The big thing is God’s grand design, His good creation He has come to restore and redeem, the Kingdom of Heaven Jesus proclaimed in His life and embodied in His death and resurrection.
Like he often does, Jesus responds in this text by going big. First it was to a trick question about divorce. Then it was to a refusal to welcome the little children. In both cases, Jesus encountered people whose thinking was far too small. But He would not let them stay in their small-mindedness. Instead, Jesus redirected them to the bigger picture, the grand design, the Kingdom of God which He had come to reveal and establish.
As these initial comments suggest, I do not recommend a sermon this week that focuses exclusively on marriage and divorce. There is a time and a place for that, and verses 2-12 offer a reasonable opportunity to do so. If you have not addressed these issues in your congregation for a while, you might want to go in that direction. Just make sure, if you do, you speak clearly and directly to the entire congregation, and not only to those who are or may be married (see this reflection for some thoughts along these lines).
If marriage and divorce is not an issue which needs pressing attention for your congregation, you might consider how both episodes in this text expose a stark contrast between human ways of thinking and the thoughts and perspectives of Jesus. Like He continues to do even today, Jesus encountered people in this text whose thinking was limited by too narrow a scope. The people found here, like so many of us, failed to see the larger context He was focused on.
The bigger picture in Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees was God’s original design for marriage. In an effort to trap Him, the Pharisees approached Jesus with a question about whether it was lawful to get a divorce. Jesus responded by recalling Moses. I wonder if He had Moses’ words in Genesis 1-2 in mind. Most commentators direct our attention to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, even though Mark does not explicitly point us there, and maybe that was the text the Pharisees had in mind. But Jesus does not get into an argument about those details. Instead, He takes their narrow-minded trap and blows it wide open by going all the way back to the beginning. As Moses wrote (in Genesis 1:27 and 2:24), divorce was never part of the design. God made man and woman to complement one another. He intended for them to cling to one another. He created them to enter an inseparable union which would provide for the foundation and flourishing of all creation. The fact that divorce was even on the table was only a result of the hardness of the fallen human heart. It was never God’s will. It is only an outcome of self-centered sinfulness. This hard heartedness plagued God’s people for generations (Deuteronomy 10:16; Proverbs 17:20; Jeremiah 4:4; Ezekiel 3:7), and it would continue to harass them in Jesus’ day and beyond (Ephesians 4:18; Hebrews 3:8).
Mark does not tell us how the Pharisees responded. Jesus had dropped the mic, and we assume they walked away speechless.
Mark does not tell us how the Pharisees responded. Jesus had dropped the mic, and we assume they walked away speechless.
But Mark does not leave us wondering about their reaction. Instead, he turns immediately to another group of people whose thinking was too small. This time it was the disciples. They were missing the bigger picture of who Jesus had come to bless and who was able to enter the Kingdom of God. Children, whose value in their culture was much lower than it is in ours, were apparently neither to be heard nor seen nor even touched. The disciples rebuked (presumably) their parents for bothering Jesus. They must have forgotten what He just told them in Mark 9:33-37. Rather than tolerating their small-mindedness, Jesus called them out in indignation. Then, turning to those who were welcome in His Kingdom, He lifted up the little ones, with their grubby hands and their snotty noses, and gave them a divine blessing. Like the Pharisees before them, Mark leaves the disciples with nothing to say in return.
I wonder about the specific ways in which your congregation is stuck in thinking which is too small. It happens to all of us. Our parochial and provincial concerns have a way of commandeering our conversations and our hearts. Is budget season losing your members in the weeds of line items without a sense of the purpose and joy of participating in God’s generous heart? Is the burden of finding Sunday School teachers obscuring the incredible gift of knowing the mind of God in our own language? Is anxiety about the elections, the future of our nation, and cultural conflict overshadowing the fact that Jesus has the whole world in His hands, or does our narrow-mindedness zoom all the way into our own personal distress? Her dissatisfaction at work, his unmet emotional needs, her rift with a friend, his addiction to the screen all take possession of precious time, energy, and focus.
The small struggles we experience are no small thing. You will want to be careful not to dismiss them as insignificant. But neither are they the one big thing under which all small things find their proper place. The big thing is God’s grand design, His good creation He has come to restore and redeem, the Kingdom of Heaven Jesus proclaimed in His life and embodied in His death and resurrection.
Jesus comes today, as He came then, with the promise of eternal life in His Kingdom of peace and joy. You cannot get bigger than that! His resurrection from the dead was the beginning and His return and restoration is on its way. That is the promise you get to proclaim to your hearers. That is how you help snap your congregation out of their small-mindedness and give them the mind and heart of God.
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out out 1517’s resources on Mark 10:2-16.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you in preaching Mark 10:2-16.
Text Week-A treasury of resources from various traditions to help you preach Mark 10:2-16.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
Lectionary Podcast-Dr. Peter Scaer of Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, IN walks us through Mark 10:2-16.
