God's Last Words

“THE PERFECTION OF GOD”

Mark 10: 2-16 (NRSV)

It’s better to marry than to stay single, a survey of 12,000 men aged 15-44, said. That was the finding of a recent study done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sixty-six percent of men agreed with the statement, “It is better to get married than go through life single,” compared with only 51 percent of women.

In addition in the same study 76 percent of men and 72 percent of women in a similar study agreed that “it is more important for a man to spend a lot of time with his family than be successful at his career.”

90 percent of the married men in the survey said they would marry the same woman if given a chance to do it again.

The study involved 12,000 men and women, ages 15-44.

A man who sold Christmas trees, noticed a couple hunting a Christmas tree. Both wore clothes from the bottom of the bin of the Salvation Army store.

After bypassing trees that were too expensive, they found a Scotch pine that was OK on one side but pretty bare on the other. Then they picked up another tree that was not much better — full on one side, scraggly on the other. She whispered something, and he asked if $3 would be OK. The man figured both trees wouldn’t sell, so he agreed.

A few days later he was walking down the street and saw a beautiful tree in a neighborhood window.  It was thick and well rounded. He knocked on their door, and they told him how they had pushed the trees together where the branches were thin and tied the trunks together. The branches overlapped and formed a tree so thick you couldn’t see the wire. He described it as “a tiny forest of its own.”

“So that’s the secret,” he said. “You take two trees that aren’t perfect, have flaws, might even be homely, but that maybe nobody else would want. If you put them together just right, you can come up with something really beautiful.” Marriage!

Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”He answered them, “What did Moses command you?”They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.”

But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

People where bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

What each of us needs to take away from these verses is not the negative, but rather the affirmative: God created this world in simple perfection; everything has a purpose, place, and natural order to it. Marriage was a gift given to humanity from an extremely loving God to balance men and women out.

Marriage is the ideal and an example of covenant that God would like to make with each of us. Not only would He like us to be loyal and committed to marriage with each other He would have us relate to Him in the same way.

This was and is what His relationship to Israel was all about. He would be their God and they would be His people, His children. Yet Jewish history is full of infidelity and adultery as the Jews embrace the gods of the peoples they find around themselves as a country. It’s why God seems harsh in the OT – He wants Israel pure in relationship.

It’s why Jesus called the church “the Bride of Christ.” Marriage is God ordained.

The perfection of God is often marred because, as Jesus puts it in verse 5, “the hardness of human hearts.” God, through Moses, allowed the Jews to divorce, not because God desires it, but because humanity could not live without it.

The Book of Ezra’s central theme surrounds giving second chances to people who have disobeyed God and screwed up their marriages and covenant with Him. Through offering repentance and sincere changes of heart God offers second chances even in the area of marriage. Because of this we know there is hope for people who divorce or who are divorced. It is not an unforgiveable sin.

But not for those who flaunt it!

That’s what we need to understand: God gives us a perfect goal yet knows we’ll never achieve it, so He makes allowances for that. Divorce is not an unpardonable sin but is still pretty serious. Some of the disciples would deal with the question of divorce in their writings. We have these guidelines as well. But nowhere is it a death sentence.

Either way, marriage is not to be taken lightly or ended easily. I often wonder which human sin causes Jesus the most grief: Divorce or abortion?

The Apostle Paul, who was probably the most difficult Christian of all time to get along with, said this about marriage to the Corinthians: If you have passion then get married, but you don’t have to be married to please God.

I think most marriages and relationships end because of immaturity, lack of personal responsibility, and hardness of heart. These are the human traits that drive our culture. (How  do you explain Charlie Sheen, Linsey Lohan, and Paris Hilton?)

Our culture is obsessed on avoiding responsibility and thus distressing our lives: think about it. When stress at work gets to be too much, many executives are finding new ways to escape. Instead of retreating to the beach, to the mountains, or to a golf outing, many adults are, well, acting like kids.

At California’s Camp Get Away, an adult can participate in sing-alongs, water balloon fights, kickball, eat s’mores around the campfire, and sneak out of the cabin at night to toilet paper the cars and cabins of other campers.

Some adults opt for the increasingly popular Rock ’n’ Roll Fantasy Camps or go to Baseball camps to meet and play with celebrities and professional athletes.

A woman named Helen Oseen founded “The Ultimate Pajama Party,” a camp where older women can don their pajamas, pillow fight, and sit on the bed and share confidences late into the night. Oseen began the camp when she realized she worked a lot and didn’t save time for play in her life.

Christopher Noxon calls this trend “re-juv-e-nil-ing” in his book Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-Up. A father of three in Los Angeles, Noxon said, “In a world where pressure and problems pile on nonstop, more grown-ups are seeking a vacation from their adult side.”

 

It shows in our ethics, morals, divorce rate, and aborted children.

Contrast this with Jesus’ call for each of us to “receive the kingdom of God as a little child.”

The world’s answer versus Jesus’ answer. Which will we choose?

Unlike “re-juv-e-niling” Jesus nurtures us to grow into Christian disciples who accept responsibility and strive to meet God’s commands and perfect order.  

This is how  hearts are softened from the desires of the flesh and how we learn to overcome sinful natures that pull us away from God everyday. We learn the responsibilities of the Kingdom.

Amen.