to know the characters in a favorite movie, now we want to hear stories of how they came to be so compassionate or so evil or so traumatized. For Jews and Christians, we find our human origin story in Genesis 1 and 2. We hear in these cherished accounts that we were made in God’s image as in the poetry of Genesis 1, along with Genesis 2 where we hear a narrative of our first birth. Adam and Eve are created in these verses and so is their relationship with God. Most of us are more familiar with Christian interpretations of these stories than we are with the origin story itself. Especially for congregational teachers and preachers, I recommend Walter Brueggemann’s, Genesis, in the Interpretation series. Here are some tidbits from Genesis 2 that are important when reading Jesus’ words on divorce in Mark 10 because it is this origin story to which Jesus asks us to ponder anew when answering the question, “Is divorce permissible?”

I’m realizing this isn’t going to be “Super Quick,” but it’s a big issue for we who are often impacted by the breakup of families.

The Christian history of interpretation of Genesis 2 and 3 is that these chapters are the origin stories for sin, death, and sex. The Jewish community has not seen these scriptures as such nor do contemporary academic scholars. The rest of the Bible focuses on these stories only minimally. If they are the origin of anything, it’s to speak about God’s purpose in creation and about creation’s relationship to God and each other. 

One thing to understand is that while it has been interpreted for so long that Eve was created to be some sort of assistant or acolyte to the dominate Adam, the texts don’t support this. In English, it is written that Eve was to be a “helper” to Adam and in that English word we hear subordination. But the Hebrew uses that word “helper” often as a reference to God. Consider Psalm 121: From where is my help to come, my help comes from the Lord. In this creation story, God will not be man’s help, another creature must be formed. They are onein the covenant with God and each other to be stewards of creation. The Garden is a place of solidarity, trust, and well-being. That was God’s original purpose. Sadly, history is littered with the fragments of that purpose.

Now to Jesus. Just like we observe in interviews and debates among political candidates, there is always the “gotcha” question where it’s hoped the candidate will stumble or reveal some before unknown truth about themselves. Jesus had the same experience with the Pharisees in his day. It was just a part of debating and interpretating scripture in 1st century Palestine. Rabbis did this all the time. Here the gotcha question is about divorce. The Law of Moses did allow a manto divorce his woman. Jesus says it’s because of humanity’s sinfulness and inability to keep covenant that it’s allowed. Kind of a practical issue. But Jesus says, let’s go back to the beginning of God’s purpose for us. He quotes Genesis 2. People are created to be in solidarity and trust with one another. That’s God’s intent. The reality is, our sin keeps us from making good decisions and often prevents us from maintaining right relationships. In Jesus’ day, women had less agency than men in marriage and in most things. If a man divorced his wife, she was disproportionately hurt. The children were also hurt. Caring for the most vulnerable is a high value for Jesus. He argues that God’s creational desire is for deep integrity in all our relationships. It’s not that divorce is simply permitted or not permitted. It is a failure to live out the deep relationships God intends for us. As in all things, when we fail and fall, God is our help in lifting us up, helping us learn and live better than before.

Lastly, I heard last year a presentation by New Testament professor Amy-Jill Levine, who is also Jewish, speak briefly about scriptural understandings of same-sex relationships. Much to my surprise, she used these two texts of Mark 10 and Genesis 2 to make her point. Jesus, in speaking about right relationships and God’s desire for us, referred to the creation story of human beings. She noted that God was keenly aware that it wasn’t good for that singular “earth creature” (the literal translation of the word adam) to be alone. God was its creator but would not or could not be its significant other. So, God created a second human to accompany. While we have often seen this creation of Eve as the way to be fruitful and multiply, there’s much more to human relationships than reproduction, as necessary as that is for existence. Dr. Levine commented, “If God didn’t want the first human to go through life all alone, why would the creator want any human to go through life without a partner to love and be a helpmate in all things?” Food for thought. Oh, and she also said, “If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me!”

Thanks for joining me in this deep end of the biblical pool today!