Peace and Foolishness

World Communion Sunday, 2018

Job 1:1, 2:1-10; Mark 10:2-16

Peace and Foolishness

A few years ago, I shared about the history of World Communion Sunday - that it was a time when the world was in a bit of turmoil after World War Two and the Shadyside Presbyterian church in Pittsburgh wanted to bring people together across denominational lines and across the borders of countries and seas. It seems that today we again seem to be in a similar situation, where we need to remember that we are not Presbyterian, Baptist, Catholic, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or Green, but that we are instead beloved children of God. It seems that we as a country have always sort of been in turmoil. From fighting the British for our Independence, to fighting Native Americans and the atrocities that went along with displacing millions of people, to the Civil War to the women’s suffrage movement, to the civil rights movement, to both world wars, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Even today we are living in a time of unrest and division.  A time when many women feel that they aren’t able to voice their opinions, or worse that they aren’t safe to be alone. Where men are starting to feel that they are unsafe to approach any women. A time that we still have much unrest around people with people of black and brown skin. With people who are trying to keep others out of our country, trying to say that certain people don’t deserve to have a voice in their life. Yet these weren’t the ideals on which America was founded.  We’ve idealized a country where everyone is welcome, everyone is equal. Unfortunately, we started out with a lot of inequality. Between the Native Americans being viewed as savages and needing to be removed, to indentured servants that started as Irish and Scottish immigrants, to the black slave trade, to women being told they couldn’t vote or have any right of their own, that all their property was their husbands, and that everything they did, they had to seek approval from their husbands. And this idea of women as second-class citizens is still promoted even in corners of the church - I had a Camp director who wouldn’t accept a paycheck because it wasn’t biblical for her to receive money. It wasn’t hers, it was her husbands.  We still have churches that misread and abuse scriptures to state that women should have limited roles in the church, that wives should be submissive to their husbands, that women are secondary to men.

Today’s readings are challenging - Jesus words on divorce and adultery don’t sit easily with us in a culture in which we have different understandings of marriage and divorce.  But if we consider the readings in their context and look more closely at them in general, I believe that Jesus words aren’t going so far as to give the kind of message that if you are in a horrible relationship, that you need to suck it up and stay in the relationship, or that divorce itself is inexcusable. Yes Jesus does point to Genesis as the basis for marriage, but Jesus also never explicitly prohibits divorce. Instead, he points to something deeper - to God’s intended order, which is that people would be in healthy partnered relationships. The word Jesus uses χωρίζω- to separate is different from αποστατιον - divorce, and so he moves the conversation from legal terms to terms of broken relationship, of the covenant that is formed between two people before God in marriage. Jesus wants all of us to be in relationship. But not just any relationship, one of trust, one of equality. Jesus is expanding the idea of the relationship past its current cultural boundaries, in which the least of these, the woman, has no voice in Jesus’ society, isn’t believed, isn’t listened to, is only considered for her worth as property and for bearing children.

I struggled with this sermon this week. Struggled with knowing that we have women who still feel like the divorced women in this scripture. Who simply want to get out because they feel that they aren’t safe, that it isn’t equal partnership, because they aren’ happy, because of abuse. We have women we are being hassled for standing up for violence against their bodies. Yet their voices are being silenced, because of fear of repercussions, fear of what people will do if they find out.  I saw a picture this week of a female pastor who was at the hearing of Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh and the pastor who was peacefully protesting, was arrested and she had her collar removed. Even clergy are at risk of being silenced. 

How am I supposed to speak of community and all of us coming together around the communion table when we are living in such a broken world? How am I to offer you community and life giving words when it seems that so many of us are silenced, are voiceless, are left to fight for ourselves. Today is world communion. A time we come together with people around the world to remember the hope of the cross. The day that we come to the table, the table that Jesus himself invites us to as the perfect lamb of God, as the High Priest to wash all of our sins away. And I think, perhaps there is good news this morning. In the midst of all the foolishness in our society today, and that is what it seems, foolishness. Today we are able to do something that will connect us back to Job. Now you are probably sitting here going, Job? Seriously we are talking about Job? Because that was my reaction when I realized I got to preach on Divorce and Job during world communion. Oh Common Lectionary do you have a sense of humor. 

Here is the thing though, how many of us have been in a similar position to Job? Ok, maybe not quite as bad as Job - but how many of us have been in these situations where the world seems to have fallen out underneath us? How many times have we felt the pressure of all those things just piling up on top of us? The paycheck is a bit short, your car is out of gas, your rent is due, you get ill, you have medical bills. It feels that you are never going to get out of the pit that you find yourself in. Yet, like Job, we refuse to give up in the midst of our trouble, even in the midst of what is going on in our world today, we don’t give up. We could, each and everyone of us, could just stay home, stay in bed, and never come out because, what is the point? There is no good in the world, nothing we do that we are able to make a difference in the world, so why would we bother leaving if we can’t make a difference. It would be better to just stay and never leave. 

But this is also where we find the ultimate hope that lies within these scriptures: we don’t have to sit and hide to do nothing.  We don’t have to feel that everything is hopeless.  We, like Job, can resist that call to “curse God and die.” With everything going on the world, we have a defense, we have something that we can do. Today with our brothers and sisters around the world, around our community, and around our nation we are able to come in this morning and we are able to lay these burdens down. We are able to lay down the pain, the anger, the feeling of powerlessness, and silence. All of it might be laid down at the table as we are able to come together as one in the body of Christ. It doesn’t matter if we are wealthy, if we are children, if we are starving or have a 4 course dinner waiting for us at home. It doesn’t matter if we have a job or are still searching for the perfect job or even still figuring out what that job might be one day. All of the anger and hurt, all of our brokenness are able to be laid aside. All are welcome at this table.  And all are offered the promises of Jesus Christ that it fully represents. 

Jesus wanted to emphasize the equality and the partnership of marriage and not the dominance of the male society that he lived in. He was giving voice to the women who didn’t have a voice. Just like we are here to give voice to the ones in our community who seem to be silent for so many different reasons. Job reminds us to give hope and praise even in the bad times. So this morning we are singing praise song after praise song so that we are able to lift our voices together to the one above who loves us and cares for us. How can I say that God loves us and care for us when it seems God has given up on all of us? Well, for the simple fact that this table tells me that God hasn’t given up on us. That God is still present in the world around us. When each and everyone of us are able to go out and be the voice and be in community with one another, then we are able to be like Christ to those around us. It is only once we stop being Christ to one another that Christ will stop being present in the world. When we stop telling the story and we give up hope, then there is no place for God. So will come this morning laying down your burden of what is holding up back from spreading the word to all the world? Will you be fed so that you might go out and share the message with all the world? Go out and be the voice to those who have no voice? Go out and share the burden of the voiceless and help them in any way that you are able to? Will you join in to make sure that every voice is raise to give God the praise, no matter how dark the times get? If so, come for the table tis ready, and the table is open to all. To God be the Glory. Amen.