This isn’t going to be easy... - Yellowknife United Church

This isn’t going to be easy...
Eighteenth after Pentecost - Year B
Sunday, October 4, 2009 - Worldwide Communion

Let us pray: O God, your love for us is strong. Your will for us is strong. May we find strength, wisdom and insight to find your way among the many ways that are set before us. Amen.

Did you hear about the young man who woke up on Sunday morning, pulled the blankets up around his chin, rolled over and began to moan? His mother hearing the moaning came in to see what was going on, only to be greeted with this:

“I don’t want to go to church this morning. I’m tired, and it’s comfortable in this bed. I just don’t want to go.”
“But dear you always go, you really should get up, get showered and dressed.”
“I don’t want to go. I just want lie here and be warm and comfortable and get some more sleep.”
“But dear you have to go. You are the preacher!”

There were moments this week when I felt like that young man. There is probably no other Sunday when the list of readings in the Revised Common Lectionary present such a difficult set of options. The difficulty is only compounded by the fact that we celebrate Worldwide Communion on this day.
You are probably wondering what happened to the gospel reading this morning. It turns out to be one of the problems but I'll get back to that in a moment.

The Hebrew bible reading begins a series from the book of Job. Job is one of the more difficult stories in the Hebrew Bible because it tells the story of a man who is blameless in every way, and yet he endures great hardship heaped upon hardship seemingly by a god who wants to test his faith. A summary of the story might go this way: Job is obviously a faithful man, but it could be because things are going so well for him. So, let`s try pushing him to see just how faithful he really is. But Job withstands the pressure and despite losing everything – his wealth and his health he continues to be steadfastly faithful. It`s a great story of faith, but it doesn`t paint a very positive picture of God who would stoop to such levels in order to make a point about faithfulness.

So that passage was worth several tosses and turns in bed this week.

Then along comes the letter to the Hebrews. I read one commentary which began something like this: I used to avoid preaching on the letter to the Hebrews because it was one of my least favourite books in the Christian scripture – the new testament. The commentary then went on to give a more positive perspective on the letter to the Hebrews. However, that view is going to have to continue to work on me, as I still find the letter to the Hebrews one of the most difficult to understand of all the new testament letters, and even when one does start to get a grasp on it, the christology it describes is not one that connects with my own. Now there`s nothing wrong with using that as a way of digging into a passage, but it was not my cup of tea for this week. So, I didn`t even read the passage from Hebrews this morning.

That leaves us with the reading from Mark`s gospel, which we have yet to hear. This is by far the most difficult of the three passages assigned to this day in the Sunday by Sunday list of readings. So difficult that I tried to figure out a way to avoid it. But also so difficult that it simply could not be read without some reference. It's not the kind of passage that can be taken simply at its word. Why not leave it out as I did with the letter to the Hebrews? That is an option, but I am loathe to do that. I think it is important to include the gospel passage as one of the readings each week, although this week really tested my resolve on that issue.

One of the good things about the lectionary is that it is a three year cycle. So after nineteen years of ministry, it stands to reason that I've dealt with this set of passages before. One option therefore would be to go back in time to see how I dealt with this set of readings before. I spent some time going through the old worship files on my computer – and somewhat to my surprise discovered that it has been twelve years since I last had to deal with these passages. They often conveniently fall on the same Sunday as Thanksgiving which replaces the assigned readings for the eighteenth Sunday. Other years I've been away – not by design to avoid them, but it just happened that way. I had to go back all the way to 1997.

It's clear that I struggled with the passages that year as well. It was also worldwide communion Sunday and I wondered how we reconcile the struggle that is described by the passage from the book of Job and the internal struggle we have when we read Jesus' uncharacteristic hard line view on the subject of divorce as Mark reports it. It took me a while to find my 1997 archives, so in the meantime I searched in other places to see what insight I could gain on this passage, which as I said could not be left just hanging. Read it and reflect or don't read it was my take on it. It's just too provocative, too hurtful, too pastorally insensitive to be left alone, but the dilemma then is to come up against the authority of Jesus. Is it possible that Jesus was wrong on this one? Is it possible that this is a glimpse into Jesus' shadow side? Even that description leaves me vulnerable, for there certainly is a strain within the Christian community that would consider it heresy to even consider that Jesus had a shadow side.

A few weeks ago our gospel reading told the story of an encounter between Jesus and a syro-phoenician woman – who rightly called Jesus on his own narrow way of thinking. But this week no one calls Jesus on his unyielding view of divorce – although his dialogue with the Pharisees is troubling to the disciples, for they re-open the discussion again later, perhaps aware of just how harsh Jesus' view seems to be.

John Wesley offered a great gift to the Christian community with an instrument that has come to be known as Wesley's quadrilateral – a tool that allows us to engage in the act of discernment – finding God's way in our lives. Wesley said that there were four corners of the quadrilateral, each of which informs the other.

Scripture - the Holy Bible (Hebrew and Christian Testaments)
Tradition - the two millennia history of the Christian Church
Reason - rational thinking and sensible interpretation
Experience - a Christian's personal and communal journey in Christ

The value of the quadrilateral is that it gives us a way to consider the living word of God. Discernment is not confined to a particular interpretation of the bible. I'm always surprised at the way certain people can read a passage and know so clearly exactly what it means, without any awareness of the context that surrounds it. I can't even do that with conversations I had last week. There are so many nuances, inflections, and uses of body language. The quadrilateral helps us to understand discernment as a living, breathing process – one which takes our lives and the history of the community of faith into consideration. Experience – one of the corners of the quadrilateral tells us that as difficult as divorce can be, there are times when it is the most faithful decision. It is a painful, but ultimately healthy choice. I'm sure each one of us can cite examples. Likewise, reason offers a similar perspective. Reason – the gift of intellect and even wisdom – is a gift from God, and we deny the gift when we set reason aside and consider scripture without reflection. Reason also leads me to challenge the Mark passage for today. It just does not compute for me. There are too many examples of God's compassion and care for people who are hurting and Jesus' support for the struggles inherent in human life to not want to question Jesus' words as reported by Mark in today's reading. That leaves two more corners, tradition and scripture. Even Jesus appealed to tradition. His first response to the Pharisees was this: What did Moses have to say about divorce? In other words, what does scripture and tradition have to say on the subject. Clearly scripture and tradition were open to the possibility of divorce.

Ultimately then I come to this conclusion. Jesus presented an ideal. But we don't live in an ideal world. We live in a world which is constantly one of struggle, but also blessing. Tradition, Reason and Experience give us an answer that is different from the one that Jesus offered. Jesus' answer offers a perspective on just how difficult the question is for us. It's never easy.

And how does this inform the fact that this is Worldwide Communion Sunday. Well, let me leave you with what I said some twelve years ago. The passage from Job for me provided a reminder of suffering as an ingredient that we bring to our communoin meal. The passage from Mark helps me to reflect on two ingredients. I struggle with the passage about divorce. I hear what seems to be a clear, uncompromising statement from Jesus about divorce. I want to know more about what it means, and how it affects my life. But I also know that I have come to an understanding that divorce is not always wrong. So I have to try and reconcile Jesus' words with my own understandings. It is hard. I cannot do it with any kind of resolve. Even if I come to resolve about it on one occasion, the next time I hear it many of the same issues come up. What I am left with is the sad but real conclusion that we live in a broken world. We live in a world where there are not always answers. We live in a world where things don't happen in perfection. Yet even so, holiness happens. Holiness does not mean perfection. Holiness is not of our making, it comes from God. It comes as grace from God, not from our perfect lives. A glimpse of this ingredient to our communion meal is found in the conclusion of the passage from Mark. It is a sign of the inclusiveness of God's realm. We are not accepted because of our scholarship or perfection. We are accepted for who we are. We are accepted with a radical inclusiveness that opens God's arms to all. We are invited to share in this meal. Let us eat with awe and thanksgiving. Amen.