The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

October 7,2012

READ - Genesis 2: 18-24                                Hebrews 1: 1-4; 2: 5-12                  Mark 10: 2-16

 

IT’S ALL ABOUT __________

 

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

                It’s all about relationship.

                Yesterday’s Apple Festival at Emanuel, do you think that was all about raising money?  Well, we certainly need it!  We’re $6,000 in the hole at the end of September.  But if it’s primary purpose is raising money, then we would be the first to be fired by Donald Trump.  No, it’s about relationships; relationships with the community around us and relationship with one another in our service.

                The now-infamous infield-fly-rule game, do I think many people care that my Braves got cheated in their loss to St. Louis?  No, I get mercilessly teased because it’s all about relationships; with my friends and fellow baseball enthusiasts.

                When I counsel a couple in preparation for their wedding day, do I tell them that theirs will be a match made in heaven and that God has brought together the only two people in the world meant to be with each other?  No, because then God wouldn’t have a very impressive track record.  Instead, I tell them that marriage is about relationship, and commitment to one another, and the need to constantly work at keeping the vows of promise for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, unless those vows are irrevocably broken.

                Attending worship every Sunday, do you think it’s about obligation?  That line isn’t even working in the Roman Catholic community anymore.  Do you think it’s about obedience to God’s command?  Then a lot of people are simply going to hell.  And I think a good portion of our society has resigned itself to that fate.  I presided at a wedding at St. Luke’s with over 150 people in attendance.  Communion was offered, and is 20 people came forwards to receive, that was a lot.  The rest seemed too embarrassed about their lack of church attendance and participation to think they could…or should.

                Do you think worship is about getting something out of it?  Like, if you’re not spiritually moved, then it wasn’t really worth it.  Or if you’re not sufficiently entertained…heaven forbid it should seem boring!  No, it’s about relationships.  It’s about gathering together as the people of God, as the family of God, to enter into the mutual consolation of the saints, to bring something into the worship experience rather than demand to get something out of it.  Perhaps you will provide the hope and the comfort for someone going through a particularly hard time.  Maybe you, and not necessarily the preacher, will share the Gospel Word of good news that can change someone’s life.  We enter into a covenant with our fellow brothers and sisters to serve one another and to pool our resources and talents to serve others in need.  We are each an integral part of the body of Christ; and when missing, the entire body suffers and is diminished.  It’s all about relationships.

                Jesus’ death on the cross, do you think that was about appeasing an angry God, that God requires blood, sacrifice, and death in order to finally forgive humanity the collective burden of its sin and thereby qualify for salvation?  Oh, I admit that sounds correct and often I fall into the trap of similar words.  But is that really what we think God is like?  A god like that might just as easily decide that the death of Jesus is not sufficient, and extract of us an even higher price to pay.

                No, it’s all about relationships.  The author of the book of Hebrews tries to explain that relationship.

                The apostle writes: Jesus is “the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.”  The first relationship is the one between Jesus and God.  Jesus isn’t just the best possible human being, he is to God as a son is to a father.  Ah yes, it takes a human relationship as imperfect as that at times may be to illustrate and help us to understand the perfect, divine relationship.

                Then the apostle writes: “The one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father, therefore Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”  The second relationship is between Jesus and us.  Jesus isn’t a distant, transcendent God; he is one of us, God in human flesh, completely and truly human.  God isn’t angry or upset with us or requiring mortal compensation, for rather we hear that we have been “Crowned with glory and honor.”  Now that sounds beloved!

                The third relationship is between God and us.  The apostle writes again: “We can’t see everything, but we can see Jesus, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”  What bridges the gap between human and divine, between temporality and eternity, between this life and eternal life?  Is it not death?  But not death as punishment, not death as appeasement; but death and resurrection, death that ushers in new life.

 

                So what does all this have to do with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the creation story in the second chapter of Genesis?  And what does all this have to do with the teachings of Jesus on marriage and divorce and the suffering of little children?  (as the KJV puts it: “Suffer the little children to come unto me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.”)

                It’s all about ____________ (that right, relationship).  Ha Adam, the man, in solitude was incomplete and impotent.  Other animals, birds and every living creature ultimately failed to complete him.  Man’s perfection could only be accomplished through his own complimentary nature.  So, as the Yahwist writer illustrates for us, out of Adam’s rib God creates woman, Woman from Man, Ishah from Ish, not in subjected or secondary status, but as the man’s own reciprocal being; a helpmate, a partner; a relationship is created.

                It is significant and revealing that the Hebrew word for physical and sexual intimacy is the word “yadah,” which is correctly translated as “to know.”  And Adam “knew” his wife, Eve.  I remember as a teen, we used to wink at one another when we would respond to the question of whether we knew someone with “Do you mean “to know” in the Biblical sense?”  Yadah is a word of intimacy.  It’s all about relationship.  Such human intimacy remains for us, a sit was for Jesus, the closest illustration of our relationship with the Almighty.

                When Jesus chastises divorce, do you think it is because he wants to excommunicate people from the Church?  Do you think it’s because he wants to establish a Biblical definition of marriage?  No, it’s about relationship.  Divorce is so devastating to anyone involved because it creates a division of relationship.  It admits that even our closest illustration of relationship with the divine is flawed.  It is the separation of relation that breaks the Sixth Commandment.  And once sin separates, then what can possibly bind us back together?

 

                Jesus then finds the perfect answer to his implied question right before his eyes.  Not cute and adorable; but noisy, bratty, disrespectful, vulgar, disgusting children are clamoring around Jesus and pulling at his robes and stepping on his toes.  The disciples are trying to chase them away.  (There is nothing worse and totally disruptive to a worship service than a crying baby – am I right?)  No!  Jesus gathers them in his arms as a mother hen gathers her chicks, lays his hands on them, plays with them, and blesses them.

                Let’s go back to the beginning.  Let’s go back to birth.  Let’s go back to creation.  It’s all about relationship!

                It is my prayer that each one of us may experience such a relationship with Jesus –

- to know what it is like to be gathered in his arms, (“to know”)

- to know what it is like to be touched with his healing hands,

- to experience the joy of playing with Jesus, and

- to know that through Jesus, his life, death and resurrection, we are blessed with a right and wonderful relationship with God.

                The writer of Hebrews ends our lesson for today: “In the midst of the congregation I will praise you!”

                And that, sharing in that God-blessed relationship, we may put aside all that separates us from one another; to not allow valid differences of who we are or what we hold important to us to divide us from one another; to not give sin the opportunity to divorce us from God’s love; but to enjoy living in the perfect relationship that God intends for us.”  AMEN.

 

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  AMEN.

 

Rev. James Slater

Emanuel Lutheran Church – Stuyvesant Falls, NY

St. Luke’s Lutheran Church – Valatie, NY