Mark 10:2-16

Oct. 4th, 2009

Rev. Marlene W. Pomeroy

FCC Pasadena, UCC

It is interesting to see what groups and individuals pursue Jesus and what their reaction to him is. I'm very intrigued by the people who come to him with their questions. They are not little questions like, "How is the weather?" or "What are you wearing to the party on Friday night?" They are big questions like, "What do I do to inherit eternal life?"  "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" "Why do John the Baptist's disciples fast but yours do not?" "Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?" And today they ask, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"  In these questions the people seem to be either asking questions to confirm their suspicions of Jesus as someone who is a radical rabble rouser - healing on the Sabbath, observing fasting laws differently, forgiving sins; or they are trying to figure out what is the bare minimum of what they need to do to observe religious laws. The rich man wants to know how much of his "stuff" he has to part with.  The married man wants to know if he can divorce his wife and still stay in good graces with his religious tradition. These questions reveal a lot about the people themselves and over and over again their pettiness comes through in their questions.

Questions are important. They send messages and signals to people about what is acceptable. Think about the questions you heard growing up and how they shaped you. When I worked in rape and abuse prevention and education I learned how often a woman who had been sexually assaulted was further assaulted by the questions she got after the incident. Questions like, "Why were you walking in that dark street alone? Why were you wearing that outfit? Why didn't you yell for help?  What did you do to provoke him?" A series of questions like this could further devastate a person who had already gone through a traumatic episode. Same goes for folks who stepped outside the norms in other areas. "Why don't you marry your kind? Don't you know that God casts judgment on you for your unnatural passions?  Don't you know that girls don't do that? Why don't you act like a man?" Slowly but surely over time, these questions begin to shape the self-image of people - especially if they are asked by people close to the person or people who are in positions of authority.

And then along comes the person of Jesus, who is troubling. Troubling because he doesn't seem to follow the crowd. He doesn't follow some of the rules of his time, and people like what he is saying and seem to want to formulate their lives around his new ideas. He begins to threaten and trouble the status quo with his newfangled ideas. But when we look at what Jesus says and the things he questions, what exactly do we hear?

Jesus asks questions like:

• "Who do you say that I am?" to his followers.
• To the woman who had bled for many years, who gently touched the hem of his garment in a crowd, he asks," Who touched me?"
• When the crowd was hungry he asked, "How many loaves do you have?"
• To the blind man who wanted healing, he says, "Can you see anything?"
• After a long walk with his disciples he says, "What were you arguing about on the road?"
• And to the woman who anointed him while others criticized her waste of costly perfume, he says, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her?"

In every situation, through his questions he is seeking for people to have their deepest needs met. His questions aren't trying to catch people and nail them for some wrongdoing. They aren't divisive or judging. They are genuine questions that ask people what it is that they need and how he can help them get those needs met. His questions are life-giving questions that tell us who he is and what his agenda is. He uses his questions as in-roads into helping people.

What if we approached questions in that same manner? What if we stopped asking questions for curiosity and started asking them to help others. Instead of pigeon-holing people by finding out what work they do, we could turn the "What do you do for a living," into, "What inspires you in your daily life?" Instead of poking and prodding people about their ethnic or sexual background, why don't we ask what it is that they are proud of in their family background?  Instead of asking if someone is your wife or husband or spouse, what if we ask, "Do you have people to love and who love you in your life?" These kinds of questions lead us into deeper relationship instead of fact-checking someone's life. If our questions are meant to further deeper relationship, we need to be intentional about what it is that we are asking.

Today in our Bible reading, the Religious Pharisees want to know if they can divorce their wives. They hearken back to a Mosaic Law which said that they could. The Law stated originally in Deuteronomy 2:1-2 eventually went on to justify a man divorcing his wife for any reason!!  But when presented with the question, Jesus goes back even further in his tradition to the story of Creation where the original understanding of marriage is of two people who find companionship and cleave together; Jesus tells us that our God is a God who made us for relationship, not for separating when you just feel like it, or when someone displeases us.

Notice too that the two examples Jesus gives in our reading today are about women and children - two of the most vulnerable groups in society. He protects those who are vulnerable and says we ought to do the same. He doesn't give those in power a free pass to dismiss those who need protection and care.

What if we took these types of questions seriously and took them to the big corridors of power? What if we obtained seats at the tables of power and asked about how to care for the vulnerable instead of how to line our pockets with more wealth? I'm never certain when we are trying to pass state or national budgets if there is anyone at the table asking the questions I think Jesus would ask. What about the climate talks? Are there enough people at the table asking the tough questions about what we need to do to have a major impact on the global level? Who is asking why we are still in bed with oil companies instead of funding new green technology that is not dependent on oil? Who is asking the questions about why rich, famous people get a pass at justice when they have clearly broken the law? David Letterman and Roman Polanski come to mind at the moment.

Don't be surprised at what a well-placed question can accomplish. It can soothe someone, save someone and even invite us to consider a different perspective on an issue. Jesus came and showed us what it would look like to be in loving relationship with everyone from our closest friends to the needy person who can offer us nothing. He reminded us that God calls us to care about both those close friends and those strangers. He modeled for us a way of asking questions that got at the heart of the issue and raised the level of conversation to a deeper level.

If we are serious about using Jesus as our primary role model and embodiment of God, we would do well to emulate his line of questioning. You will notice that when you ask someone a question, rather than lecturing them with a statement, you also invite them to respond and take responsibility for their actions. It also requires you to listen to their answer, which is a critical component to asking questions. Jesus took the conversation to a higher level in his response on the occasion of divorce. May we choose to emulate his example so that our questions create life instead of encouraging further judgment and estrangement. Amen.