A note to the reader. This is my first sermon at Calvary Lutheran, Minong WI.
After just moving in, I was not able to find my video camera or voice recorder. However, it was found this week and future sermons will be recorded.
Sunday, October 4, 2015 | After Pentecost
Old Testament Genesis 2:18–24
New Testament Hebrews 1:1–4, 2:5–12
Gospel Mark 10:2–16
When I looked at the gospel lesson for today, all I could do is say, REALLY, my first Sunday here at Calvary and this is the text I get? Sermons sometimes can be hard enough to write but mix our Gospel in with moving to Minong and the multitude of things that did not, well lets just say, did not go as smoothly as we would have liked. Overall, I have been feeling pretty comfortable about starting this call here at Calvary. Not that I had a comparison to any other calls but it is not like I have not been a pastor before. After all, I spent 4 years as an associate pastor, albeit not ordained. Much of the last year and up until July, I have been the sole pastor for a congregation in Fulton IA.
I had a spiritual director tell me once, Doug, ever time you are feeling comfortable, what I am hearing is that you had better duck. God seems to have curve balls that come and shake me up. It is kind of like laying all comfortable in a frying pan that is just keeping you warm, then all of a sudden the pan is tipped and you are tossed into the fire! 
I told that to a friend of mine and next thing I know she was sent me a picture of someone running with their back end on fire.
The next image I saw was Jesus laughing. Not because He thought it was funny that I had to deal with what he said but because I was missing the whole point. That laughing Jesus helped me to focus, not just on the words but deeper into the meaning of what was going on in the text.
Sure, it was easy to just see the words that were said by Jesus. “…what God has joined together, let no one separate.” [1] “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” [2] On the surface, that might seem like salt into the wound of some. Adultery, is sin and Jesus says to the Pharisees, who came to test him, that despite a divorce, that adultery is committed by those who re-marry another after a divorce.
As we know from the Bible, Moses had many conversations with God. He not only brought God’s laws to the Israelites, but he also became an intermediary, an advocate for the people who continued to sin, even after given the laws. Moses grants divorces, not because there was something wrong with God’s law. The law is still the law but God, instead bends to the needs of God’s people and divorce is allowed. Even though divorce is allowed, God’s law is still the law and “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”[3]
All that being said, it was the people that had a hardness of heart. A heart that despite knowing right from wrong, still did and even today does wrong. I try to do what is right but I still do what is wrong, despite me wanting to do what is right in the eyes of God. Paul said it in his letter to the Romans, “14 For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. 15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”[4]
Jesus is speaking to the bigger issue when he responds to the Pharisees. He is not just speaking about divorce and adultery but takes the opportunity to speak to the law and sin and the brokenness of people. No matter how hard we try, we cannot be saved through the law. It is the Jews who have a covenant with God, in the law. Gentiles, all those who are not Jews, have no covenant with God in the law.
Paul in his letter to the Galatians said, 10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by
all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”[5] Note that all things, not just some things written must be followed. The law is not to be taken cafeteria style, picking and choosing what we like to follow and what we do not like to follow.
Sin and brokenness is surrounding us everywhere. We can’t hardly turn on the T.V. without hearing of some sort of conflict, war, hunger, and killings, happening all around the world. Is it that we have become accustomed to hearing so much sin, that we have become numb and thus the sinful nature is allowed to propagate? In Oregon this week, we had another mass murder take place. Brokenness everywhere we look, every place we turn. When we hear of these things, how do we respond? Where is Jesus in all of this brokenness? We must not murder, we must not covet and the list of 10 goes on.
Where does that leave you and I and the rest of the world? We do not have a covenant with God in the law. We do have a Covent sealed in the blood of God’s Son, Jesus the Christ. From the book of John, “16For God so loved the world that [God] gave [God’s] one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send [the] Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”[6]
No matter how much we want to follow the law, we will not be able to do this on our own. It is in our response to God for what is done for us through Jesus, that we rely upon Spirit to guide us, to keep our paths straight and that we try and succeed, sometimes that is, in following the law. Not for our salvation but out of a grateful response to a loving and compassionate God who showers us in grace through the Son.
[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Mk 10:9.
[2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Mk 10:11–12.
[3] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Mk 10:9.
[4] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ro 7:14–15.
[5] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Ga 3:10.
[6] The Holy Bible: Today’s New International Version. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), Jn 3:16–19.