360 review
Commentary
Object:
The logic is simple: you understand a thing better if you are able to see it from all sides. When the subject in question is a physical object, that literally means looking at all of the different sides, like orbiting the dark side of the moon. When the subject in question is an intangible, however -- like a question, a controversy, or an idea -- we also do well to try to see it from all sides. That’s our reasoning for soliciting other people’s perspectives: to see and understand the whole thing better.
Perhaps the same approach can be taken with people.
Supervisors and managers know the scheme. It’s variously referred to by human resources folks as a 360 review or 360 feedback or 360 assessment. The “360” part is obviously the key, and it refers to the degrees in a full circle. The idea is that this particular method of employee review deliberately endeavors to see the employee from all sides. Accordingly, it’s not just the immediate supervisor who contributes to the review. Rather, feedback is sought from coworkers, reporting staff, and perhaps even customers where appropriate.
Not all employees are equally enthusiastic about the 360 method, of course, but everyone in your congregations and mine will be invited to embrace it this Sunday. It is not any of us who is being reviewed, however; it is Jesus. We want to utilize our two New Testament passages to perform a kind of 360-degree look at him. That is to say, we want to see Jesus from all sides. And the selections from Mark and Hebrews combine to help us get that kind of all-around perspective.
In the case of Jesus, of course, the relationships are not with supervisors, coworkers, and customers. Instead, we get to see and understand him amidst a different constellation of relationships. The writers of the gospel and the epistle combine to show us Jesus in contact with and in relation to a remarkable spectrum of personages. I use the term broadly, for we must include not just a variety of human beings but also angels and God himself.
That is the broad and excellent scope of our endeavor this week. As the Greeks on Palm Sunday and the hymn writer said, “We would see Jesus.” And we will employ a kind of 360 method for doing it.
Job 1:1; 2:1-10
When reading scripture, we ought to keep in mind a distinction between factual and true. The former are those stories that are historical -- they really occurred in time and space. The latter are those stories that may not have occurred, but that still convey a truth. The story of Peter and Cornelius, for example, is presented in scripture as factual. The story of the Good Samaritan, meanwhile, is presented as true.
There’s an irony in this distinction, of course. The factual stories are those that occurred once. The true stories are those that occur again and again.
The story of Job is a true story. It has some characteristics that make me doubt its factual historicity. But even if this story never happened, the reality is that it happens again and again.
Years ago, a seminary professor of mine lightheartedly noted that as soon as the Bible says Job was blameless, we know that it is not a factual report. That, plus the inexplicable insight into the heavenly council, the improbable wager between God and Satan, and the poetic nature of the dialogue all suggest a story that has been composed. But it is composed with a purpose: to explore the real-life experience of a righteous person of faith who experiences undeserved suffering.
Satan is prominent in our passage. While we may use other terms interchangeably with “Satan” -- the devil, the serpent, the tempter, the enemy, the evil one, Beelzebub -- the word itself is rather rare in the Old Testament. It appears just 19 times in the entire Old Testament, and 14 of those occurrences are in the first two chapters of Job.
“Satan” is more title than name. The word means adversary or accuser, and it appears in the text with the definite article. It would be true to the original, underlying Hebrew therefore to render these phrases as “the accuser also came among them” or “the Lord said to the adversary.” This is perhaps an important detail for the reader to keep in mind while journeying through the book of Job. At times, you see, Job feels and speaks as though God is his enemy, but from this very start we note that that is a misunderstanding. There is another, different adversary.
The selected passage for this week, of course, is only part of Job’s story. The earlier section offered details to illustrate his righteousness. It also introduced a prior encounter between Satan and the Lord. And it reported a series of tragedies and losses suffered by Job that did not touch his body. Our section picks up, then, where the earlier calamities left off. The Lord is still impressed by Job’s faithfulness, but Satan remains unconvinced. We like to say “If you’ve got your health, you have everything,” and that seems to be the nature of Satan’s reasoning as well. He contends that when Job experiences personal, physical suffering, his faithfulness to God will disappear.
This element of the story will ring poignant and true for many of the folks in our pews. Physical sickness and pain is a unique challenge to our character. And it can also be devastating to our confidence in and relationship with God. Anyone who is unsympathetic with the words and feelings of Job in the succeeding chapters has probably enjoyed wonderful physical health.
Satan’s challenge to God -- “stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh” -- is an ironic one within the larger context of scripture. In the creation story, it is God who lovingly and creatively forms that flesh and bone to begin with. In the gospels, we see Jesus stretching out his hand time and again to heal and restore flesh and bone. And in the end, God promises to raise up incorruptible our death-infected flesh and bones. Job’s maladies do not come from God’s touch.
Finally, the role of Job’s wife in the story is brief and strange. Except for the recent physical maladies she has suffered as much as Job, yet she is presented as a kind of bystander to his suffering -- an observer with advice, much like the male friends that follow. Her advice is more unorthodox, however, than Job’s later visitors. If, as we suggested above, this is a composed story rather than an historical account, we might hypothesize that the author presents her as a counterpart to the men. While they generally call upon him to humble himself and repent of his (assumed) sins, she encourages him to “curse God and die.” We see Job more clearly in contrast to both of these positions -- he insists that he does not need to repent and he refuses to curse God and die. Instead, for the next three dozen chapters he chooses to question, challenge, and call out to God, and live.
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
I recently offered the folks in my church a short-term study of church history. After considering the apostolic age reflected in the New Testament, we turned our attention to the second through the fourth centuries. This was the era, you recall, when internal and external factors combined to force the church to define orthodoxy. And as the early creeds reflect, the chief issue was Christology. What exactly do we believe about Jesus?
What was settled by the church centuries ago, however, keeps needing to be settled in one individual heart and mind at a time. Chances are that the Christology in your congregation and mine is not uniform. And some of it may not even be biblical.
This week’s New Testament lection provides us with an excellent opportunity to explore the Christology of the early church. At first blush, that may seem like a dry assignment. In reality, however, it is the heart of the gospel message. It is truth, life, and salvation. So let us mine these verses from Hebrews for what they affirm about Jesus.
We can construe the Christology of this passage in terms of four relationships. First, there is Jesus’ relationship to God and to the ongoing work of God. Second, the writer notes Jesus’ relationship to “all things.” Third, we see Jesus in relation to us and our sins. And finally, there is consideration of the relationship between Jesus and the angels.
The juxtaposition of Jesus and angels is perhaps not as meaningful to us as it was to members of the original audience. For us, angels have been largely domesticated -- no ancient Jew would have been inclined to apply the term “angelic” to children, as we sometimes do. And our theology of angels is generally less developed than was that of the apostolic age. In that world, angels were variously credited with having a role in creation, being mediators of the law, having ruling authority over individual nations, being ministering and fiery spirits, and being “sons of God” (Craig Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, Second Edition [IVP Academic, 2014], pp. 640-642). It was against the backdrop of that consciousness and high view of angelic spirits, then, that the writer explains how Jesus us superior to them.
Meanwhile, looking beyond just the angels, the writer also makes this astonishingly comprehensive statement: Jesus is the “appointed heir of all things, through whom (God) also created the world... and he sustains all things by his powerful word.” The paradigm is reminiscent of Paul’s word in Colossians 1:15-20. In our day, it is easy to lose sight of this reality, for we let Jesus become the subject of debates. Within the Christian world, we play tug-of-war with him. And within the larger, pluralistic society, we allow ourselves to believe that he is a sectarian concern. But the writer of Hebrews widens the lens to show us the bigger picture and to remind us who he really is.
At the same time, the passage also hits nearer to home, capturing the nature of Jesus’ relationship to us. Our consideration of this part of Christology could righty become a study of soteriology, for that is at the heart of his relationship to us: the pioneer of our salvation. He “made purification for our sins,” “taste(d) death for everyone,” “bring(s) many children to glory,” and calls us brothers and sisters.
Finally -- and most significantly -- the author of Hebrews offers us insight into Jesus’ relationship to God and God’s plan. He is Son of God, appointed by God, reflection of God, imprint of God, at the right hand of God. It is a profound litany of the person of Christ. Meanwhile, the work of Christ is revealed in the soteriology of the passage (see above). And we sense, too, that Christ is central to the beginning of God’s work (“through whom he created the worlds”).
Mark 10:2-16
It seems to me that one of the hallmarks of a great leader is the ability always to be able to see the way things ought to be. That’s an easy thing to lose sight of, you know. We get so bogged down in the immediate detail that we miss the larger picture. We are so encumbered by what is that we lose touch with what ought to be. But a great leader is able to lift his or her sights above the present reality, see the way things ought to be, and then effectively cast that vision for the others around.
This episode from Mark’s gospel is an illustration of Jesus’ great leadership.
The present reality -- whether in Moses’ day, Jesus’ day, or ours -- is that marriage is hard. Fallen humanity is selfish, and marriage chafes our selfishness. It forces us either into a place of humility and selfless love or into a place of interpersonal struggle and bitterness. The latter is such an unpleasant place to be that people naturally want to get out of it. Hence, divorce.
In light of that present reality, according to Jesus, Moses gave his people a wide berth. He lost sight of the way things ought to be, conceding instead to easy divorces. And the Pharisees, for whom Moses was the ultimate human authority, use his liberality to challenge Jesus.
But Jesus sees beyond the way things are and tend to be. He looks above the average to see the best. And he looks back to the Garden of Eden -- to God’s perfect, original creation -- to recapture a picture of the way things ought to be.
Design suggests will, you see. To go back to the beginning and recognize God’s design, therefore, is to understand his will. And the will of God represents the way things ought to be. The godly leader, therefore, will always keep the will of God in view.
In the first scene, then, Moses and the Pharisees do not see clearly, and Jesus needs to correct their vision. Then in the second scene, it is the disciples who do not see clearly, and Jesus needs to correct them as well. This time, interestingly, the subject is not marriage but children.
Evidently there were parents who were bringing their small children to Jesus. It is a lovely scene, which we have seen portrayed in many paintings and posters. And it is a lovely instinct too, which we should always cultivate and encourage within the young parents of our own congregations.
The disciples, however, “spoke sternly to them.” The reason for the disciples’ reaction is not given, and so we are left to speculate. It seems most likely to me that the disciples had some paradigm of which things or people were important and which were not. Protective of Jesus’ time, therefore, perhaps they were trying to triage out the things and people who were not important. And that must have meant not wasting time on children.
It’s easy for us to feel condescending toward the disciples at this point. We see clearly in the rear-view mirror how important to Jesus children were, and we think the disciples were a bit thick not to have perceived it. Before we pass a hasty judgment, however, we must pause to consider the people we have ignored or dismissed along the way. Chances are, they were important to Jesus.
And that brings us, finally, to the fact that this is not the only time that the disciples responded to a group or a situation differently than Jesus. They wanted to send the crowds away, while Jesus wanted to feed them. They were impressed by the large givers, while Jesus was impressed by the poor widow. They panicked in the boat, while he slept. They slept in the garden, while he prayed. The list goes on. And so too here. The children that the disciples are eager to dismiss, Jesus is eager to bless. The recurring disparity between Jesus and his followers is striking, and it should perhaps be a bit unsettling to us.
Application
The writer of the letter to the Hebrews offers a 360° review almost singlehandedly. As we explored above, his selected passage gives us a sense for Jesus in relation to the angels, to us, to our sins, to “all things,” and to God and his ongoing work. That is a thorough view, indeed, and we gave each aspect of it consideration above.
The gospel writer Mark, meanwhile, finds a few more angles to share. He shows us Jesus in relation to the Pharisees, the disciples, and some children. And somewhat less obviously, he also shows us Jesus in relation to Moses.
Jesus’ relationship to the Pharisees is generally thought of as a hostile one. Interestingly, though, we see time and again that Jesus does not respond in kind. They approach him with antagonism and challenges, but he responds by trying to instruct and correct them. There is no condemnation here: Jesus simply endeavors to set the record -- and the people -- straight.
Meanwhile, the very fact that Jesus assumes the position of one who can instruct and correct the Pharisees is, in its original context, a certain kind of scandal. It was the Pharisees who were regarded as the ones who instructed and corrected. They were the paragons of virtue. They were the ones whose lives embodied a profound understanding of God’s law and will. Yet here Jesus has to adjust and expand their understanding.
Jesus’ relation to Moses is less overt in the passage since Moses himself is not present in the scene. Still, Moses is central to the episode and the dialogue, for he is the authority cited. The noteworthy shift that occurs in that context, however, is that Jesus presents himself as the authority who is authorized to comment on -- and even correct -- Moses himself.
Finally, it is the picture of Jesus and the children that is the most cherished of the set. You and I are grownups now by conventional measures, yet we sense that in our relationship with God we are always children. And we treasure the sweetness of that communion with him.
I remember a literature professor explaining to me years ago how slow Western culture was to prize children in literature and art. They are largely ignored, or portrayed simply as mini-adults. But scripture was way ahead of culture, for children are highly prized in the Bible. Indeed, one senses in the teachings of Jesus that they are even favored.
Of course, in the behavior of the disciples we see the tendency to undervalue children: to function with a different standard of importance. Yet the Lord continually challenges our misunderstandings. From his incarnation to his foot-washing to his crucifixion, from his teachings about greatness to his embrace of the children, he turns conventional wisdom and worldly standards upside-down. For “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27 NRSV).
Alternative Application
Mark 10:2-16. “The God Who Hates Divorce” My suggested title comes from Malachi (2:16), not from any of our selected passages. It suffices to capture a larger scriptural truth, however. Namely, that God is not in favor of divorce.
That seems like a hard word in our culture, of course, where divorce is so common. When you and I stand up to preach this Sunday, we’ll be preaching to a great many people who are divorced, and a number of those will have since remarried, making this week’s gospel lection awkward reading for us. In addition, there will be another percentage of folks whose very existence is dependent upon divorce, inasmuch as they were born from a second or later marriage. And then on top of that, there is that unknown number of folks who are not divorced but who think about it.
That, meanwhile, brings us to a frightening need. For many years, we have shorthanded the phenomenon of divorce in our culture by saying that the divorce rate is 50 percent. That is imprecise, of course, but it at least gives us a ballpark sense of the scope. Do we presume, however, that the other half of marriages are happy and full of bliss? You and I know better. If roughly half of marriages end in divorce, then, and not all of those who stay married are happy and satisfied, that suggests a tremendous volume of unhappy marriages in our culture.
It is in exactly that sad context, then, that we need to hear a reminder of God and divorce. Not because we want to spread condemnation and guilty feelings. But precisely for the same reason that Jesus’ teaching in the first part of Mark 10 is so important.
Jesus was able to look beyond the present reality and see the way things ought to be -- the way God designed and intended them to be. And our culture, of course, has no sense for that. We have thrown off God’s rules and standards, and whenever we do we lose Eden. We have lost sight and understanding of the good and perfect thing God has in mind for husband and wife.
That is good news, not bad news. It is exceedingly relevant. And it is badly needed. So if we have the courage to read Mark 10 out loud to our people this Sunday, let us take our cue from Jesus and preach the happy truth: namely, how God wanted it to be in the beginning. For the irony is that what he intended is exactly what we keep struggling to find: true and lasting love.
Perhaps the same approach can be taken with people.
Supervisors and managers know the scheme. It’s variously referred to by human resources folks as a 360 review or 360 feedback or 360 assessment. The “360” part is obviously the key, and it refers to the degrees in a full circle. The idea is that this particular method of employee review deliberately endeavors to see the employee from all sides. Accordingly, it’s not just the immediate supervisor who contributes to the review. Rather, feedback is sought from coworkers, reporting staff, and perhaps even customers where appropriate.
Not all employees are equally enthusiastic about the 360 method, of course, but everyone in your congregations and mine will be invited to embrace it this Sunday. It is not any of us who is being reviewed, however; it is Jesus. We want to utilize our two New Testament passages to perform a kind of 360-degree look at him. That is to say, we want to see Jesus from all sides. And the selections from Mark and Hebrews combine to help us get that kind of all-around perspective.
In the case of Jesus, of course, the relationships are not with supervisors, coworkers, and customers. Instead, we get to see and understand him amidst a different constellation of relationships. The writers of the gospel and the epistle combine to show us Jesus in contact with and in relation to a remarkable spectrum of personages. I use the term broadly, for we must include not just a variety of human beings but also angels and God himself.
That is the broad and excellent scope of our endeavor this week. As the Greeks on Palm Sunday and the hymn writer said, “We would see Jesus.” And we will employ a kind of 360 method for doing it.
Job 1:1; 2:1-10
When reading scripture, we ought to keep in mind a distinction between factual and true. The former are those stories that are historical -- they really occurred in time and space. The latter are those stories that may not have occurred, but that still convey a truth. The story of Peter and Cornelius, for example, is presented in scripture as factual. The story of the Good Samaritan, meanwhile, is presented as true.
There’s an irony in this distinction, of course. The factual stories are those that occurred once. The true stories are those that occur again and again.
The story of Job is a true story. It has some characteristics that make me doubt its factual historicity. But even if this story never happened, the reality is that it happens again and again.
Years ago, a seminary professor of mine lightheartedly noted that as soon as the Bible says Job was blameless, we know that it is not a factual report. That, plus the inexplicable insight into the heavenly council, the improbable wager between God and Satan, and the poetic nature of the dialogue all suggest a story that has been composed. But it is composed with a purpose: to explore the real-life experience of a righteous person of faith who experiences undeserved suffering.
Satan is prominent in our passage. While we may use other terms interchangeably with “Satan” -- the devil, the serpent, the tempter, the enemy, the evil one, Beelzebub -- the word itself is rather rare in the Old Testament. It appears just 19 times in the entire Old Testament, and 14 of those occurrences are in the first two chapters of Job.
“Satan” is more title than name. The word means adversary or accuser, and it appears in the text with the definite article. It would be true to the original, underlying Hebrew therefore to render these phrases as “the accuser also came among them” or “the Lord said to the adversary.” This is perhaps an important detail for the reader to keep in mind while journeying through the book of Job. At times, you see, Job feels and speaks as though God is his enemy, but from this very start we note that that is a misunderstanding. There is another, different adversary.
The selected passage for this week, of course, is only part of Job’s story. The earlier section offered details to illustrate his righteousness. It also introduced a prior encounter between Satan and the Lord. And it reported a series of tragedies and losses suffered by Job that did not touch his body. Our section picks up, then, where the earlier calamities left off. The Lord is still impressed by Job’s faithfulness, but Satan remains unconvinced. We like to say “If you’ve got your health, you have everything,” and that seems to be the nature of Satan’s reasoning as well. He contends that when Job experiences personal, physical suffering, his faithfulness to God will disappear.
This element of the story will ring poignant and true for many of the folks in our pews. Physical sickness and pain is a unique challenge to our character. And it can also be devastating to our confidence in and relationship with God. Anyone who is unsympathetic with the words and feelings of Job in the succeeding chapters has probably enjoyed wonderful physical health.
Satan’s challenge to God -- “stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh” -- is an ironic one within the larger context of scripture. In the creation story, it is God who lovingly and creatively forms that flesh and bone to begin with. In the gospels, we see Jesus stretching out his hand time and again to heal and restore flesh and bone. And in the end, God promises to raise up incorruptible our death-infected flesh and bones. Job’s maladies do not come from God’s touch.
Finally, the role of Job’s wife in the story is brief and strange. Except for the recent physical maladies she has suffered as much as Job, yet she is presented as a kind of bystander to his suffering -- an observer with advice, much like the male friends that follow. Her advice is more unorthodox, however, than Job’s later visitors. If, as we suggested above, this is a composed story rather than an historical account, we might hypothesize that the author presents her as a counterpart to the men. While they generally call upon him to humble himself and repent of his (assumed) sins, she encourages him to “curse God and die.” We see Job more clearly in contrast to both of these positions -- he insists that he does not need to repent and he refuses to curse God and die. Instead, for the next three dozen chapters he chooses to question, challenge, and call out to God, and live.
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
I recently offered the folks in my church a short-term study of church history. After considering the apostolic age reflected in the New Testament, we turned our attention to the second through the fourth centuries. This was the era, you recall, when internal and external factors combined to force the church to define orthodoxy. And as the early creeds reflect, the chief issue was Christology. What exactly do we believe about Jesus?
What was settled by the church centuries ago, however, keeps needing to be settled in one individual heart and mind at a time. Chances are that the Christology in your congregation and mine is not uniform. And some of it may not even be biblical.
This week’s New Testament lection provides us with an excellent opportunity to explore the Christology of the early church. At first blush, that may seem like a dry assignment. In reality, however, it is the heart of the gospel message. It is truth, life, and salvation. So let us mine these verses from Hebrews for what they affirm about Jesus.
We can construe the Christology of this passage in terms of four relationships. First, there is Jesus’ relationship to God and to the ongoing work of God. Second, the writer notes Jesus’ relationship to “all things.” Third, we see Jesus in relation to us and our sins. And finally, there is consideration of the relationship between Jesus and the angels.
The juxtaposition of Jesus and angels is perhaps not as meaningful to us as it was to members of the original audience. For us, angels have been largely domesticated -- no ancient Jew would have been inclined to apply the term “angelic” to children, as we sometimes do. And our theology of angels is generally less developed than was that of the apostolic age. In that world, angels were variously credited with having a role in creation, being mediators of the law, having ruling authority over individual nations, being ministering and fiery spirits, and being “sons of God” (Craig Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, Second Edition [IVP Academic, 2014], pp. 640-642). It was against the backdrop of that consciousness and high view of angelic spirits, then, that the writer explains how Jesus us superior to them.
Meanwhile, looking beyond just the angels, the writer also makes this astonishingly comprehensive statement: Jesus is the “appointed heir of all things, through whom (God) also created the world... and he sustains all things by his powerful word.” The paradigm is reminiscent of Paul’s word in Colossians 1:15-20. In our day, it is easy to lose sight of this reality, for we let Jesus become the subject of debates. Within the Christian world, we play tug-of-war with him. And within the larger, pluralistic society, we allow ourselves to believe that he is a sectarian concern. But the writer of Hebrews widens the lens to show us the bigger picture and to remind us who he really is.
At the same time, the passage also hits nearer to home, capturing the nature of Jesus’ relationship to us. Our consideration of this part of Christology could righty become a study of soteriology, for that is at the heart of his relationship to us: the pioneer of our salvation. He “made purification for our sins,” “taste(d) death for everyone,” “bring(s) many children to glory,” and calls us brothers and sisters.
Finally -- and most significantly -- the author of Hebrews offers us insight into Jesus’ relationship to God and God’s plan. He is Son of God, appointed by God, reflection of God, imprint of God, at the right hand of God. It is a profound litany of the person of Christ. Meanwhile, the work of Christ is revealed in the soteriology of the passage (see above). And we sense, too, that Christ is central to the beginning of God’s work (“through whom he created the worlds”).
Mark 10:2-16
It seems to me that one of the hallmarks of a great leader is the ability always to be able to see the way things ought to be. That’s an easy thing to lose sight of, you know. We get so bogged down in the immediate detail that we miss the larger picture. We are so encumbered by what is that we lose touch with what ought to be. But a great leader is able to lift his or her sights above the present reality, see the way things ought to be, and then effectively cast that vision for the others around.
This episode from Mark’s gospel is an illustration of Jesus’ great leadership.
The present reality -- whether in Moses’ day, Jesus’ day, or ours -- is that marriage is hard. Fallen humanity is selfish, and marriage chafes our selfishness. It forces us either into a place of humility and selfless love or into a place of interpersonal struggle and bitterness. The latter is such an unpleasant place to be that people naturally want to get out of it. Hence, divorce.
In light of that present reality, according to Jesus, Moses gave his people a wide berth. He lost sight of the way things ought to be, conceding instead to easy divorces. And the Pharisees, for whom Moses was the ultimate human authority, use his liberality to challenge Jesus.
But Jesus sees beyond the way things are and tend to be. He looks above the average to see the best. And he looks back to the Garden of Eden -- to God’s perfect, original creation -- to recapture a picture of the way things ought to be.
Design suggests will, you see. To go back to the beginning and recognize God’s design, therefore, is to understand his will. And the will of God represents the way things ought to be. The godly leader, therefore, will always keep the will of God in view.
In the first scene, then, Moses and the Pharisees do not see clearly, and Jesus needs to correct their vision. Then in the second scene, it is the disciples who do not see clearly, and Jesus needs to correct them as well. This time, interestingly, the subject is not marriage but children.
Evidently there were parents who were bringing their small children to Jesus. It is a lovely scene, which we have seen portrayed in many paintings and posters. And it is a lovely instinct too, which we should always cultivate and encourage within the young parents of our own congregations.
The disciples, however, “spoke sternly to them.” The reason for the disciples’ reaction is not given, and so we are left to speculate. It seems most likely to me that the disciples had some paradigm of which things or people were important and which were not. Protective of Jesus’ time, therefore, perhaps they were trying to triage out the things and people who were not important. And that must have meant not wasting time on children.
It’s easy for us to feel condescending toward the disciples at this point. We see clearly in the rear-view mirror how important to Jesus children were, and we think the disciples were a bit thick not to have perceived it. Before we pass a hasty judgment, however, we must pause to consider the people we have ignored or dismissed along the way. Chances are, they were important to Jesus.
And that brings us, finally, to the fact that this is not the only time that the disciples responded to a group or a situation differently than Jesus. They wanted to send the crowds away, while Jesus wanted to feed them. They were impressed by the large givers, while Jesus was impressed by the poor widow. They panicked in the boat, while he slept. They slept in the garden, while he prayed. The list goes on. And so too here. The children that the disciples are eager to dismiss, Jesus is eager to bless. The recurring disparity between Jesus and his followers is striking, and it should perhaps be a bit unsettling to us.
Application
The writer of the letter to the Hebrews offers a 360° review almost singlehandedly. As we explored above, his selected passage gives us a sense for Jesus in relation to the angels, to us, to our sins, to “all things,” and to God and his ongoing work. That is a thorough view, indeed, and we gave each aspect of it consideration above.
The gospel writer Mark, meanwhile, finds a few more angles to share. He shows us Jesus in relation to the Pharisees, the disciples, and some children. And somewhat less obviously, he also shows us Jesus in relation to Moses.
Jesus’ relationship to the Pharisees is generally thought of as a hostile one. Interestingly, though, we see time and again that Jesus does not respond in kind. They approach him with antagonism and challenges, but he responds by trying to instruct and correct them. There is no condemnation here: Jesus simply endeavors to set the record -- and the people -- straight.
Meanwhile, the very fact that Jesus assumes the position of one who can instruct and correct the Pharisees is, in its original context, a certain kind of scandal. It was the Pharisees who were regarded as the ones who instructed and corrected. They were the paragons of virtue. They were the ones whose lives embodied a profound understanding of God’s law and will. Yet here Jesus has to adjust and expand their understanding.
Jesus’ relation to Moses is less overt in the passage since Moses himself is not present in the scene. Still, Moses is central to the episode and the dialogue, for he is the authority cited. The noteworthy shift that occurs in that context, however, is that Jesus presents himself as the authority who is authorized to comment on -- and even correct -- Moses himself.
Finally, it is the picture of Jesus and the children that is the most cherished of the set. You and I are grownups now by conventional measures, yet we sense that in our relationship with God we are always children. And we treasure the sweetness of that communion with him.
I remember a literature professor explaining to me years ago how slow Western culture was to prize children in literature and art. They are largely ignored, or portrayed simply as mini-adults. But scripture was way ahead of culture, for children are highly prized in the Bible. Indeed, one senses in the teachings of Jesus that they are even favored.
Of course, in the behavior of the disciples we see the tendency to undervalue children: to function with a different standard of importance. Yet the Lord continually challenges our misunderstandings. From his incarnation to his foot-washing to his crucifixion, from his teachings about greatness to his embrace of the children, he turns conventional wisdom and worldly standards upside-down. For “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27 NRSV).
Alternative Application
Mark 10:2-16. “The God Who Hates Divorce” My suggested title comes from Malachi (2:16), not from any of our selected passages. It suffices to capture a larger scriptural truth, however. Namely, that God is not in favor of divorce.
That seems like a hard word in our culture, of course, where divorce is so common. When you and I stand up to preach this Sunday, we’ll be preaching to a great many people who are divorced, and a number of those will have since remarried, making this week’s gospel lection awkward reading for us. In addition, there will be another percentage of folks whose very existence is dependent upon divorce, inasmuch as they were born from a second or later marriage. And then on top of that, there is that unknown number of folks who are not divorced but who think about it.
That, meanwhile, brings us to a frightening need. For many years, we have shorthanded the phenomenon of divorce in our culture by saying that the divorce rate is 50 percent. That is imprecise, of course, but it at least gives us a ballpark sense of the scope. Do we presume, however, that the other half of marriages are happy and full of bliss? You and I know better. If roughly half of marriages end in divorce, then, and not all of those who stay married are happy and satisfied, that suggests a tremendous volume of unhappy marriages in our culture.
It is in exactly that sad context, then, that we need to hear a reminder of God and divorce. Not because we want to spread condemnation and guilty feelings. But precisely for the same reason that Jesus’ teaching in the first part of Mark 10 is so important.
Jesus was able to look beyond the present reality and see the way things ought to be -- the way God designed and intended them to be. And our culture, of course, has no sense for that. We have thrown off God’s rules and standards, and whenever we do we lose Eden. We have lost sight and understanding of the good and perfect thing God has in mind for husband and wife.
That is good news, not bad news. It is exceedingly relevant. And it is badly needed. So if we have the courage to read Mark 10 out loud to our people this Sunday, let us take our cue from Jesus and preach the happy truth: namely, how God wanted it to be in the beginning. For the irony is that what he intended is exactly what we keep struggling to find: true and lasting love.
