Sermon for the 19th Sunday after Trinity: ‘Relationships’; preached at the Eucharist, Sherborne Abbey on Sunday, 6 October 2024 by The Reverend Rebecca McDonnell (Hebrews Ch 1: v 1 -4, Ch 2: v 5 – 12; Mark Ch 10: v 2 – 16)
I want to start my sermon today by apologising if today’s passage from Mark has ever been thrown at you to hurt you, or if it has ever caused you pain. Jesus’ words are not a stick to beat us over the head with, we need to re-evaluate Jesus’ meaning considering the social, political and historical world in which they were said, and written. Under the law of Moses divorce had become easy and commonplace in Jewish culture. Easy, especially for the men; divorce had become such that it was the women and their children, the most vulnerable in society, who were left marginalised. Jesus is being dangerously counter-cultural and protecting those most in need with this commandment.
It is under Jesus as well that we see the shift from the practise of polygyny, a man with many wives as we see in the Old Testament, to the idea of monogamy. Again, this was all to do with protecting the vulnerable. At this time, and for some time after, marriage was an agreement made between men, the father of the bride and the father of the groom. It was a business contract, very little to do with love or the wishes of the people involved. And it benefited mostly men, and if the husband decided to divorce his wife, then she would become very vulnerable. It would take until the 12th century for marriage to move inside a church, to be seen as a sacrament or something vaguely religious. And it is very recent indeed that most marriages in the Western world start out on a basis of love and trust.
The pronouns used in the passage also bear shedding some light on. The Pharisees who, as ever, are trying to trip Jesus up, question him in the abstract ‘if a man…’ Jesus responds, directing the question back at them, ‘what did Moses say to you? What did Moses command you?’ Jesus protects the vulnerable by changing the way the questions are put and making those asking really to reflect on their own personal prejudices. This is something we see today that those who wish to question another’s lifestyle or behaviour do so with little to no self-reflection. Jesus turns the question around to expose those who are trying to hide their own fragility. Those who have gone through the heartache, pain, and brokenness of relationship break down are not to be condemned or judged, but to be met with the healing of Christ.
Jesus wants for us the joy of relationship in whatever form that takes; he doesn’t want us to be alone. At the centre of that joy of relationship and community are children, the weakest and most vulnerable. It is wonderful that today they are, in the main, loved and raised in family and friendship groups of varying sizes and make-up; mums and dads, dads and dads, mums and mums, step-dads and step-mums, adoptive or foster parents, grandparents, God parents, siblings, half siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, honorific aunts and uncles who are family friends. Today is the last day that we have the threads of creation with us in the Abbey. They have brought joy, wonder, and colour to us, and made us reflect on all Gods creation. Our relationships and those we love, show the colour and diversity of the different ways we live and relate to one another; they are part of his creation, they are all good and sanctified by God. And there’s our church family here in Sherborne, and our relationship with the worldwide Church and our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ.
Our Hebrews reading from today is quoting Psalm 8; ‘when I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you have established; what are human beings that you mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour.’ It goes on to explain how God did not create the world for angels but for humankind, and that the world and all creation within it was made subject to humans. It takes us back to the Genesis story, of all things put under our care, as is so beautifully shown all around us in these fabulous tapestries. But as we know, the Genesis story didn’t end happily, but with the fall.
Thomas Schreiner said: ‘Human beings were destined to rule the entire world for God. Everything was supposed to be under the rule and dominion of human beings, but sin intervened to frustrate this rule. The subsequent argument will clarify that death (which is due to sin) thwarts human dominion over the world. The glory designed for human beings has not become a reality in human history. Instead, human history is littered with the wreckage of destruction and death—a world gone mad.’
Jesus, who is and was greater than the angels, the Son of God, the third person of the Trinity who was present at the start of all things. But he became God with us, he was temporarily made lower than the angels, so that for us and for our sin he may taste death before being crowned with glory in heaven. Jesus understands the messiness of life, of relationship, of what it is to be human. He didn’t come to empower the already powerful but to be down in the dust with the weakest and most vulnerable.
When we have a messy, uncomfortable situation in our lives, our instinct is to run away, to try and pretend it has nothing to do with us, that it might go away on its own. It is stressful, awkward and often painful to keep moving through a difficult time and deal with it properly, rather than brushing things under the carpet. To own your mistakes. That’s what we’ve all been doing since Adam and Eve left the garden (they’re over there looking rather sorry for themselves.) But God sent Jesus to enter our mess, to be alongside us and to die so that our sins may be forgiven for the rest of time, and to invite us to where the angels are, into the Kingdom of God.
Life is messy, colourful, full of joy as well as pain, never straightforward and always changing. We are called to reach out to others only with love and acceptance, and to treat ourselves with that same love that we know God bestows on us. This passage isn’t a stick to beat yourself or others with, but a reminder to protect the vulnerable and live by God’s grace. We are left with that beautiful image of Jesus scooping children into his arms and blessing them, a poignant image when we reflect on children being killed in the escalation of violence in the middle East, or the little child who died in an attempted channel crossing yesterday. To human society, they are the lowest of the low, bottom of the heap; but to God they are like the angels.