"Family Values in a Subversive Community"

Mark 10:2-16

A sermon preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley

October 8, 2006

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

I approach this sermon with a good bit of humility. When picking texts from the three or four lectionary choices for today. I was tempted to run past this one and go on to something a bit easier. You see, divorce is not an easy thing to talk about. On top of that, I have never been divorced, although my parents are and I know many others who have experienced it here in this room. You are the real experts. So I’m not going to moralize about marriage and divorce in today’s sermon, except to say that folks tend to enter in to marriage for the best of reasons and no one goes into it looking for divorce. And yet divorce can be the healthiest choice for some relationships.

As we seek to determine the best way to be faithful in today’s world, we get hung up on pronouncements from pulpits that don’t help anything and only polarize us even more. We can do better than that, I hope. Especially if we remember that we follow one who welcomed all those who were outcast. We follow one who wanted all of our relationships to be based upon justice and love. So what are our family values in this subversive community that we are called to model?

This week James Dobson and Focus on the Family came to town to decry all families that are not like his and to drum up non-partisan support for certain candidates who all just happen to belong to the same political party. It’s the same old story full of misinformation and demonization that we are plenty tired of hearing. Again, there were faithful dissenters holding out for a different interpretation of scripture, a different definition of family, a better and more moral dialogue.

Jimmy Carter recently wrote a book entitled Our Endangered Values. In it, he notes how fundamentalists have hijacked Christianity and have made a mockery of the faith we hold dear. In one particularly pointed paragraph, Carter writes: "Narrowly defined theological beliefs have been adopted as the rigid agenda of a political party. Powerful lobbyists, both inside and outside government, have distorted an admirable American belief in free enterprise into the right of extremely rich citizens to accumulate and retain more and more wealth and pass all of it on to descendants. Profits from stock trading and income from dividends are being given privileged tax status compared to the wages earned by schoolteachers and firemen. To quote a Christian friend, the new economic philosophy in Washington is that a rising tide raises all yachts." (Carter, 2005:3,4)

Carter believes that a few hot button issues have hijacked our moral values. The effective strategy is that people will vote on the hot button issues even if they trump the larger issues of care for the poor—which Carter calls our most endangered Christian value.

While Mel White calls fundamentalism, "Piety gone cultic", I think Carter gives the most comprehensive definition of fundamentalism I have heard to date:

This rigidity, domination and exclusion are antithetical to the Jesus I know from scripture. Today’s passage is a case in point.

Theologian Ched Myers says that this scripture is less about the pain of divorce and more about Jesus’ persistent and consistent critique of patriarchy.

Jesus is arguing scripture. He’s pointing out contradictory scriptures and making a choice—namely that mutuality trumps patriarchy. Patriarchy is exemplified in the passage about divorce in Deuteronomy 24:1 In that passage, it says that a husband can divorce his wife if she displeases him. No provision is made for a wife to divorce her husband. It is the male who holds the power.

Patriarchy, like male dominated fundamentalism is one of Jesus’ pet peeves.

The Pharisees are not talking about the morality of divorce. They are interested in what constitutes the legal ground for a husband to dismiss his wife. Jesus responds by saying that patriarchal patterns are immoral and that there ought to be equal partnerships. The example he uses is divorce. It’s a teaching moment about patriarchy.

Back in Jesus’ time, Hillel and Shammai, two great rabbinic schools debated the legal grounds for a man divorcing his wife. Jesus refused to be a part of that debate—not choosing the obvious sides. He instead looks at the patriarchy underlying the argument and calls the Pharisees and all the rest of us reading into a larger discussion.

In Genesis 2 and 3, the focus is on mutuality. A husband leaves his home and cleaves to his wife’s home. He leaves behind his property and his status and starts anew with his spouse.

Jesus is showing how Deuteronomy and Genesis contradict each other. He chooses Genesis and calls for an end to patriarchal family systems.

Jesus teaches two radical things in verses 11 and 12. In verse 11 Jesus says that anyone who remarries commits adultery against his wife. Accepted rabbinic law was that the remarrier commits adultery against another married man, but not against his wife.

The second thing is that Jesus says that a woman could initiate divorce. This directly contradicted the rabbis.

In a direct challenge to patriarchy, Jesus again stood up for the rights of women when no one else would. Jesus gave a critique of the social structure based upon dominance, rigidity and exclusion. Any time we stand with a person or group that has been dominated or excluded, we are standing close to Jesus.

Finding ways to exclude others and make a sense of who gets to be in and out is exactly what rigid religion has given us. The larger issue, the family value that Jesus calls us to, exist around the concepts of justice and love. These trump patriarchy and they are always good news to those who have felt unloved and have been victimized by a culture too quick to make enemies and leave people in its wake.

It’s really quite simple. I believe that all relationships, male and female, male and male, female and female, etc. ought to be based upon justice and love. The justice part is lived out in that each person has equal power. Mutuality trumps patriarchy. There don’t have to be the same roles, but each person has an equal right to say what’s going to happen in a relationship. Each decision ought to be made without coercion. Each person has the same right to a job, an income, a sense of dignity and worth.

This is what the current marriage freedom debate is trying to address. It is trying to say that marriage ought to be about joyful mutuality. It’s also why it’s so threatening. If we look at marriage freedom, then we might just have to address patriarchy, too.

So a relationship must be based upon justice.

It must also be based upon love. M. Scott Peck in his book, The Road Less Traveled defines mature love as the mutual commitment to your partner’s spiritual growth. I like that idea. It is self-giving, joyful and every growing and learning.

Jesus was out to redefine marriage from a situation of patriarchal male dominance to mutual self-giving. That’s what I call Biblical family values.

It’s no accident that Jesus follows this statement with one about children. They were the least powerful class. The children he might have embraced could have been street kids. The ultimately excluded. The least of the least. They were likely unclean, untouchable. He took them in his arms and blessed them over the objections of his followers. Saying, "this is what the embrace of God is like and this is who gets it, the ones who need it the most."

The children portion of the scripture, like the woman in the divorce is another example of how Jesus constantly turns things around by saying and even indicating that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. The first (those who have benefited from power, might, patriarchy, influence) shall be last. The last (children, women, lepers, the outcast, the impure, the gentiles, the poor, the victims of the wrongs of the world) shall be first in God’s economy.

Ched Myers puts it this way: "Mark’s gospel holds a vision of society, church, and family that is based on access and acceptance. To become like a child is to acknowledge the place and condition of the most vulnerable ones in our midst—our children. To be in compassionate solidarity with children is to confront the roots of violence in our society. This includes speaking out against the patriarchal mindset that promotes male privilege and legitimizes an abuse of power which often leads to violence against women and children. To construct a truly nonviolent life, we must weed out the structures and practices of violence at their roots in the most basic levels of human community. As parents, families, or communities of faith, we must rededicate ourselves to the struggle to convey God’s blessing of children, so that children may have the life that they deserve." (Say to this Mountain, 1997:122)

Just this past week, we have heard of shootings at schools in Pennsylvania, Colorado and Wisconsin. We pray for the families and for a society that continues to believe that problems can be solved through bloody violence. And we see tragically that again such acts never make the situation better. They always create more victims.

Sisters and brothers as we celebrate this national Coming out Day, we remember that our best values are values where we recognize the poor and the outcast and the unloved and the ignored and the mistreated. We recognize them and we remember that Jesus called us to remember that they are the first in God’s economy. The reality is that if we want to get a hold of God’s subversive family values, we need to remember the least of these and embrace them with all of our hearts. For when we do, we come close to the heart of God.

As I end this sermon, I invite you to enter into a prayerful meditation. Close your eyes, if you are comfortable doing so. Think of two people you have known that have a relationship based upon mutuality. The relationship might even be more than two people. Picture them in your mind’s eye. They could be a best friend. They could be people who are friends, co-workers, spouses. It could even be you. Think for a moment about what makes their relationship special. What about them brings out the best in each other? What do you admire about them. Think of words or images that come to your mind when you think about them and picture their relationship. I invite you to say a brief prayer of thanks for these relationships most special to you.

As you feel comfortable, open your eyes again.

I hope you have been able to envision that. Is it luck that brought them together? Is it grace?

Toni Morrison says that the only grace we can have is the grace we can imagine. If we can’t see it we can’t have it.

May we continue to envision healthy relationships. May we envision a day when we all will recognize the grace that we see in the best of our relationships. May we continue to live lives based upon justice, love and mutuality—Jesus’ family values.