Prince of Peace and Christ Our Savior Lutheran Churches October 26, 2003

Pastor Steve Geiger Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

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Mark 10:2-16

2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

3 “What did Moses command you?” he replied.

4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”

5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. 6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

10 When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. 11 He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

13 People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.

God Invented Family Mark 10:2-16

1. Sin creates squeaks

2. The truth creates joy

It’s the mystery noise.

My car has a few miles on it. It’s been around a while. Recently, when I’m at a stoplight and the light turns green, I’ll hit the accelerator—softly, of course—and somewhere close to the right front tire there’s this noise. A mystery noise. I can’t even explain it exactly. Not a squeak. Not a rumble. Not a grind. But it feels like something inside is shifting, moving. Something happening.

I go to the mechanic. Great mechanic. He listens. He’s not sure. “If it gets worse, bring it in. We’ll take a closer look.”

How different it could be if I had brought my car to the actual designer of my vehicle. The designer of the steering system. The designer of the suspension. The one who invented it. Would he be wondering, or would he, after just a few moments, know the problem?

Car trouble. Tough to understand. But if you know the one who built the car from the ground up, you know who to go to.

Family trouble. Tough to understand. Husbands, wives, parents, children. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could take family troubles to a mechanic? We try, don’t we. Sometimes we try to be the mechanic.

Wouldn’t it be nice to bring the troubles of a family to the one who designed the family? Who invented husbands and wives and decided how best they could work together. Who builds children from the first cell on and knows them inside and out.

To the inventor.

What trouble when we, the novice mechanics, try to figure out a fix.

For trouble in marriage. Which happens. One spouse sinning against the other. Being unfair. Harsh words. Using money in a foolish way. No time for the needs of the other. Arguments. Bitterness.

What do you do? Hope it goes away? Fight back with cruelty greater? Keep everything inside and just get angrier and angrier? Call it quits, divorce?

Divorce was a common solution in Jesus’ day too. Some of Jesus’ enemies thought they could get Jesus into trouble with their question about divorce. Jesus, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?

Did they expect a simple yes or no answer? Did they have an attitude about marriage, that it could be begun, then broken at will? Whatever their thinking, it wasn’t God-pleasing, and Jesus told them so.

Moses set up procedures for you to write on a piece of paper, “I abandon you,” for you to send your spouse away. He did it only because your hearts were hard. You were set on doing what you wanted no matter what. Dealing with marriage challenges in your own way. When your family started coughing or squeaking, you weren’t interested in going to the inventor. You were interested in appointing yourself mechanic extraordinaire.

Have you ever done that with your car? Became your own mechanic? My engine was coughing. I figured it was a spark plug. Sure enough, one of the spark plug covers had pushed up from the engine block. I tried to push it back. It wouldn’t move. I got the hammer off my wall.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re right.

That’s what happens when humans try to fix problems in families with their own sinful solutions. Abandoning one’s husband or wife. Breaking the promises made before a judge, at the altar.

Sometimes we’ll even try to make it look like God was the problem. Is it wrong for me to abandon my spouse? We’re not talking here about when the other spouse has already been sexually unfaithful. We’re not talking here about when the unbelieving spouse has already abandoned the husband, the wife. We’re not talking here about what to do when a wife is physically attacked by her husband. We’re talking about when we’re just tired of a marriage. When we’re not as happy as we dreamed we would be. When we’re being sinned against and nothing seems to change. When it ends up being horribly hard to keep loving. When someone other than our spouse makes our heart beat faster. God, surely you don’t want me to be unhappy. Surely you want me to be loved. Surely you’ll be OK if I just get out of this marriage. Surely divorce is a good option.

And sure, maybe one can even succeed in doing it legally. But when it happens for those last reasons described, the piece of paper finds its way into the hands of a spouse only because of the hard-heartedness of that spouse. Humans can succeed in doing what they want. What a tragedy when that success comes through the hardening of one’s heart against the will of God.

Squeaks in marriage, but not going to the inventor.

Then, not seeing children as the inventor has described them. Do children ever get on your nerves? Children, you are wonderful gifts from God. Unfortunately, adults can sin against you. We can see them as an annoyance.

I think of a little girl, a very good friend. I was talking to an adult. This nine or ten-year-old comes quietly to my side. I saw her. I gave her a friendly little hit on the hand, and she did the same back. I asked her a few questions. We talked for moments. Suddenly the conversation I was having with the adult continued. I looked away from the little one. Some seconds later she walked slowly away from me, just sort of wandering. I felt badly. I wondered afterward why I didn’t introduce my little friend to my big friend. Did I not think she was as important? Looking at little children as something less.

Even worse, forgetting that little bodies also have souls. Children can make this same mistake. Kids, what do you like to do most with your friends? Play toys. Ride bikes. Dress dolls. Fight with dinosaurs. Do you ever talk about Jesus? Are you embarrassed to talk about Jesus? Do we just forget to talk about Jesus? Do we forget that our little friends have souls, and when they die they will go either to heaven or hell?

Do we adults forget that the little ones around us have souls? Do we sin against them but not say we’re sorry? Have we continued in a sin and used fear to keep their mouths shut? Do we discipline—good—but rarely remind them of Jesus’ love—bad? Have we made it easy for them to miss out on regularly hearing the word of God here, or in our classrooms, or through devotions? Do we imagine that children just naturally grow in faith, even though we as parents may be feeding them spiritually only rarely, or not well? Are we standing in the way of our own children, in effect making it harder for them to get to heaven?

The inventor of children wants us to honor children. The inventor of marriage wants us to protect that promise. The inventor of families knows how families operate best.

Yet we, so easily, choose to work our families as we think best. Dangerous. For our families. For our souls. One’s future is not bright when one tells God what he has joined is best broken. One’s eternity is not happy when one tells God the souls of the little matter little. One does not enter the kingdom of God when one does not look at the kingdom of God as God has described it.

Our hearts skip a beat. Fear. Before the Inventor of all.

How can any enter the kingdom?

The kingdom of God belongs to those who are of the same sort as those little children who were brought to Jesus many, many years ago.

We would expect God to say to us, “You’re right. It’s too late.” Instead he says, “The kingdom of God belongs to those who are of the same sort as these little children.”

What was it about those little children brought to Jesus? Were they not sinners? Does the kingdom of God belong to those who aren’t sinners? That doesn’t help. But wait. Do you know any little children who aren’t sinners? Even infants are sinners, God says, from the time of conception.”

These children weren’t different because they were not sinners. Children are of the right sort when children trust a simple truth, that Jesus is all that matters, because Jesus is their Savior. Jesus loves you, he who died. Heaven’s gates to open wide. He has washed away my sin, lets his little child come in. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.

How beautiful when a child hears of nails and thorns, on cross suspended, then tomb, upended and empty on Easter . . . when a child looks you in the eye and says, “Jesus died for my sins, Mommie.” Just because you told them.

The kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

When our human, sinful minds attempt to make this so complicated . . . .how can I ever undo what I did? How could God ever love someone like me? How do I know it’s true when I can’t see with my eyes the cross, an empty tomb? When we ask all these questions, coming from doubt and from fear, the Lord looks at you with a three-year-old in his arms who has love for his Savior beating in his heart and says, “Don’t you get it? I love you too. Trust me.”

Those eyes of the child with warm arms of a Savior wrapped tightly around, looking back at you with question marks, question marks . . . wondering how you might be missing what he so surely knows. It’s true. He loves.

The kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

This faith of child, a model. Precious.

Love them. Love children’s souls. Who would want to stand in their way, keeping them from hearing about their Savior? Let Sunday School and worship and Bible stories and Christian table conversation be not just a periodic accident, but a regular plan with a purpose. This is God’s command to you, words from the inventor.

And with marriage, another beautiful aspect of the family. More loving direction from the inventor. “I came up with this from the very beginning. You leave your father and mother. You are then glued to your husband, your wife. Super glue. Never to be separated.”

Family. Yes, there may be mystery squeaks. In marriage. With children. Take not the hammer of human solutions to the challenges you face in your families. Go to the inventor. Learn the problem. Rejoice in forgiveness. Be guided for this day and next, by the inventor. The Inventor of families.

Amen.