Category: Thoughts

This isn’t a post about marriage but about a time when Jesus was asked a question about marriage, that placed him between a rock and a hard place. (see Matthew 19:1-10)

To be more clear, this post is about a time when Jesus was asked a question about marriage and decided to deal with the thing behind the question about marriage.

In Matthew 19, Jesus opponents sought to test him by asking a question concerning a common debate among them:

“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

What a question!”For any and every reason?” Seriously? Try to answer a question where “any” and “every” are tied together.

This question was packed with serious heat. In the background of this question we have two schools of rabbinical thought that had argued about the topic of divorce for decades and the battle line seemed to be drawn in Deuteronomy 24:1, where Moses permits divorce for “anything indecent.” One school emphasized the “indecent” part of the passage, leaving marital unfaithfulness as the only acceptable reason for divorce while the other school emphasized the “anything” part of the ruling, allowing men to divorce their wives for things as menial as burning their meal.

So the question was tricky: “Who are you with Jesus? With the ‘indecent’  group or with the ‘anything’ group?”

The framing of the question left little room for actual discussion, but only just enough room for a quick vote of affiliation.

Therefore, wisely, Jesus moved the discussion “into a bigger room” by not trying to parse a particular passage in the law of Moses, but to a more radical (radical: think not of teenage angst but “root” where the word radical really comes from) vision of relationships: two people leave their families to journey on an adventure together and dwell as one person. Let’s talk about how we can stay together and not how, or if, we can plan to go our separate ways if we lose interest in our original commitment to one another.

Jesus’ opponents followed Jesus into that bigger room where they tested him again with another question. After all, they didn’t want to learn something but they wanted to engage in a game of rhetorical sword-fighting; everyone’s favorite pastime.

Their question was as follows:

“Why did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” (Matthew 19:7)

This is a fair question. Why did God allow Moses to permit a divorce if God was so adamant about couples not parting ways?

Jesus’ response might be a bit spooky for some of us to consider, because Jesus insinuates that the law given by Moses in Deuteronomy 24 was in response to how the Israelite community had developed up to that point. Moses’ law was binding for that time and it seemed to be helpful for the vulnerable women in their culture, a formal way of making restitution for broken relationships in that zip code when faced with their plight. Jesus’ hope was that a more native vision of marriage would be recovered and would replace the (now) unhelpful vision from Moses community.

After this, his disciples chimed in with what could be called the nihilist position,

“If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” (Matthew 19:10)

Jesus acknowledges that the marriage debate from above isn’t for everyone, including those who were born into or forced into situations where they cannot even have the option to choose to be married. And still others who choose to be exempt because of their religious commitments.

As I read through this passage, I couldn’t help but think about how I have heard recent “discussions” about our national security on the one side and the welcoming of refugees on the other. Yes, if Jesus (and those seeking to follow Jesus) is to be tested today, I can hear the question now:

“Is it lawful for us to deny foreign refugees or to give them safe harbor?”

And we can compare the above conversation between Jesus and his opponents about marriage to how some of our conversations about refugees have gone. For they seem to have the same thing behind their corresponding questions.

The conversation about refugees is trapped in tight spaces, like as tight as a phone booth, where people are forced to give quick and (if they’d admit it) underdeveloped answers to complex situations.

We may struggle to find easy answers to these complex questions. At the end of the day, that might be a good thing. Easy answers usually draw us away from reality and if we are drawn away from reality we are drawn away from the people who are shaped the most by real, hard situations.

May we have the same guts that Jesus displayed here in this passage; with care, with courage, and with patience, understanding that our presence might be more helpful than a Retweet or Facebook Share.

I’m preparing a talk for the weekend and wanted to post a bit about it. It will be some new material, so writing a bit about it helps to sort it out, a bit.

In Mark 5, Jesus and his friends are in a neighboring region called the Decapolis, the land of Tyre and Sidon, where foreigners lived and where (in their minds) bizarre religious practice dwelled.

They immediately encounter a man with many demons, who lives among the tombs, who cannot be bound by chains, who howls at the moon, and cuts himself with stones. Yikes! This guy is in some bad shape, right?

Through a brief and unusual interaction with Jesus, the man is freed from his plight and is seen as “in his right mind,” or as N.T. Wright’s Kingdom New Testament renders it, “stone-cold sober.” (v.15)

This man has received new life, or what we might call in Christian environments, “born again.” We can only imagine what possibilities lied ahead for him now that he was in his right mind.

The nearby residents didn’t like the way in which this miracle was conducted and what it cost them to have the local eye-sore set free, so they revoked Jesus’ visa and demanded that he leave the country.

As Jesus and his disciples prepared to leave, the man-formerly-known-as-the-tomb-dweller asked if he could join Jesus and his friends.

Jesus stiff-arms him. And tells him to,

“go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” (v.19)

The man did as Jesus asked and,

“all the people were amazed.” (v. 20)

We should be a bit struck, initially, at how Jesus resists this man coming aboard the boat and joining his band of disciples. The man was left by his own country people among the tombs and now has a reputation to be in league with Jesus of Nazareth, whom they just deported. What’s the chance that anyone would embrace him in community?

Wouldn’t it have been more kind of Jesus to allow him to climb in the boat, hang out with them for a while, until he got back on his feet?

It must have been a challenging call for Jesus to make. He was potentially asking this guy to go back to an impossible situation.

But, part of our development sociologically and psychologically is to experience a gap, even from those who we look up to and admire. As early as 18 months to 2 years old, our primary caregivers set this pattern within us and we recognize it for the first time: we are not them nor does their whole world revolve around us.

This “stiff-arm” is important, for it helps us to develop a sense of self and a way to engage the world in a more healthy way. The man from among the tombs experienced both this lack and the blessing from it, for he was able to face the uncertain world with confidence and maturity.

Jesus returns to that same region later in Mark’s gospel and the residents of that land embraced Jesus instead of rejecting him. (see Mark 7:31-8:10) Perhaps it was the direct work of this one man, formerly the eye-sore-of-the-community-turned-messenger, who helped to pave the way for that great work.

Yeah, I guess I’ll go there, mainly because we’ve all heard about it. If you have not, here’s a post that has links to a representative from Starbucks and the link to Joshua Feuerstein’s original video. There are some conspiracy theories out there, trying to make light of it. Along the way, it seems like people have just chalked it up to a media frenzy and have stayed rather indifferent by it.

Feuerstein is unmoved and thinks that this “campaign” has caused Starbucks to think twice:

“I think Starbucks has gotten the message that the Christian majority in this country has awakened and are demanding that our voice be heard.”

The Christian majority has “awakened,” because of a red Starbucks cup? Really?

Feuerstein’s protest is already hijacked, though. Here is the logic:

• Starbucks sells coffee; a lot of coffee.
• Feuerstein wants to confront Starbucks by having people go buy coffee and insist that their name is “Merry Christmas” and by doing so “tricking” Starbucks into saying Merry Christmas.
• Starbucks makes the same money no matter what name is on the red cup and is enjoying the outcry of disappointed people continuing to buy their coffee so the customer can put a picture up on Instagram where most of his/her followers already agree with their political/religious/consumer choices.

Don’t mind us, watching world, for nothing is really changing, here.

Feuerstein’s “religious expression” is occupied by consumerism. To play his game, you need to spend your money. Here is the irony: Christians are bemoaning about how Christmas has been reduced to consumerism in recent days. Joshua is asking people to consume more for the sake of Christmas.

I guess that I’m not surprised that this is awakening much of anything.

A couple of books were released a few years back examining the way a culture moves from point A to point B. Each of them compelling in their own right:

Andy Crouch’s Culture Making

James Davidson Hunter’s To Change the World

Each of these illustrate just how difficult and complex it is to predict when seismic culture change happens and how one might even suggest that they can “start a movement,” as Feuerstein suggests this could do in his video.

All of us, yes even those who take home videos with smart phones, are a small part in the complex connection of gears that move our cultures forward. To suggest that a video and words on a cup can be the pivot of change is a bit strange to imagine. This may “lionize” Feuerstein’s congregation or friends list, it might get him some air time on the media for a week, but it certainly doesn’t appear to be changing much.

I hope that Joshua starts using his name on his cup soon. Mainly because, it’s a good name. A name that his parents chose out of the list of possibilities when they lifted him in the air when he was born. And, to be honest, giving energy to building lives in our families and communities seems to have a more lasting impression than much of anything else these days.