"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"¹

      On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. ³⁸ But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" ⁴¹ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

      He left that place and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered around him; and, as was his custom, he again taught them.

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

      Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

      People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

      Although most of you are familiar with today's passage, it is possible this may be the first time you have ever heard a sermon on Jesus' views on divorce. It is not because Mark is the only gospel writer who mentions this stuff (he isn't). Versions of this passage appear in Matthew and Luke, too. You may have never heard a sermon on this passage because it is a difficult passage to hear. Preachers (and readers) tend to avoid it like the plague. It is AGAIN one of those times when Jesus challenges us way outside our comfort zone.

      This passage has been plaguing me for about a month. I was tempted to avoid it. It would have been so much easier to talk about Jesus welcoming little children and just ignore the divorce, marriage, and adultery part.

      Two things have been rattling around in my head. First: the issue of picking and choosing scripture. Second: What can we carry away from this lesson today?

      Picking and choosing scripture to suit ourselves is a huge issue. Today we will only scratch the surface. A couple of weeks ago I spoke of "Lip Service" --- how we are prone to create religion in our own image. We do this with the Bible, too. Because the Bible is so big, so complex, and so diverse, we all tend to pick and choose favorite passages or themes which resonate for us. There are those Christians who pretty much ignore the entire Old Testament, and those who only read Paul. There are many passages in the Bible which nearly everyone in the twenty-first century ignores. Even biblical literalists do not embrace slavery, stone adulterers or advocate polygamy. For the most part, they eat pork, and wear jewelry and clothing made of blended fibers (Deut 22:11), all three of which are prohibited in scripture.

      Picking and choosing is the "bad" part of how we relate to God's Word. We go with what we like, what comforts us, what affirms us, and we avoid the rest. We elevate certain scriptures over others. Sometimes, it is worse. Sometimes it gets downright ugly. Christians take scripture out of context, use it to promote political, social, or personal agendas, to exclude others, even to persecute them. It happens today, even here, even now.

      Bill Coffin once said, "We Christians believe in the Word made flesh, not in the Word made words." The Bible does not provide clear answers to every question we put to it. Every reading of the Bible is a human interpretation. This doesn't mean anything goes! There is overarching good news in God's word, and it is in the Word made flesh. Jesus. Above all else, Jesus promotes an ethic of love (love God, love neighbor as self, love enemy). Everything---everything we do----every rule, every practice----must be critiqued in light of Jesus' commandment to love. This is the "Good" part that serves as corrective to the bad and the ugly.

      So in approaching the Bible, it may help to remember three things: The "Bad" is our tendency to make the Word of God fit our lives, rather than vice versa. The "Ugly" is the all -too-human propensity to hurt others by using the Word of God as a weapon. And the "Good" is the overarching Biblical message of God's rule of love.

      Which leaves my second question: What can we carry away from this particular scripture today? In these words from Mark we may also discover the ugly, the good, and the bad.

      The immediate context for Mark's writing was this. Herod had just imprisoned and executed the prophet John the Baptist, ostensibly because John had confronted Herod about Herod's adulterous marriage to his brother's wife. This sounds like the stuff of today's tabloids. Knowledge of this swirled all over Galilee. Mark's first century hearers would have known all about this.

      It's all pretty ugly. Herod took advantage of an unfair law. The Pharisees continue in this ugly vein by attempting to trap Jesus. Their intent is evil. Remember, they are building a case to kill him.

      "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"

      Jesus retorts by asking the Pharisees what the religious law says. Jesus reminds the Pharisees that this law was created in the first place because people were hard hearted. It was not created for some lofty reason! Then Jesus does something astonishing. He completely changes the course of the conversation. Jesus raises up the Genesis account of creation and sets it above the Mosaic law written in Deuteronomy.

      What we find in Jesus' words is a confrontation that boils down to grace over law. The law for divorce (set forth by Moses) was horrible for women and children. A man could legally divorce his wife simply by writing a writ of divorce. It was easier to obtain a legal divorce in Moses' time than it is today. The reasons for divorce ranged from adultery to bad cooking. In some interpretations of the Mosaic law², a man could dismiss his wife for no reason whatsoever.

      Women and children had no safety net. Against this clearly unjust biblical law, Jesus speaks to the good intent of God's creation. Jesus speaks of the wideness of God's grace. He raises the bar, and reminds us of the high calling of covenantal relationships. He speaks a radical word to the religious types, because he is effectively debunking the law. Jesus' trajectory is toward equality for and hospitality toward those who are most oppressed (specifically, women and children). It is no accident that Mark put this story of Jesus' welcoming children right next to the discussion on divorce. This is the "Good" part of the good news of Jesus' message.

      Jesus is clear that breaking covenant relationships is sin. There really is no way around this. While laws may be more rigid, the rule of love is more demanding. The bar is set impossibly high. This is not just a 21st century problem. This is a perennial human problem. Broken relationships were common in Moses' day. They were common in Jesus' day. And they are common today. This brokenness is called sin. The result of this sin wreaks havoc, destroys relationships, breaks up families, harms children. The divorce rate inside the church is roughly the same as the divorce rate outside the church. Christians are not protected from this. We are not immune from sin, any one of us. We are all sinners, one way or another. Goes without saying, sin is "Bad."

      So what are we to do with this difficult message? The message urges both a heavy and particular set of responsibilities. As Christians, we bear a responsibility to support and sustain families. When we baptize babies, we promise to nurture these children in the faith. When we really take this to heart, we are promising far more than we might think. We are promising to help this child, yes, but we are also promising to help her parents in the bargain. We are promising to pass on the faith, to teach this rule of love we see written all over the Scriptures. We teach children and youth about respect, and self-respect. About restraint, and the good gifts of our bodies. We teach them to honor their bodies and others' as well. We teach them what it means to make and keep covenant promises.

      We also bear particular responsibility to prepare young people for marriage, to impress upon them both the seriousness and the substance of covenant commitment. We bear the burden of helping those whose relationships have failed to be healed, and to believe in the power of God's forgiveness. We bear the burden to 'speak the truth in love' to people we know who are despondent or despairing, or to others who may be dangerously close to breaking their promises to loved ones.

      The bar is impossibly high. No one of us can attain the ideal set by God, no one. We are all sinners, one way or another. All of us experience broken relationships and broken promises, even within the confines of fidelity. In just a little while in the gospel of Mark, we will hear the words, "for humans, it is impossible. But not for God. For God, everything is possible." The Good news is that the love of Christ bridges all sins and all circumstances.

      So there is Good. There is still Bad. And there is Ugly. The good news is that God's good has the power to outshine both the bad and the ugly. Anything is possible with God.