Who You Gonna Follow?

Proper 23B; Amos 5:6-7, 10-15, 24; Mark 10:17-21; St. Paul’s 10/14/18

Jim Melnyk: “Who You Gonna Follow?"

The weight of it all is suffocating!  So heavy and close that he can hardly breathe – he can hardly move!  As his eyes adjust to the dim light, it seems as if everything he has ever owned is piled up upon and around him and he is overwhelmed by the heaviness of it all.  It suddenly occurs to him that he has surely died and his mourners have covered him with everything – from all his clothes to even the clay vases that used to sit outside his front door.  As he begins to scream he suddenly awakes, realizing that he was having that same dream that had haunted his nights for the past week.

“What is bringing these nightmares on,” he wonders.  Could it be…no, it couldn’t be that brief exchange last week with the rabbi from Galilee…could it?

The young man had sought out the wandering rabbi almost on a whim.  On one hand, he wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  On the other hand, he wondered if the rabbi had any wisdom that might save him from the deep anxiety he was feeling about his relationship with God.  He had asked Jesus what he thought was a simple question – perhaps expecting the usual religious platitudes, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  He wasn’t even sure why he had asked it that way – eternal life wasn’t exactly an everyday topic or concern for him.

Jesus did give him an answer that seemed perfectly comfortable at first.  “You know the commandments,” Jesus told him; going on to offer a summary of the last six commandments of the Decalogue – the ones having to do with how God expects us to treat one another in this life.  “Not a problem,” he had blurted out quite rashly.  “I’ve kept those commandments faithfully from my youth.”  The conversation was going well, and the young man started to feel confident in his status before God.

Mark tells us that Jesus looked upon this young man, and that Jesus loved him.  Who knows if the young man could tell how Jesus felt?  But then came the kicker – words that threw the young man for a loop – words that still challenge listeners two thousand years later.  Jesus had replied: “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” No way, Jesus, he seems to say.  I don’t care what they say about you.  I’ve worked hard all my short life to build up my portfolio.  I earned this stuff the hard way and I’m not going to simply give it all away.  He recalled how utterly miserable he felt as he turned his back on Jesus and walked away.  In fact, he had turned away so quickly he never even noticed the look of grief on Jesus’ face. 

Yet, what could he have expected from that encounter?  Waiting to make his way through the crowd to meet Jesus he had spoken with several of the disciples, and they were telling the young man about the teachings they had heard.

“‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart – there your rootedness in God – will be also.’  Do not be anxious about your life – what you will eat, or drink, or wear – for isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes?”

And the young man began to wonder if perhaps his dreams were trying to tell him something about the wisdom behind the rabbi’s words.

The young man’s wonderings weren’t that far off from the wonderings of those who stayed on the scene.  This is the part where Jesus goes on to say to the crowd, “Look – it’s hard finding your way into the kingdom of God – and it’s especially hard for those who surround themselves with wealth.  Why, it’s easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God!”    

In fact the Disciples are perplexed at Jesus’ words because in their day people equated great wealth with God’s favor and poverty or disease with God’s wrath – and there’s more than a few who still believe that today.  No wonder those listening to Jesus cry out, “Then who can be saved?”  Jesus responds, “Hey, I said it’s difficult – but I didn’t say it’s impossible.  With God, all things are possible.”  It brings to mind an old Jewish saying I’ve read: “The Holy One said, open for me a door as big as a needle's eye and I will open for you a door through which may enter tents and camels” (Jewish midrash quoted in Synthesis Today, 10/8/2018). 

“In other words God only needs the sinner to open up just a crack for [God], and [the Holy One] will come pouring in and set up room for an oasis. God only needs a 'foot in the door', so to speak.

The exaggerated and contrasted size [in this saying] is deliberate [but it’s] not an overt judgement on riches or poverty. Jesus reflects on how hard it often is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. The riches can so easily be a distraction and hard to share if one is too attached to them. The disciples' incredulity is that if even the rich cannot be saved, who can? But the verdict is that even the rich, and not only the rich, will find it impossible to save themselves – but with God all things are possible” (Donna Nielsen: http://donna-connections.blogspot.com/2010/06/hebrew-hyperbole.html).

The young man’s wonderings aren’t all that strange to us, are they?  Even those of us who have chosen, or accepted a call to some form of life in the church can get caught up by stuff – can get caught up with anxieties.  We all wonder about things like how next year’s budget will play out. We wonder, will my business remain strong this year? Will there be enough money for a raise, or at least enough money to keep my job going?  How will my kids or my grandkids grades go?  Will they be able to get into college?  Will I be able to afford it if they do?  Where is my heart rooted?

It’s easy to become anxious, isn’t it?  It happens to us all from time-to-time.  Anxiety, though, can lead to fear – and fear tells us there’s not enough to go around – so our hearts can become confused, and we can find ourselves needing to grab hold of, or hold on to, everything we can.  Contrary to what we know to be right for us, we find ourselves storing up treasures on earth – if only because we find comfort in the surety of tangible things.  When have you felt suffocated?

When we fear, we give power over to that which we fear.  And as Jesus reminds us in another setting, no one can serve two masters – we will either hate one and be devoted to the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other – and that’s all too real!  No one can follow two masters.

The prophet Amos spoke out to a nation whose enemy was on the doorstep – waiting to pounce; looking to wipe away the Northern Kingdom: “Seek the Lord and live,” Amos challenges them (Amos 5:6).  “I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins—you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate” (5:10, 12). Yet there is still time, the prophet proclaims!  Return to God – return to the covenant – follow and serve the Lord – “Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph” (5:15).

Amos reminds us that wealth and success are not necessarily signs of God’s good favor.  Like Jesus so many centuries later, Amos reminds us that being on top – or being first – doesn’t always mean we’ve got it right.  Amos reminds us just a few verses beyond today’s reading that we are called to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” (5:24).  Being faithful might just mean some of what we have or hold dear might just get washed away in the flood – we might have to let go of some of what we believe gives us security in order that justice might thrive.

The Good News is that we get to choose what we will store up and where it will be stored.  We get to choose just who it is we will follow, and who it is we will serve.  We can look upon the ever-flowing stream of God’s justice and righteousness as a terrible flood that causes us to let go of the stuff we think we need – or we can see it as the mighty baptismal waters of God washing us clean, lifting our neighbors out of the mire and clay, and giving them, along with us, a firm place on which to stand.  

To paraphrase our Lord’s words, “Who are we gonna follow?

Holy Partners

Proper 22B; Genesis 2:18-24; Mark 10:2-9; St. Paul’s, 10/07/2018

Jim Melnyk, “Holy Partners”

In today’s passage from Mark Jesus is finally getting close to Jerusalem.  In Mark’s gospel he’s spent all his time up to this point in Galilee and the Gentile regions north of Galilee.  Now he’s coming to Jerusalem – the place where all great prophets eventually find themselves.   The country teacher and preacher finds himself in the region of the big city and crowds come out to see him and hear him teach.  Most likely they’re probably hoping to see a miracle or two along the way.  A group of Pharisees from the region come out to test Jesus – in essence they’re there to check out his bona fides – checking to see if he’s legit or not.  There’s a sense in this passage that they’re not trying to trick him.  Rather, because there were several schools of thought about marriage and divorce in Jesus’ day they’re just trying to figure out which school of thought is foundational to his teaching.  “When is divorce okay?” they ask.  Jesus responds that they are asking the wrong question.  “The question you should be asking is this: ‘What is marriage supposed to be?’” (Steve Godfrey, Synthesis).

It doesn’t take much of a scholar to realize that what we often call “traditional Christian marriage” or “tradition biblical family values” is often hard to find in the pages of church history or Holy Scripture, and so it can be difficult looking for grand examples in the pages of Scripture.  We have Biblical heroes married to two wives, or to a wife with a slave mistress, or abusive husbands.  We even have Biblical heroes married to multiple wives along with hundreds of concubines – that is mistresses.  The ideal Jesus holds up for us seems to fly in the face of the struggles we human beings experience in trying to hold together any relationship, let alone marriage.

In today’s Gospel lesson Jesus holds forth an ideal focusing on what’s supposed to be a life-long partnership in marriage.  “Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”  Yet what we don’t understand is the incredible subversive nature of Jesus’ statement!  This comment is Jesus’ response to a patriarchal world in which women’s standing could be fragile.  And while there certainly were women of means in Jesus’ day – several of whom supported his ministry financially, including the wife of Herod’s Steward!  But there was also an imbalance of power in favor of men.  Here the Pharisees are challenging Jesus, knowing full well that traditional interpretation of the Law allows divorce to take place between a husband and wife – when initiated by the husband.  They also know, as does Jesus, that while Roman law allowed women to initiate divorce, only the most privileged seemed able to exercise that right.  It’s a man’s world in first century Israel and men hold most of the cards when it comes to such decisions about marriage.  Jesus takes this power away from his male listeners.

It’s true, though, that we’re still left with this admonition against divorce.  And throughout the Scriptures we’re challenged by the ideal of living in life-long committed relationships, even if few of our Biblical role models ever do so themselves.  Throughout the centuries the church and society have taken a rigidly literal understanding of this faith ideal and used it to control women and men and their lives together.  In some instances this ideal is taken to such an extreme that divorce is seen as a greater sin than remaining in an abusive relationship which causes emotional, psychological, spiritual, or even physical harm to one or both of the parties.  You may even recall the news from a seminary just north of Raleigh last year where the President was removed from office for counseling female students that it was God’s will for them to stay in abusive marriages.  That stuff still goes on today! 

A simple reading of the gospels quickly reminds us that Jesus said many tough things throughout his ministry – things that sometimes make us scratch our heads in bewilderment - beginning with last week’s passage about cutting off limbs or tearing out eyes, to his teaching about hating one’s father and mother, to the overwhelming idea of taking up our own cross and forfeiting our own lives to follow him.  Jesus often makes us flinch.  Many of these teachings were never meant to be taken literally. 

Rather, like many of his contemporary teachers, Jesus uses hyperbole and harsh language to bring us up short – to shock us into listening to the deeper truths he is trying to teach. 

In this case marriage, like all relationships, is meant to be life-giving rather than life-draining, and therefore is meant to be taken seriously.  “Our faithfulness [therefore] is demonstrated not in complicated codes, but in how we extend God’s love and mercy to one another—especially the ‘least of these [as pointed out by Jesus’ concern for both women and children in his day]’” (Michaela Bruzzese).

It would do us well to recognize that much of the Church’s and society’s attitudes towards women find their beginning in the Garden story of Genesis 2 and 3.  The creation story, given to us literally from male-oriented translations, continue to be used in many religious and political settings to promote a male-centered church and a male-centered society.  Even today there are authorities who exercise power and authority over women in ways that promote and sustain abuse.  God does not call us into, nor desire us to stay in, abusive relationships. 

Images of the woman’s creation from the rib of ‘hadam, the human one – a creature who is not yet referred to as a male person in the original Hebrew – were meant to proclaim equality in their earliest telling.  It can be frustrating as we read English translations so many thousands of years later.  The “man” in the beginning of the story is a non-gendered being.  There’s nothing there about his maleness.  And in fact, the Hebrew word, Tzela, doesn’t precisely mean “rib” but rather “side” (Synthesis) – more like the image of a side of beef than just a single rib.  It conjures up an image of the two living side-by-side rather than over-and-above.  And side-by-side is much better unless you desire and need to have power over someone – then, in our brokenness we embrace the idea of the male being over-and-above! When the Hebrew is mistranslated, then misinterpreted and finally misappropriated, the words create images of inferiority and submission.  For thousands of years these misinterpretations have not only come at a cost for women, but for all of humanity.  And when any part of humanity is diminished, all of humanity is diminished as well.

Words such as “helper” used in the creation story somehow get twisted into broken realities such as “servant” or “property,” (which is one of the reasons we dropped the question "who gives this woman to this man?" in the Episcopal wedding rite.  We no longer "give" a woman from one man to another - as if we ever really had that right).  When this happens we lose all sense of partnership implied in the text - all sense of inclusivity, and all sense of equality intended in the original language.  The Hebrew words used to describe the woman as partner are different from the words used to describe the animals earlier in the story.  The words used for the woman “connote equality; she is a helper who is a counterpart.  In this story, God is the helper superior to [the] man; the animals are helpers inferior to [the] man; and woman is the helper equal to [the] man” (Tribble, Eve and Adam: Genesis 2-3 Reread).  Thus, out of ‘hadam, the human one, God creates ish and ishshah – the male human being and the female human being – partners in creation.

The time has come for these stories to stand as models of grace-filled relationships rather than as memorials to the patriarchal power and fear of the past.  And quite possibly such a freeing of imagination and an opening to God’s grace will allow us to see the many different ways humanity upholds one another and mirrors the love of God in our relationships. 

Perhaps seeing our ancient stories in new ways and from different perspectives will allow the church and society to recognize the grace and beauty which exist around us in caring and loving relationships – caring and loving relationships which honor the image of God in each of us.

Such ideas as these challenge each of us to look seriously, with our whole heart and mind, both at our own attitudes and at the ways in which we read the Biblical narrative, the stories of Scripture, in our own time.  It’s as much a matter of the heart as it is a matter of the mind for us – even as it was for Jesus.  These are stories of life and grace which challenge our need for power and control, and which invite us into deeper, and less literal relationships with one another and with God. 

Such ideas challenge us to teach our young boys and men to respect not just themselves, but to treat all women with dignity and respect.  Such ideas challenge us to teach young girls and women that the image of God dwells as strong and clear in them as it does in their male counterparts.  There are no second class citizens in the kingdom of God.

These stories invite us to take a minute to look around us – to see the many grace-filled relationships which touch our lives every day.  These are stories that invite us to look deeply within ourselves – and so mirror the love of God – and so be living realities of the love of God.