Sermon on Mark 10:2-16

Here is the sermon I write and preached today at Our Saviors Lutheran Church in Virginia. They hosted a dinner to help raise funds to pay for seminary. I appreciate this very kind gesture! The sermon is based on Mark 10:2-16


Mark 10:2-16



Grace and peace to you from God our Father, Christ our Savior, and the Spirit that sustains us. Grace and peace to you.


I have start with a confession… when I first found out that the gospel text for today contained the words, man, woman, marriage, divorce… I took a big sigh and wondered how I could avoid a sermon this morning. You see these four words come with so much baggage…. These four words can and do stir up unwanted emotions in people. These four words can and are used to hurt people, have hurt people and continue to hurt people. These words contain a very theo-political message especially right now. I struggled to see that there was any kind of good news among these four words. What could I possibly say that wouldn’t add to the hurt or division that these cause.


And then something miraculous happened…. I stopped focusing on the words man, woman, marriage, divorce and instead asked myself – What is God up to in this text? I thought to myself that certainly God isn’t looking to hurt people or bring about more brokenness. So what is the message in this text?


It was my shift back to focusing on God’s work in the world and not my human abilities to make good use out of hurtful words, that got me thinking about community. The new community - the new reality of God’s surprising activity in Jesus Christ that we have been invited to be a part of and were All are Welcome. Let me share with you how I got there.

You see Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and gets side tracked by another crowd. It is important to realize that Jesus has once again “gone off the beaten path”. Jesus is continuing to go into places that push against the normal boundaries of the time. He is beginning to create an alternative community. A community that is for all people especially the vulnerable, the outcasts and the marginalized. As He was going to meet the crowd, Jesus was not going in with a plan to talk about marriage and divorce, right off the bat in verse 2 it says,

“Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked…”

This is not the first time the Pharisees had been after Jesus to test him with questions about the Law or to try and trap him into saying things that were against the Law of Moses.

Jesus isn’t concerned with the Law, but the Pharisees are. Of course they are, it is what they know and believe. They have not come to follow Jesus. But, we do… we follow Jesus, we believe, we have faith in God who sent his only Son Jesus for us. Jesus isn’t against the Law of Moses, but he does tell the Pharisees in verse 5, “because of your hardness of hearts he wrote this commandment for you.” He continues by reminding them that God is concerned and has been concerned since the beginning of creation that man (humanity) not live alone. That we live in community and relationship to one another.


What Jesus in concerned about in his teaching is that we know about God’s boundless love, God’s inclusivity, God’s salvation for the entire world. You see it was the Promise to Abraham that came before the Laws of Moses and the Promise that was Jesus and the event on the cross will ALWAYS come before the Law.

So then if this passage isn’t focused on the teaching of man, woman, marriage, divorce, what is God up there here?

It is very important that we understand what marriage was in the time of antiquity. Marriage was a contract not between a man and a woman but between two families. Marriage was the way in which families financially and economically survived. Women had no power, they had no options for caring for themselves, they were very vulnerable members of society, therefore if a woman was left by her husband, she became an outcast. She lived on the margins because society would not accept a woman to take care of herself. There would be no opportunity for work, for food or caring for her children. Jesus is concerned about the wellbeing of women here. God’s priority in this new reality Jesus is creating is to care for those in need.

The Pharisees may think they are going to test Jesus with their question, but instead Jesus once again turns the table upside down in his message of support and care for women. You see Jesus has used the law to show the Pharisees that when we live by the law alone, people get hurt, people get left out, people get marginalized and the brokenness of this world continues.

It was the same message when the disciples were shewing the children away. Jesus says, “what on earth are you doing disciples, you still don’t get it.” He tells them that
It is such as these (Children) that the kingdom of God belongs. In Jesus’ time when he reference children he was talking about people that had no status, a group of non-persons. People in our society today that are considered non-persons or have no status might be street people or homeless. In third world countries it might be the indigenous people. The point here being that Jesus again is interested in the vulnerable people, the people that are in need.

This passage references women and children, though there are plenty of groups of people that we are in need and we are very tempted to ignore. It is important that these verses be read together as one so that we can see that the message here is about caring for those in need as well as recognizing that God’s priority in this new alternative community is to care for those in need and not to care for them outside of the community but to know that they have a place in this community that is equal to anyone else’s place. This is a community that no longer is to live under the law, but is to live among each other in relationship with our Triune God.

This new community in which we as Christian’s belong is a community that was founded on the faithfulness of Christ. It is founded on the inclusivity of God’s boundless love for the entire world.
We don’t get to choose who is loved by God and who isn’t.
We don’t get to say you belong to the kingdom of God but you don’t.
We don’t get to put labels on people as sinful or not worthy. That isn’t how it works. Jesus came and took the Parker Brothers rules of the game and turned then upside down.

Jesus came to show us that what matters is our relationship with God and one another. Yes we have rules and there are laws in which we live by so that we have order and respect in the world.

But when we start focusing in on only the law and order of the world, we forget that Jesus came to his disciples, he took bread and he broke it and then he took the cup and blessed it and said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood shed for you and for ALL people for the forgiveness of sins please do this to remember me…

I didn’t hear any exceptions to the ALL people and so if Jesus didn’t have an addendum to the words of institution that excluded people such as women or children or even sinners. How can we? We can’t because we are all sinners. We are all in need of a relationship with Christ and we like the Pharisees don’t get to try and test and trick Jesus. But we do – when we see ourselves as saints more than sinners we think we can start asking questions that exclude people, that hurt people, that continue to create brokenness in this world. We can try and change the message Jesus brings to us, but actually it will never change because all are welcome in the Kingdom of God.

The following words are from the Hymn All Are Welcome that we are about to sing. I want to read one verse because they tell of a place where Christ’s love ends division, a place where forgiveness lives. These words are about the alternative community that Jesus is inviting us to be a part of. The community in which all people regardless or race, gender, age, ethnicity, wealth, sinfulness or status, are welcome. Let’s turn our focus back to God’s surprising activity in the world and ask how we can be a part of what God is up to in our world today.

Let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live, 
a place where saints and children tell how hearts learn to forgive. 
Built of hopes and dreams and visions, rock of faith and vault of grace; 
here the love of Christ shall end divisions:
All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.


Amen!!!