Mark
10:1-16
We're
still in the midst of Jesus' teaching about who he is and what he's
here for. To understand this it has to be realised that it is
suffering and death that point to the reality of God, to real
life-creating, life-giving power. That's the context, with children
again positioned to challenge misunderstanding.
Mark's
Jesus fights constantly the tendency amongst his fellow humans to
create systems in order to feel we have a handle on things, to sort
everything in terms of rules.
For
example, relationships.
The
Bible sees everything that is as given – gift of God. It's all
God's dream, this proliferation of creatures and things and it's
declared good. Good because the Creator delights in it. Creator and
creation in relationship. A few chapters later when things are not
good – deemed a total mistake and almost wiped out (by the flood) –
it all stems from a breakdown of this relationship.
God's
dream is the ideal, the vision, a.k.a. the Kingdom. For Jesus carries
this same vision. He lives the ideal, he's rooted in Kingdom ways.
Kingdom
ways lead to well-being, justice, peace – that is, right
relationships (righteousness in traditional translation). When words
like marriage (which I define as faithful, intimate relationship) are
used by Jesus, this is the perspective he is taking. The ideal
of what can be, the horizon to head towards.
When
he's asked a question about it, he knows that his questioners are
thinking not ideal, but rules and legal proceedings. An issue of
justice – notably for women – is being hijacked and Jesus is not
amused.
Jesus
is being very bold here, more than we might think. Mention of moving
into the territory of Herod at the start is significant. This is
Herod the divorcer, Herod the murderer (remember John the Baptist?).
Jesus is clearly calling Herod out for a life that is a million miles
from God's kingdom.
Regarding
marriage, God's dream is for nothing to break this holy relationship,
when it is such, nothing to get in the way of it. Definitely not
politics (as with Herod). Would that this most intimate and
vulnerable of all relationships be faithful and true – right
relationship; give it every chance to be God-like in that respect;
don't let other things cause it grief or pull it apart for reasons
that disregard the well-being of the people involved.
Jesus
is making it clear that the Kingdom of God doesn't pull back from the
ultimate of unconditional loving relationship. The ideal.
In
practice – because of hard-heartedness, that is humanity at its
hard core – there are ways of regulating or moderating how breaks
happen, because they do happen and for well-being that can be the
best. The measures for regulating and moderating are for the purpose
of making as much good as possible in a bad situation. Saving what
can be saved; keeping the eyes on well-being and justice. Jesus has
a primary concern for justice for women. Note that he speaks of a
woman dismissing (divorcing) her husband. That's not Jewish law but
it is Roman law. A not so subtle dig here that the Romans' law got
one thing better – if you have divorce, it must be able to work
both ways.
But
he then makes clear that the end-point, the pinnacle of justice and
well-being, relates to children. Children must be in the centre.
Relationships must not be about adult power play. Children are a
reminder of that.
What
to do when relationships crack and break. We know that question from
experience. And we know that keeping children in the centre makes
for a better future. They are the touchstone.
This
is a vignette about marriage but there's a broad relationship message
here that it is pointing to for everyone. For good marriage is only
one kind of “deep community”, as one person puts it. Deep
community that can go a long way to completing us as human beings.
This is the community of love, so to speak, that can grow between
ourselves and another or others.
The
broad message here is a warning on how the love basis to this kind of
right relationship gets subverted by our tendency to think about law
and limits. In day to day living, in politics, in debates over right
and wrong, we keep being pulled back from the ideal to see things
codified in rules. Rules for friending and unfriending are not how
relationships work. What's expected of friends, what counts as
forgivable, or not, keeping a balance in gifts, in invitations, and
so on. True, rules are useful, as boundaries and guides we adopt to
keep on track with the ideal. Law is useful in describing what good
action looks like. But if we want to live the way of the ideal, it
is has be driven by love, not law-keeping.
To
be a good Christian, to be Christ-shaped, is a response in a
particular situation, to a particular context – a love-based
response.
And
a practical way to remind ourselves what it feels like to make a
love-based response is to put children in our midst.
They
remind us that it is an act of grace – by grace that we are moved
and motivated, and let ourselves be Christ-shaped.
