Son Of Honor

"Son Of Honor"

Mark 10:46-52

This story about the healing of blind Bartimaeus is a dramatic one and a serious one.  But the first line of the story hits my funny bone.  Now the last time I mentioned something like this, you all just sat there and looked at me.  So it may just be funny to me.

Anyway, the first line of the story reads, “And they came to Jericho.  And as he was leaving with his disciples…”  It’s hilarious to me because Jesus and the disciples came to Jericho and apparently walked right through and left.  Nothing happens in between those two sentences:  Jesus came and Jesus left.  I imagined Jesus coming into town.  People got really excited.  “Jesus is here!  Jesus is here!”  But he just keeps walking and walks right on through without stopping.  Evidently nothing to see.  Not much happening.

I’ve heard a story about Lindsborg, you know that little Swedish town up by Salina.  I don’t know if it’s true or half true, or utter fiction.  Maybe one of you knows.  I had heard that Lindsborg had some big anniversary of the town, and somehow got the King of Sweden to come over and be part of the parade.  So they had their typical small town parade, and the King of Sweden rode through in his car, and never stopped, but just kept going, right through town and down the road.  And never came back.

That’s what the start of this story of Jesus and Jericho feels like.  Walk through town, wave at a few people, and just keep right on walking.

That is until they get to the other side of town.  Where beggars row is.  All the outcasts lined up along the side of the road, trying to get a few pennies out of those coming and going.

Jericho at this time in its history (it is one of the oldest cities in the world) was a fairly bustling place.  Herod had a Winter palace there because it stayed warm in Jericho during the winter.  So it was the place to go.  But evidently not for Jesus.  He was moving on through.  Jericho, being the lowest place on the earth, makes for a vigorous climb up and out of there to Jerusalem.  Maybe that’s all Jesus could think about was the seventeen mile climb up that hill.  The sooner he got at it, the better.

The story makes it sound like Bartimaeus was the only one begging.  But there would have been others.  Especially since it was a resort town with lots of important (and rich) people coming and going to Herod’s Winter palace.

The name, Bartimaeus is interesting.  Bar means son of.  So he was the son of Timaeus.  The name Timaeus means honor.  Literally, Bartimaeus means the “son of honor.”  Which is sadly ironic since the blind and the crippled and the other outcasts were given no honor.  Even Jesus was evidently in a hurry to walk right on by all the beggars.

Until one of them started shouting.  Maybe threw a bunch of dust in the air to attract attention.  Bartimaeus—this son of honor who could not see, and whom others refused to look at.  He could not see.  And everyone else refused to look at him even though they could see.  Blindness in both directions.

Bartimaeus called out to Jesus.  Shouted at him.  Used a couple of names for Jesus that no one else in Mark’s gospel used of Jesus:  Son of David; and, Rabbi.  And, as I’ve already mentioned, we know Bartimaeus’ name.  We aren’t told too many of the people’s names whom Jesus healed:  the woman with the flow of blood, the woman at the well, the man possessed with a “legion” of demons, the man with the paralyzed hand who came into the synagogue, the deaf mute.  And on and on:  so many whose names we’ll never know, but their story is recorded in the most read book in all of history, in all of the world.  But Bartimaeus gets his name mentioned.  This son of honor calls out to Jesus—“the Son of David”—and is then called out, by name by Jesus.

But Bartimaeus—this son of honor—got further dishonored.  People in the little parade told him to shut up.  They disrespected him.  If Bartimaeus stood up, maybe they shoved him back down into the dirt, and told him to stay where he belonged.  Blind people are easy to bully because they can’t see their attackers.  And their attackers know that.

The sad thing is, it wasn’t just the crowd.  It was also the disciples.  They had their own back talk ready for Bartimaeus.  Jesus’ insiders making sure that another human being understood where his position with Jesus was:  sitting in the dirt and told to put a sock in it.

One of the qualities of Bartimaeus that I really like is that he refused to be defined by his circumstances.  He knew within himself that just because he had the disability of blindness, he’s not going to let others define what that means for who he is.  For who he knows himself to be.  He is more than his blindness, and he won’t let anyone else tell him otherwise—including the disciples.

Nor is Bartimaeus going to let others define him by their own expectations of how someone who is blind should act.  Even when those others are the ones who assume they have the right/power to speak on Jesus’ behalf.  What I like about this Son of Honor is that he does see that he is an honorable person.  And the only thing holding Bartimaeus back is nothing within himself; it is the crowd and the disciples who are acting out of their own small expectations of a blind man and are keeping him from being healed.

How many feel the same way?  It may not be blindness or some other physical or mental disability.  It might be something you did in the past, something stupid you aren’t proud of, and people try to define who you are by that once-upon-a-time incident.  Bartimaeus isn’t letting others have that much power over him, to determine what he can or can’t do in life; where he goes and who he can talk to and who he can’t.  Or hold him back from his desire to be healed.

Seeing blind Bartimaeus’ reaction, doesn’t it make us think about who we might be allowing to push us down or hold us back from the healing we are seeking?  Or it might not be a who, but a what.  What circumstances in life are we allowing to shut us up and keep us restrained from fulfilling our God designed destiny?  How do we arouse the courage within to stand up and keep shouting, “I am a son or daughter of honor, and I will be heard!”?

Or maybe it’s the other side of that coin.  Who might we be pushing down into the dirt?  Who are we holding back from becoming the person they could be because of our own stupid misconceptions and prejudices?

It’s like in the book of Job in the Old Testament, where Job suffered awful experiences.  He demands to speak to God, but his so-called “friends” push him away.  The three men tell Job he doesn’t deserve to speak to God—that Job must have done something awful to experience what he experienced.  But Job knows he, like Bartimaeus, is also a Son of Honor, and deserves to be heard and healed.  Job, like Bartimaeus, finally makes enough noise that God pays attention.

One of the questions I have previously suggested for stories such as this is, “Who is this miracle for?” Often the answer to that question is not obvious.  Who is the giving of sight to blind Bartimaeus for?  For Bartimaeus, or for someone else?

In order to answer that question, we need to go back a couple of chapters in Mark’s gospel.  In chapter 8, Jesus talked about his future suffering, rejection and death.  But Peter didn’t understand.  So Peter rebuked Jesus, to which Jesus returned the favor and pushed back on Peter.

Next, the disciples got in an argument about which of them was the greatest.  They still don’t get it, so Jesus has to talk to them about being servants, not someone who is large-and-in-charge. 

Then James and John want Jesus to give them the second most powerful positions that can be had—they want to sit on the right and left of Jesus’ throne when he comes in his kingdom.  Which creates an uproar with the other disciples.  It seems all the disciples can do is be blind to who Jesus is, and jockey for positions of power and prestige.

Then comes along a blind man who has never encountered Jesus, has only heard about Jesus, and demonstrated he saw and understood Jesus and what Jesus is about.  So here we get to answering the question I asked:  “Who is this healing of blindness for?”  Jesus is not only seeking to bring sight to the blind Bartimaeus but also insight to the disciples as Jesus now makes his way to Jerusalem and the end.

Jesus’ insiders remain blind to Jesus’ true identity; but, outsiders like Bartimaeus see it clearly.

Another reason this miracle is for the disciples as well as Bartimaeus, is to let the disciples know they don’t get to keep people at arms length.  They certainly recognized that a lot of people wanted to be near Jesus.  Even children, whom the disciples tried to push away as well.  It seems the disciples are always pushing people away from Jesus.  Maybe they were just trying to secure their own positions as Jesus’ special disciples.  Whatever the reason, Jesus constantly had to push the over protective disciple aside, and let others close to him.  The task of the disciples was not to keep people away from Jesus, but to find ways to give them access.

The problem with the disciples was that even though they knew a lot of people wanted to be near Jesus, the disciples didn’t necessarily want to be around the kinds of people who are drawn to Jesus.  The disciples want it to be just them and Jesus.  Not them, and Jesus, and a bunch of losers trying to get at Jesus.  Jesus had to constantly remind the disciples it was the “losers” he’d rather be around.  And let the disciples know that they should not keep pushing them away.

Once Jesus stopped, and stopped the disciples from shielding him from Bartimaeus, and Bartimaeus was summoned, we are told that Bartimaeus “threw off his cloak and was led to Jesus.”  What you may not know is that his cloak would have been his most treasured possession.  A person’s cloak served many purposes, such as protection from the elements, providing warmth like a blanket at night.

Leaving his cloak behind put it in danger of being stolen.  But Bartimaeus was willing to lose his one most prized possession just for the chance to meet Jesus and possibly be healed.  At that point, Bartimaeus didn’t know if his sight was going to be restored or not.  But he left behind something of great importance and worth to get that chance.

What would you be willing to give up or leave behind for that chance?  What would you be willing to treat with surprising disregard to have that chance to be face-to-face with the Lord, to be able to have the Savior ask you, “What would you want me to do for you?”  Everything pales in value, doesn’t it, when you are given that chance.

This is the last healing miracle in Mark.  No others are healed after Bartimaeus gets his sight.  Usually last things have a way of being remembered and pondered.  Why was this miracle the last one?  Was Jesus trying to put an exclamation point on his healing ministry with this one?  Was Jesus trying to get his disciples attention one last time before they headed to Jerusalem?

We can’t be sure.  We just know that Jesus started that long trek up the hill towards Jerusalem and his death.  And following along behind was one more, one new disciple named Bartimaeus—the son of honor—who was blind but now can see.

King of the Mole Hill

"King of the Mole Hill"

Mark 10:35-45

"And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him, and said to him, 'Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.'"

It's not only astounding to me that James and John would make such a statement like that; but, also, where do they come off with such an air of entitlement?  How do they justify in their heads saying such a thing to Jesus?

It's a double headed dragon kind of statement.  One head of the dragon is that they certainly believed enough in Jesus' power that He can do anything and everything.  They certainly believed that Jesus was more than just some guy with a Napoleon complex.

But the other head of the dragon is James and John have no idea who Jesus is and what Jesus is about.  Have they not been paying attention?  They are well into a couple of years following Jesus around.  Yet they have totally misrepresented who Jesus is and what Jesus' teaching and ministry is about by making their demand of him.

We shouldn't be hard on the two disciples, though, should we?  Why should we not be hard on James and John?  Because it's pretty much the way most of us approach God.  "God, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you."

"We don't want you to ask any questions, God--just do what we ask."

"Don't challenge our thinking about what we ask, God--just do it."

"No matter how lame or self-centered our request is, God, we want you to make it happen."

"Even though our requests make us seem like a bunch of entitled whiners, God, we expect you will jump to fulfill our every desire."

I would really have liked to know what Jesus was thinking, when James and John spoke their selfish request.  We know how the other disciples felt.  Their response would have been my response:  They were "indignant."  And the other disciples were not "indignant" in their own minds about it.  Mark wrote, "When the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John."  Notice that little preposition in there, "at."  They put some kind of action behind their indignant thoughts.

In one respect, based on the American Way, we may not see what's wrong with what James and John requested.  From an early age we are taught to dream big, to strive hard to make something of ourselves, to not be satisfied with the lower rungs of the proverbial ladder of success, but to climb higher, to claw ourselves as near to the top as possible.  What's wrong with that kind of ambition.

Isn't it drummed into us to rise above the level of others?  To not be mediocre but to be great.  "You can be something great!" is the message.  To be a leader.  To have authority and power.  Who aspires to be average?  We figure there's something wrong with someone who gets on the corporate ladder and then decides the lower rungs are just fine and doesn't try to climb any higher.

Maybe that's how James and John thought.  They saw nothing wrong with their request.  They didn't want to hang around with the other disciples who were satisfied with just loitering at the base of the ladder.  James and John had their sights on higher things.  They had the dream of, "Some day when I'm at the top..."

Former Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller was one of those kinds of people who wanted to be great.  And once he got close to that top wrung of the ladder of success, he let people see it.  During one late night flight back to Washington from making a political speech in California, Rockefeller made a phone call.  His aides thought the call was something important, since it was made to someone in the Federal Government.

But what Rockefeller had done was call to tell someone he wanted the lights turned on at Mt. Rushmore.  A few minutes later when they were close, the private jet flew down for a private viewing of the monument, circling it a couple of times and then continuing on their journey.  One of Rockefeller's aides commented, "After that, I always figured the guy was immortal."

Notice that last comment.  Isn't that what James and John are aspiring to--immortality?  The top wrung?  To not just be obeyed, or admired, but worshipped?  There might be something in us that holds us back from the desire to be worshipped, but we'd sure like others to be in awe of our greatness, our power, our position, our God-likeness.

The sin of the Garden of Eden was the sin of the desire for that kind of power.  Adam and Eve wanted to be more, to have more, to know more than was their due or was their right or was their station as human beings.  They were tempted to "be like God."  That is what they were reaching for and attempting to grasp.  It was more than just the fruit they were reaching for.

When Muhammad Ali was in his prime as the world boxing champion, he was in a plane that was readying for take off.  The stewardess reminded him to fasten his seat belt.  He brashly retorted, "Superman don't need no seat belt."

To which the stewardess quickly shot back at him, "Superman don't need no airplane either."  Taken down a notch, Ali fastened his seat belt.

The sin of power is the yearning, or the desire caused by self-delusion, to be more than we were ever created to be.

Jesus had to remind James and John of that fact.  Notice he didn't just make his comments to James and John, but to all the disciples.  Let me remind you of what Jesus said:

You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them and their great men exercise authority over them.  But it shall not be so among you;  but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.

To do what Jesus is asking appears to be giving up, giving in, going back to the first wrung of the ladder of success-intentionally—and staying there willfully.  It appears to be just so much nonsense, to we upwardly mobile people.

It is, in fact, humility.  Humility is what Jesus is asking of his followers.  Humility is even a fake virtue of the upwardly mobile, but it is never practiced.

Humility is one of those qualities that no one ever wants to say they have, because they are afraid if they do, they aren’t being humble any more.  So I think we need to try to understand what humility is, so we can start making these characteristics part of who we are, and so fulfill the will of the Lord.

Basically, humility is power under control.  Nothing is more dangerous than power under the control of arrogance.  That becomes false humility, always contesting itself against all other humilities.

Like the member of a religious monastery who was asked what his order stood for.  “Humility, the monk said in a word.  Then he added, “At humility, we’re the best in the world.”

Power under the discipline of humility is teachable.  As the world in our time seen so many know-it-alls?  And all of them have a blog and are on the internet.  It may not be that they know it all, but that they think what they know is more important, or better, than what anyone else knows.

The man who helped design the power system at Niagra Falls was Nikola Tesla.  Tesla was recommended by a mutual friend to work with inventor Thomas Edison.  Tesla was not awed by the great Edison.  On more than one occasion, Tesla disagreed with Edison, trying to prove him wrong.  After Tesla had been working with Edison for a number of months, the mutual friend asked Edison, “Is Tesla as good as I said he was?”

“Better,” was Edison’s grudging reply.  “He’s as good as he says he is.”

Power under the control of humility is teachable not arrogant.

Also, power under the control of humility is self-limiting.  This is probably one of the hardest of the characteristics of humility to hear.  With all the drums of pop-psychology banging away at the themes of self-actualization, self-fulfillment, and self-determination, we don’t want to hear the word, “self-limitation.”

Just look at the history of the progression of our magazine titles.  We started out with Time.  That’s pretty wide ranging.  And then on to Life.  Not much is bigger than life.  Then the scope of magazines after that starts narrowing.  First, there was “People.”  After that came, “Us.”  And finally, we come the center of the universe with “Self.”  Self Magazine.  I’ll bet there aren’t any articles in there about self-limitation.

Think about how everything Jesus did was self-limiting.  God in the flesh was born in a stable.  He spent his ministry amongst the insignificant people of his day.  He died between two thieves on a hill for outcasts.  Yet Jesus is the pivot point of history.  The year of his birth is the turning point of the calendar system.  He is the most insignificantly, significant figure in the history of the world.  Jesus is what power looks like in the control of humble self-limitation.

Tied in with this thought is that power under the control of humility means vulnerability.  The symbols of Godly power are the manger and the cross.  It is power unrecognized as power.  It looks like weakness.

Therefore, and I know this is hard to understand because it goes against all the ways and values of upward mobility, God’s power under the control of humility leads from weakness.  Such a style of leadership and living goes in direct contradiction to the society led by the strong and forceful.  And look where that’s gotten us.  As you watch the presidential debates, both Republican and Democrat, see if there is anything you can identify as Jesus’ humble power.

Do you want some power.  You will find it in Jesus in it’s most potent form.  All you have to do is be teachable under the guidance and authority of God.  Be self-limiting to the point of being a slave.  Be completely vulnerable in light of the manger and the cross.  Lead from weakness.  Be humble.

LifeStory Conversations

"LifeStory Conversations"

Mark 10:17-22

There are at least three assumptions I'm making in this message, so I'm going to just tell you what they are right up front.

First, people need to hear the gospel.

Second, the Gospel will not make sense unless it makes sense in the listeners lives.

Third, therefore, based on the first two, the one who carries the gospel needs to know two things:  the message of Jesus Christ; and, the story of the person who is being told that message.  Most mistakes are made in sharing the Gospel because people are not listened to, their stories are made to be insignificant to the sharing of the Gospel, so they feel like targets at which the message of Christ--like a dart--is thrown at them.

I think people like to talk about themselves.  I have found this to be generally true.  There is a story about the actress Mae West who, at a party, talked and talked about herself.  Then finally she said to those who were listening, "Enough about me.  Tell me, what did you think of my last film?"  Most people aren't egotistical in a Mae West sort of way.  But we nonetheless like to find people who are interested in us and our story.

It is in conversation with people--listening and talking--that discoveries are made about each other, what their lives mean and what our lives mean in light of the Gospel.

This kind of conversation has been called "Lifestory Conversations".  There is a little booklet by this name that I have used with churches to help them reach out to non-Christians or non-church members in a healthy and significant way.  The booklet describes four such lifestory conversations you can have with people.  I want to go over three of the four with you in a brief way this morning, and hopefully get you interested so you will take the "Lifestory Conversation" Workshop I will be offering in the near future.

The first kind of Lifestory Conversation is called "Life Review."  A life review conversation can be started by asking certain kinds of questions, like:

What is one of the best things that's happened to you, and why was it so good?

By your own standards, what have been some of your most meaningful achievements?

Complete this sentence:  "It gave me real happiness when..."

These kinds of questions are a conversational way to help people survey their lives in their current situation.  From that survey they can then make some observations about any changes they might need to make.  And then reflect upon their past.

Some other questions that could be asked might be:

Where have you been?  (Not just geographically, but also emotionally, relationship-wise, etc.)

Where are you now?  (In other words, at what point are you at now because of where you have been?)

Where are you going?  (What's ahead for your future?  What are you looking forward to in life?)

I particularly like the third question because it has to do with future and hope.  It will give you an insight into the person you are talking to in terms of whether they are a person who is locked in the past and constantly looking backward, or if they are someone who is hopeful about their future.  Do they think their future is going to be bigger or better than their past?

I read an article recently about a homeless amnesiac.  He remembers working as a Wall Street banker, hearing his mother speak French, living in southern Florida, going skiing, and having a dog named Woofy.  But that's about it.

He was found one winter taking shelter in a luggage compartment on a Greyhound bus in Springfield, Missouri.  He was suffering from frostbite and exposure.  He had nothing on him that cleared up the question of who he was.

Even after doing nationwide searches through the FBI, no one is any closer to finding out who the guy is.  "He has a few nice memories," his social worker said in the interview.  "But without knowing much about his past, it's hard for him to put together his future," the social worker said.

So many people don't need to have amnesia to feel like they don't know where they are going in life.  They remember their past, but they may think their past is not substantial enough to build a new future upon.  That's the work of this first part of Lifestory Conversation:  helping people understand their past and present, so that they can then be engaged with the Gospel about their future with God.

The story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19, the wee little tax collector who climbed a tree to see Jesus is a great case in point.  At verse 7 Jesus went to be the guest of Zacchaeus the tax collector.  People were grumbling that Jesus got cozy with someone like Zacchaeus.  At verse 8, Zacchaeus told Jesus, "Look, Lord, half of my possessions I now give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I am paying back four times as much!"

My question is, "What happened between verse 7 and verse 8?  Did Jesus have a "life review" kind of conversation with Zacchaeus, and after hearing his story, Jesus knew what Zacchaeus needed to hear from the Gospel about his new future?   But Jesus may not have been able to get Zacchaeus to that place of amazing generosity without hearing Zacchaeus' story first.  Those are the conversations we need to have with others before we share the gospel.  If we listen first, help the person do some life review, then share the Gospel based on what the person told us, some amazing transformations can take place.

The second kind of Lifestory Conversation we can have with others is called "Search for Inner Meaning."

After you have laid the groundwork of life review, it is hard not to begin to see the meanings that are attached to the various events of our lives.  Often, if not most of the time, it is not the events and experiences themselves that create the impact on our lives, but the meanings we quickly associate with those events and experiences.

An engineer, a psychologist and a Pastor were on a hunting trip in northern Canada.  They came to an isolated cabin and knocked on the door hoping to get some shelter from the cold.  No one was home, but the front door was unlocked, so they walked right in.

Inside the cabin there was a large, potbellied, cast-iron stove, suspended in midair by wires attached to the ceiling beams.  Why would a stove be elevated from the floor?  The psychologist concluded, "It is obvious that this lonely trapper, isolated from humanity, has elevated his stove so he can curl up under it and vicariously experience a return to his mother's womb."

The engineer disagreed.  "This man is practicing the laws of thermodynamics.  By elevating his stove, he has discovered a way to distribute heat more evenly throughout the cabin."

But the Pastor said, "I disagree.  I'm sure that hanging his stove from the ceiling has a religious meaning.  Fire lifted up on the altar of his stove connects him to the ancient religious practices over the centuries."

Just then the trapper returned.  They immediately asked him why he had hung his stove by wires from the ceiling.  The trapper said, simply, "Had plenty of wire, but not much stovepipe."

The meanings we attach to the events in our lives can be just as outlandish as the three hunters did with the stove.  We take the odd, painful, exciting experiences of life and almost always interpret them as more than they simply are.  When we figure out the simpler, more honest meanings of the events we experience we can then be freed up to reinterpret those meanings and see the event differently--even our lives differently.

The story of Nicodemus in John 3 is a great example here.  Remember Nicodemus is that highly respected Pharisee who came to speak with Jesus in the dark of night.  He was in some sort of midlife crisis and needed help.  So he came under the cover of darkness to speak with Jesus.  How was Nicodemus interpreting the events of his life?  What were the meanings he attached to his life experiences that left him in a state of confusion and anxiety?

Thursday was National Poetry Day.  I immersed myself in poetry, posting a poem an hour on Facebook.  There were some powerful words in those poems.  One poem I found was by Jane Kenyon.  She wrestled with depression her whole life, as did her husband.  One of her poems is titled, "The Pear."

There is a moment in middle age

when you grow bored, angered

by your middling mind,

afraid.

That day the sun

burns hot and bright,

making you more desolate.

It happens subtly, as when a pear

spoils from the inside out,

and you many not be aware

until things have gone too far.

That is a sad meaning that many people attach to their lives. That their lives have rotted from the inside out and now it's too late to do anything about it.   And that's the sentiment behind Nicodemus' question to Jesus, "How can a grown man be born again?"  "How can I find a way to make the spoiled fresh again?"  Nicodemus can't see any other meanings for the events in his life other than utter hopelessness and unreclaimable deterioration.  Jesus, after hearing Nicodemus' story, reframes the meanings of Nicodemus' life in terms of rebrith, and all of a sudden Nicodemus sees he can be free and live differently into his future.

But Jesus wouldn't have been able to guide Nicodemus in that direction if he didn't first have that conversation with him.  Jesus needed to hear Nicodemus' story before he could reframe new meanings for Nicodemus and get him out of the hole he was in.

A final strategy of Lifestory Conversations is "linking our story with the story."  So much of our society has become hurried, surface activity.  So much of what we do is flat and one dimensional.  Our language has become more like empty blogger verbage, pushing away the depth of the poetic language of wonder and awe.

Samuel Miller, in commenting about our time, wrote,

In man's life everything has been denuded of its religious quality.  Birth, puberty, marriage, sin, death--once pivotal points of spiritual significance--have now lost their sacramental depth.  Everything has become natural, biological, social and quite clinical.  There are no distances, no depth, no essential mysteries.  Everything is on the surface.

Taking a look at our own story, and helping others take a look at theirs, can put us in touch with the realization that there is another whole story that is surrounding our own.  That we are part of something much, much bigger if we had just been paying attention.  There is a deep undercurrent with powerful rhythms, sometimes moving in an opposite direction from the surface.

Joseph's story of being sold into slavery by his brothers in the book of Genesis is a perfect here.  Remember Joseph was his father's favorite.  Joseph was given the coat of many colors by his father--which made the brothers jealous.

After being sold as a slave by his brothers, a series of circumstances led Joseph to eventually become the second in command to Pharaoh himself.  With a famine in the land, Joseph was in a position to get his brothers out of Israel and into Egypt to make sure they didn't starve to death.

Joseph's brothers can't believe it is him, and what he has attained.  They are afraid Joseph is going to have them killed.  But because Joseph saw the bigger picture, he was able to say to his brothers, at the end of their story, "As for you, you meant to harm me, but God intended it for good purpose, so he could preserve the lives of many people..."  Joseph saw God's larger story going on in his and his families life.  But his brothers only saw what they had done, but not the bigger movements of God, even in the negative circumstances of Joseph's slavery and imprisonment.

Here is the ultimate aim of Lifestory Conversations as a healthy form of evangelism:  to joyfully discover this other Story--this Story that is larger than ourselves that is of God.

The purpose of Lifestory Conversations in evangelism is to enable a person to hear the Biblical story and to say, "That is my story, too."  When that happens, gradually or suddenly, we can say conversion has taken place.  The Bible is the story of "every person" (and how God is working in every person's life).

But you can't lead anyone to that point until you have the conversation first--the Lifestory conversation that helps them understand and then embrace the God of the larger story. 

The Big D

"The Big D"

Mark 10:1-12

Think about all your relationships.

There were probably some people you grew up with, who were close friends, and you thought you would always be friends.  And then life happens.  You grow in different ways.  You make decisions; they make choices.  You both become different people.  You grow apart.

There were probably some people you met in college, with whom you grew close.  You were older.  It wasn't high school anymore.  You were more sophisticated.  You got a little smarter.  People in the dorm or a class seemed attractive as far as friendship goes.  Then college ends.  You and your friends graduated.  Maybe got married.  Life and miles and occupations happen.  You just grew apart.

You make friends over Facebook.  You shoot quirky messages back and forth.  You get to know each other.  But the more you communicate, the less you realize you have in common with that other person.  Or maybe they are someone you know, but they go all Facebook nasty on you.  So you "unfriend" them.  Cut them off from your Facebook world.  It happens.

So many of the relationships we have through life change and go by the wayside.    We may feel sad about that.  We may say, "That's life; that's just the way it is."  The loss of some relationships may not bother us a whole lot.  Other relationship losses may create a deep sadness.  But most loss of relationships, for whatever reason, just basically get absorbed in the ebb and flow of life.  We take those changes as a matter of course.

Except one.  Except one relationship.  Marriage.  When married couples split, and end their relationship, and go through the whole divorce process, the weight of that break up carries more stigma and social damage than if you "unfriended" someone, either on Facebook or more visibly from your circle of friends.

To say to a long time friend, "I am no longer going to have anything to do with you," just doesn't carry the weight of saying the same thing to a spouse.  To say, "We just grew apart," in describing a friendship ending just isn't the same as making that same statement about the one you are married to.  People might nod their head in understanding if you say that about the end of a friendship.  You may not get the same knowing nod when you say that out loud about your marriage partner.

A marriage relationship comes with much higher expectations and deeper resolves.  So when the marriage ends in divorce, as it does for half of us, there is more stigma, more shame, more misunderstanding and lack of understanding and empathy, than when other kinds of relationships end or slowly go their separate ways.

A large part of the reason for this is we don't stand up in front of a group of people at church when we declare we are pledging our friendship to another person.  We don't have a celebrative ceremony or rite for promising our lifelong friendship.  But we do when we get married.  We stand "before God and these witnesses" to pledge our undying and eternal love for each other as a married couple.  Because of that ceremony, we feel a deeper sense of regret and shame when that promise and vow just doesn't work out--for one reason or another.

Divorce has always been a great difficulty for couples and families to deal with.  So much so that a number of sociologists and psychologists have been writing lately, wondering if human beings are even capable of such a "forever" kind of relationship.

It certainly was so back in Jesus' day.  Divorce was a huge issue.  A totally unresolved issue.   There were two major schools of Rabbis that had two very different outlooks about divorce.  The school of the rabbi Shammai taught that divorce should be allowed solely if there was adultery involved.  If one or both in a couple were unfaithful, that was an unrepairable breach in the marriage, and it could and should be dissolved.

But the other school of the rabbi Hillel, one of the most famous of rabbi's in Jewish history, taught that divorce should be allowed for any reason that would cause the marriage to be broken.  And since the rights of the marriage laid more heavily in the husbands favor, if the wife repeatedly burned the meal, or he didn't like how his wife was raising the children, or if the wife talked funny,  papers would be written up and the wife was out.

Guess which school of rabbi's teaching on divorce was more popular at the time of Jesus.

Even though the divorce papers had to be approved by the Sanhedrin (the Jewish court made up of priests and Pharisees) the divorces were nearly always approved in favor of the husband.

One of the main pieces of scriptural law that the Sanhedrin used in approving a divorce was Deuteronomy 24:1, which reads:

If a man marries a woman and then it happens that he no longer likes her because he has found something wrong with her, he may give her divorce papers, put them in her hand, and send her off.

The main point of discussion from this verse, between the two schools of rabbi's was that little phrase, "...found something wrong with her..."  What exactly does that mean?  This statement is from Moses, remember, so it carries a lot of weight.  Moses doesn't give any further description of what "something wrong" might be.  And I'm sure, especially if you are a woman, you heard quite clearly, "...something wrong with her."  Not him.  Certainly husbands can do no wrong.

Although, there is that modern saying, "If a husband speaks in the woods, and his wife isn't there to hear him, is he still wrong?"

So divorce is one of those sticky, long-time issues (and I mean long-time) that just won't go away.  Is divorce permitted, and if so, for what reason?  That's the question the Pharisees came up and hit Jesus with:  "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"

Mark told us that the Pharisees asked this question to "test" Jesus.  The word means to scrutinize.  It doesn't appear that the Pharisees were out to trap Jesus, like they did time-after-time.  They just wanted to know if Jesus sided with the Hillel or Shammai rabbinical school on this prickly issue of divorce.  It's not clear if Jesus would have gotten in trouble with his answer, if that answer sided with one Rabbi or the other.

It appears Jesus sided with Shammai.  That Jesus went along with the stricter definition of divorce.  Maybe that's what the Pharisees were hoping, since it was the more unpopular interpretation of Moses' words.  Jesus' answer would clearly make him unpopular with the people who liked the more "liberal" interpretation of divorce-for-any-reason.

But, as what usually happens with Jesus, he undercuts both schools of thought at the time, and establishes his own.  Look again at Jesus' full reply:

But Jesus said to them, "For your hardness of heart, Moses wrote you this commandment.  But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.'  'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.'  So they are no longer two but one flesh.  What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder."  (10:5-9)

First, there are a couple of words I want you to pay attention to.  They actually are the same word, occurring at the start of two of Jesus' statements.  It is the word, "But..."  Think back to Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.  There was a part of that sermon where Jesus does a back-and-forth thing where he says, "You have heard that the Law of Moses says...But I say to you..."  The two Buts at the start of Jesus' teaching about divorce, thus signals for us that Jesus is about to make one of his great reversals.

The first reversal is to interpret Moses entirely different.  The Pharisees were reading the verse in Deuteronomy as law from the very mouth of Moses.  But Jesus discounts Moses by saying that Moses didn't utter this statement as if from the mouth of God, but simply because Moses felt like he had to make a concession to the total waywardness of the people.  Moses wasn't making law, Jesus was saying.  Moses was simply throwing up his hands at the total lack of commitment exhibited by the people in their marriage relationships.  Moses was giving in, while still trying to put forth at least a remnant of marital morality.

So Jesus' first "But" had to do with the Pharisee's total misinterpretation and misreading of Moses.  Moses' statement about divorce said more about the misguided and self-centered people rather than Moses' authority to issue a law on the subject of divorce.

Which leads us to the second "But" in Jesus statement.  Jesus' second "But" was followed by a quote from Genesis about God's intentions for marriage.  If the Pharisees were smart enough they would have realized Jesus was saying Moses doesn't even get a say about defining what marriage is all about and what it takes to dissolve that special relationship.  Jesus is forcing the Pharisees--and the disciples and the people listening in--to understand Moses isn't the authority on this issue.  God is.  God created marriage--created the male-female relationship--so it is God who must be consulted in all things concerning marriage.

So, what Jesus does to turn the tables, is first remove Moses and his statement from the acceptable justifications made for divorce.  Only God gets to do that.  Then, Jesus further upends the tables by telling what God's purposes are for marriage, not what God's allowances are for divorce.  That's where the emphasis should be--on God's purposes for marriage.

The first thing Jesus said about marriage is that it involves a male and a female.  God intentionally made two distinct genders.  God didn't make just one gender.  Instead, there was something that God definitely had in mind by creating two different kinds of humans.

Jesus then goes on to say that the intention of God for making two distinct genders was so that they could come together.  The word Jesus used for coming together literally means to be glued together.  God's intentions for the two genders--for a man and a woman--is to be glued, or stuck, together.  That these two genders will leave their parental, growing up family world, and be glued together so-to-speak.

And finally, as Jesus is defining what a marriage relationship is here, that the two different genders will become "one flesh."  The word one means one, but in terms of cardinal.  Like we would use that term in a sentence like, "This is the cardinal rule."  This is the one, most important thing to remember.  So, "one flesh" would be like saying, "This is the one cardinal relationship--two very distinct genders, coming together as if they were glued together, to form the one foundational and cardinal of all relationships.

And who did all this?  God.  This cardinal relationship of a man and woman being solidified together is the work of God, and done by the very intentions of God to form the basis of all other existing relationships.  All other relationships flow out of this one cardinal, basic relationship of a man and a woman coming together in a permanent unity under God.

Then Jesus makes the ultimate statement:  "What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."  In other words, we don't get to mess with God's intentions and creation of the marriage relationship.  We shouldn't be looking at all the ways we can creatively mess with that relationship that God created.  Instead we should be concentrating on what God intended for that marriage relationship:  a unity, a glue, for all subsequent relationships to flow out of that one, cardinal relationship of a man and a woman.

Without the strength of that one, cardinal, God built relationship, all other relationships that use the marriage relationship of a man and a woman as a foundation, will fall into ruin and disrepair.