Reading the Gospels for Lent

 

Read Matthew 19-21

 

In Jesus’ day there were two great rabbinic traditions created by two famous rabbis.  There was Hillel and Shammai.  The rabbi’s job in Jesus’ day was to interpret the laws for the people of faith and help the people stay in relationship with God…I dare say some of that still holds for pastors today.  How do I help you connect to scripture, let scripture author your life, and create a safe place for you to open your soul to God?  That is the question that drives my ministry.  Hillel was a bit more liberal in his interpretation of Scripture.  Hillel said, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.  That is the entire Torah (or law of God), and the rest is commentary.  Now go and study”.  In that quote you may hear the seeds of the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you from Matthew 7.  Shammai was a bit more by the book.  He was concerned about humanities ability to really know and do good.  This remains true today.  Do you think humanity can really save ourselves when left to our own whims?  There are those who tend to have a higher view of our human abilities, those who tend to focus on human flaws.  Where are you on that spectrum?  Do you think that traditions should be conserved, maintained, respected?  Do humans have the capacity to craft new ways of thinking and living? 

 

Of course, all this is a false choice in some ways.  We are both.  We may vote for expanding human rights, only to insist that our grandmother’s tablecloth be used at Easter because we have always done it that way.  Or we may think that humanity needs to be reigned in, but want liberty for us to do what we want, when we want, how we want.  We are all a messy mixture.  All this is a set up for Jesus’ teaching on divorce.  Jesus usually sided with Hillel on many issues of the law.  Don’t want to wash your hands, fuhgeddaboudit, it’s what comes out of your mouth that defiles you.  Concerned about healing on the Sabbath, be more concerned about the hurting in your midst.  But, in Matthew 19, Jesus takes Shammai’s more traditional teaching.  This could be because Hillel said you could divorce your wife if she burnt your breakfast.  Or maybe Jesus was concerned that we might all begin to think, “Laws, we don’t need no stinking laws.”  That is until we all try to drive down the highway!  To be sure, I don’t think this makes these words easier emotionally.  I know many people who are divorced who are deeply wounded and hurt by how Matthew 19 has been used to blame and shame them.  I know many faithful people who were in emotionally and physically abusive relationships that needed a divorce.  I know many people who married one person and woke up eighteen years later next to another person ~ who said it was okay for your spouse to change?  We hold the tension with Jesus that marriage is a covenant, a vow, between two people before God.  This vow is elastic and can expand.  The vow is woven with love, but it is a love that needs to be tended.  In our humanness, we can hurt those closest to us.  In our humanness, we can drift away from someone we deeply loved, perhaps not even intentionally.  Or our spouse can drift away from us for reasons unknown to him/her.  In our humanness, we don’t always tend our relationships ~ but can take them for granted as we race and run off chasing the gospel of success.  Yet, when we make a vow to another, to break that vow will be painful.  To be sure, the church needs to be careful and prayerful not to cause more woundedness and in no way encourage people to stay in relationships that are harmful or abusive.  How do we tend the vows that bind us and sometimes confine us?  This is not only a question of marriage, but of the church.  In our traditions, to be a member is to covenant with each other.  We say to people who are new, “We love you and we long to grow with you.”  While love is easy, people are hard.  We have porcupine like quills that can make it difficult to get close.  For my brothers and sisters who have sought a divorce, please know you are God’s beloved.  There is nothing you can do that can separate you from God’s love.  Nothing means nothing.  I believe that the divorce was painful and hurtful and you don’t need me adding to that emotional baggage.  In the end, I wonder who do I think I am trying to explain Jesus to you?  In the end, if you want to talk more, I would long to hear your questions and thoughts and hurts.  In the end, I long for you to experience God’s love regardless of who you love.  May this gospel truth work in your life even when we read parts of the good news that don’t sound so good to everyone.  Amen.