Pastor Katie’s Sermon from October 6, 2024
Genesis 2:18-24; Psalm 8; Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12; Mark 10:2-16
Earlier this week, Pastor Will came into my office and said, “I didn’t look at
the texts for this Sunday before we decided who would be preaching
today!” And guess what? Neither did I.
These are hard pieces of our holy Scripture.
Complicated words from Genesis that have been used to rationalize
relegating women to subordinate roles in our homes, our workplaces, and
our public arenas.
Complicated words from Hebrews that are literally just complicated. Like,
the sentences are so long and the grammar is weird and it’s just not an
easy passage to read or understand.
And COMPLICATED words from Jesus in Mark’s gospel that have been
used to uphold a gender binary as well as shame and exclude people who
have ended their marriages for whatever reason.
Pretty much the only reading that doesn’t make me cringe in some kind of
way is Psalm 8. Which makes me wonder...
what do all of these complicated Scriptures have to do with each other?
And what do they have to do with our twenty-first century lives?
Earlier this year, I was sitting next to the moving sidewalk at gate C52 in
the Denver airport, waiting for my flight back to North Carolina for the
weekend.
I was wearing a particular t-shirt, and mindlessly scrolling through my
phone, when a Southwest employee walked up to me and said,
“I’m sorry to bother you, but did Martin Luther really say that??”
I don’t know if y’all can read this out there (check it out on the YouTube stream)...
The back of this shirt says “Sin boldly, but believe even more boldly.”
Martin Luther penned this quote in a letter to his fellow reformer Philip
Melancthon, so I looked up at the Southwest guy and said,
“yes! Martin Luther really did say that!”
The man - we’ll call him Todd - got kind of a concerned look on his face,
and he said, “but Luther couldn’t have meant that we should just sin and do
whatever we want, right?? What did he mean by that??”
And so I said, “Yea, you’re right! Luther didn’t want us to go around
intentionally sinning. But what I think Luther was trying to say is that we
should never let our fear of sin keep us from trying to love our neighbors in
the world. We should go into the world loving God and loving neighbors,
and if we happen to get it wrong sometimes (which we will), we can boldly
believe that God loves us and will forgive us.”
Todd took a moment to consider this answer, and then he asked if he could
sit down with me.
So I motioned to the open spot next to me, and as he got settled, we
continued in conversation. We covered all sorts of topics like sin and
forgiveness. We wondered how God can be all good and all powerful at the
same time, when so many bad things happen in our world. We talked about
how Martin Luther had to go into hiding for the things he said during the
Reformation, and we agreed that that kind of worked out for the rest of us
because Luther’s translations of the Bible are the reason us normal people
have access to the word of God in a language we can understand!
Todd and I were having a pastoral moment in the Denver airport, when the
conversation turned toward some contemporary issues in the church. I
don’t remember how we got here, but at one point Todd turned to me and
said, “You know, the Methodist church is going crazy right now.”
And I thought I had an idea of what he was referring to, but I didn’t want to
assume. So I asked – “What do you mean by ‘going crazy’?”
And he said, “Well, they’re letting all sorts of people be pastors! They’re
letting gay people be pastors, they’re letting women be pastors..!” [pause]
And then he asked, “What does the Lutheran church think about all that??”
I said, “well, it depends on what kind of Lutheran you’re talking to, but my
brand of Lutheranism welcomes LGBTQ pastors and women pastors, and
in fact, I’m in my last year of seminary to become a pastor myself!”
We kind of looked at each other for a second, and then Todd said,
“Well, I didn’t mean to be offensive!!”
I said, “I’m not offended.” And then we continued to talk about what
it means to be “called by God.” He wanted to know how I could feel called
to be a pastor, when there are a handful of passages in the Bible that say
things like “women should be silent in church.”
When Pastor Will came into my office earlier this week to talk about these
complicated scriptures, I told him, “I’m not afraid of the Bible!”
But, truth be told, there are frightening parts of the Bible. Or rather, there
are parts of the Bible that humans have MISused in frightening ways. To
beat people up, to keep people down, to make people feel less than the
truth of what we are – beloved children of God. I’m not afraid of the Bible,
but sometimes I am afraid of what we humans can do with the Bible.
For as long as God’s people have been trying to be faithful to God’s word,
we – God’s people – have also been using God’s Word to decide who is
“in” and who is “out.” Whose call is valid, and whose isn’t. Whose
relationships are legitimate and whose aren’t. We use the Bible as some
sort of measuring stick – or worse – to wield against our fellow children of
God.
But God never wants us to use the Bible to harm other people or distance
ourselves from one another. God wants us to be in healthy and right
relationships with each other. And that, I think, is the thread that connects
all these complicated texts.
Looking closer at Genesis 2, we see that God’s concern is not with “proper
gender roles;” it’s with loneliness. God saw that it wasn’t good for a human
to be alone! The animals of the field and the birds of the air couldn’t sooth
the humans’ loneliness. Only another human could do that.
God cares about our relationships with each other, so God never wants us
to use God’s Holy Word as a weapon to beat other people up, as a knife to
cut divisions in our communities, or as a catapult to try and elevate
ourselves above our neighbors.
Looking closer at Mark, you might be able to think about times when
humans have mis-used Jesus’ words to do just those things. Jesus’
teaching on divorce has been used to pressure people into staying in
harmful relationships, and it has been used to guilt and shame people who
have gotten out of them. But none of that was Jesus’ intent. Jesus knew
that in his society, women and children had no agency in situations of
divorce. They could be cast out of relationship with little warning and no
support. With this teaching, Jesus is telling us not to abuse those who are
already vulnerable in our relationships.
God cares about our relationships with one another, not just on the surface,
not just in name, but down deep. We have a God who is so committed to
relationship with and through us, that God came alongside us to experience
the deepest parts of our humanity through Christ. Jesus’ best friend died.
Jesus lived through violent storms. Jesus himself felt the sting of death.
And Jesus rose again, so that we might know that even death cannot divide
us from our loving God.
As awkward as my airport conversation with Todd was, I know the Holy
Spirit was working. Instead of recoiling from one another and using God’s
Word to divide us, Todd and I actually leaned in. We shared openly and
listened faithfully. We didn’t become best friends or anything, but we were
able to stay connected as we explored God’s Word together.
God does not want us to use God’s Word to harm our relationships with
other people. So if we sin in our bold efforts to welcome, include, and serve
our fellow humans, we can BELIEVE even more boldly that our God is
Love. Our God is Love who smiles each and every time we recognize that it
is not good for humans to be alone. Our God is Love who came so that ALL
may have life-giving relationships.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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