The Interpretation and Performance of Sacred Texts
(*Scripture is not "Scripture" until the faith community interprets and perform them in Christian Practices).
New Testament Lesson for the Day: Hebrews 1.1-4; 2.5-12
Gospel Lesson for the Day: Mark 10.2-16
8 Oct 06
If your family was dysfunctional you have a chance to make another one up. The church is such a place for that to happen.
If you do not learn from your suffering, it is just so much meaningless pain. You can grow older, but not wiser. The church is where you are put to school in your suffering, because here, at least, you can dare to look at pain and the bigger picture things, and through Christ, the Comfort of the Holy Spirit, and each other, you may attain healing.
These two texts which are presented to us today are not an easy road...but the significant ones never are.
The book of Hebrews, this anonymously authored book, somewhere between 68-96 AD, was written as both: (a) encouragement (Christ is all sufficient for Salvation, "Once and for all time.") and (b) as a warning ("Keep running, with perseverance, the race that is set before us"...for "Jesus is the pioneer, forerunner and perfecter of our faith.")...Two opposite themes, side-by-side...an "Already" and a "Not Yet."
Written in between two great persecutions, from the time of the Emperor Nero (54-68) and no later than the next, with Domitian, (81-96), this was a period of in-between-the times, (as all theological time is)...a special time of WAITING, much like our time today.
What do we do in the meantime (and you can do much) while WAITING? In Hebrews are these repeated warnings about despair, dislocation, discouragement and sliding back into the familiar old territories. The waiting time is one of learning from these sufferings, to become the New People of God. During this "in between time," this time of "waiting," the people on the move, those who early on were described as being on "the Way," have no visible security except the promise of God. God is defined in Hebrews as "the promising one." The word faith occurs more in Hebrews than in any other New Testament writings (32 times, 24 in chapter 11 alone, the "faith chapter."). And faith in Hebrews means steadfastness and perseverance; it is synonymous with endurance and trust, "standing and running on the Promises," so that you may not become "sluggish." Or as in the times of the Exodus, do not develop "hardened hearts." And Jesus, in Hebrews, is depicted is all too human. The simple name "Jesus" appears often. He did and, therefore, we must, live in this world, as "if in a foreign land," "amidst loud cries and tears." For Jesus, the pioneer of our faith, "was heard in his fear." Living through the suffering carries a promise of an eternal blessing.
In Mark, the text covers the difficult topic of Divorce. The teachings of Jesus, along with the debates and deliberations in the early New Testament Church, about difficult topics like this, must be addressed always within the context of Jewish-Christian understandings of the day. To be responsible in the interpretation and application-performance of biblical texts, as we reflect together, we must be keenly alert to sound principles of interpretation which all reasonable people within the church, over the years, have found to be helpful. We need the involvement in these questions from the "whole church" --- including the church's scholars, and the church's faithful followers or "students" (disciples).
Guided by this spirit, we need, also, to look at the parallel texts in Matthew, and Luke, as well as the variant readings in the footnotes, as guidance on this troubling topic.
Matthew (5.31-32; 19.9) and Luke (16.18) are an account of Jesus protesting about the social injustice of how women were treated. At the time, and in that culture, only the men could initiate divorce, based on Deuteronomy 24.1, and for such trivial reasons as "burning the bread" or if the women was, of all things, caught "spinning in the streets." A divorce meant the woman was turned out to a life of destitution.
In Mark, a Gentile audience, it is assumed that "anyone" or both men and women could initiate divorce.
But we need to watch how the question is presented, and understand the context, to determine, first of all, "what this text was most likely to have meant back then."
This is a politically dangerous question. Jesus was being drawn into an existing debate of the time between the rabbinic schools of Hillel and Shammai. Answering this question properly meant life or death, as when Jesus was asked about whether taxes ought to be paid to Caesar.
The most probable setting for this debate was in Mark's church, remembering what happened to John the Baptist --- He was beheaded --- for being critical of Herod Antipas and the divorce of Herodias in order then, to marry this ruler. So the question: Is it alright for the ordinary person to do merely what is already acceptable by royalty?
Jesus rejects the scriptural arguments of the Hebrew tradition, stating they were because of "hardness of the heart" and he moves beyond them to consider what was God's original intent for men and women. He raised the conversation to another level.
There were elaborate technicalities at the time as to what accounted for "adultery." Jesus bypasses these questions altogether. And Jesus even argues with scripture, argues with God, it would seem, about some higher intent of the Creator and for the sake of the creation.
The father of Herod Antipas, Herod the Great (37-4 BC), the ruler in whose time Jesus was born, had married a certain "Mary" (Mariamne) from the family of the Hasmonians, or the Maccabees, the past heroes of Israel. Herod accused her falsely of adultery and had her executed in 35 BC. Since that time, throughout Palestine, out of protest, peasant parents named their children "Mary."
And it was within the context of this protest that "Mary" was chosen to be the Mother of our Lord.
Around this difficult topic, and acting responsibly regarding the text, we must raise the level of conversation in our culture today. People will not abide simplistic answers to complex problems; neither did Jesus and neither should we.
And as church, and for the sake of dealing with urgent and difficult matters, "this place is about as safe as it is going to get."
Back to the Archive