On divorce

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Jesus left Galilee and went across the Jordan to the region of Judea. Large crowds followed him and he healed and taught them as he normally did. Some Pharisees came up to him to test him. They asked “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”

MT 19:1-3, MK 10:1-2

He replied, “Surely you have read that in the beginning, God made people male and female, and God said ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’. So they are no longer two separate people, but one being. What God has put together, we should not separate.”

MT 19:4-6, MK 10:6-9

“Why then,” they asked him, “did Moses tell us that whoever divorces his wife must give her divorce papers and send her away?”

MT 5:31, MT 19:7, MK 10:3-4

Jesus answered “Moses wrote that rule because people have hard hearts. But this is not what God intended.”

MT 19:8, MK 10:5

“I tell you that any man who divorces his wife, except in a case of sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery. And if a person divorces their spouse and marries another person, they commit adultery. Everyone who marries a divorced woman is also guilty of adultery.

LK 16:18, MT 19:9, MT 5:32, MK 10:11

His disciples said “If being married is like this then it’s better not to marry!”

But Jesus said “This teaching is not for everyone but only to those who it is meant for. There are eunuchs who were that way at birth, there are eunuchs who were created by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves that way for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Let anyone accept this teaching who able to.”

MT 19:10-12

Poem – she left

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She left years ago.
She didn’t walk out.
There were no bags.

She left his comic books and cartoons.
She left his callused hands and callous ways.

He was thin skinned
and thick headed.

He never saw it. He never saw her leave.
He never saw her as anything
other
than a roommate, a prop, a support.

Her accomplishments rendered him speechless,
more impotent than he already was,
self-depreciating, self loathing.

A man isn’t a man just because of his age.
A husband is more than someone who is married.

She left him,
left him in her heart,
sad for his emptiness
his neediness,
his brokenness.
To try to fix him was to take away his power.

She left him
to his own devices –
Playstation, computer, and tablet. Action figures too.
Maybe they will help him to grow up.
Maybe one day he will learn from his
mistakes
instead of celebrating them, sickly
by repeating them,
over and over and over and over
and wondering why nothing ever goes his way.

She left him,
because she woke up,
and kept waking up
next to him.
His daily drunkenness on his own failure,
his addiction to his own pathology,
sickened her.

It threatened her.
It threatened her.

Like an alcoholic fresh out of rehab,
his ways threatened her
sobriety,
her awakening.

She left, because he threatened her,
not with words, not with fists
but with his very being.

Poem – I stand in the presence of God

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When the angel Gabriel told Zachariah
“I am Gabriel,
who stands
in the presence
of God”
(Luke 1:19)
what he meant was
that while
he was talking to Zachariah
he was
at the same time
in the presence
of God.

Angels do not experience
our reality
in the same way
that we do.

Angels are multi dimensional.
Angels are quantum.
They are not in the same phase
of the space-time continuum
as we are.

When Gabriel is reporting
what God is saying,
he is hearing
it at the same time
God is saying it
and then
reporting it
to the person.

He is there with God
and here
with us
at the same time.
There isn’t far away.
There is right here
– we just cannot see God
because our senses
cannot usually
perceive something
that overwhelming.

God blows our fuses.

God is like trying
to play a CD
on a record player.

The angel is able
to take shape
in our dimension
and relate to us
the words of God
in a way
that we can hear
and understand.

However,
even though we need angels
to hear God,
(sometimes),
God can always hear us,
and always does.

Zachariah’s prophesy

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Then Zachariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to prophesy.

“Give praise to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to visit his people to redeem them. He has brought forth a mighty king from within the house of his servant David to save us, just as he promised through his holy prophets long ago – someone to save us from the clutches of our enemies and those who hate us. He has shown mercy to our ancestors and remembered his holy covenant that he swore to Abraham – to rescue us from the hands of our enemies and make it possible for us to serve in the presence of God freely and without fear, with holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives.

And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Mighty One, for you will prepare the way before the Lord, by teaching people how to find salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.

Because of God’s great mercy and compassion, a dawn from heaven is about to shine upon us, to give light to those who live in darkness and suffer in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet in the ways of peace.”

The child grew and became strong in the Spirit, and he lived in the wilderness until he began his public ministry to the people of Israel.

LK 1:67-80

The birth and naming of John

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The time arrived for Elizabeth to give birth to her son. The word spread quickly to all of her neighbors and relatives about how merciful God had been to her, and they celebrated with her about her son’s birth.

Eight days after the baby was born, at the circumcision ceremony, everyone thought that the child was going to be named Zachariah after his father, but Elizabeth protested, saying “No! He will be called John.”

The guests said to her “None of your relatives has that name, so why would you name him that?” They motioned to his father to find out what the child’s name should be. To everyone’s surprise, he wrote “His name is John” on a piece of paper.

Immediately he was able to speak and he began to praise God. All of the neighbors became greatly concerned, and the news of this unusual occurrence spread throughout the hillside of Judea. Everyone who heard the news thought about it very deeply, saying “I wonder what this child will become?” They could tell that the hand of the Lord was with him.

LK 1:57-66

Poem “Fat”

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These days,
the fastest way
to discredit
a woman
is to call her “fat”.

Years back,
it was “mentally ill”.
Years before that,
the word was
“witch”.

Remember?

You can silence people with these words.
But people
only silence
the ones
who
make noise.

Being called a name like
fat,
or mentally ill,
or witch
means you are onto something
means they are scared of you,
of what you have to say.

Don’t be silent,
and don’t be
scared,
afraid,
angry
at those words.

Those words are a sign
that you are
on the right track.

Mary praises God (The Magnificat)

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Mary then said, “I proclaim the greatness of God from the depths of my being, and my spirit rejoices in God who is my Savior, because God has looked with favor on me, a lowly servant girl. From now on every generation will call me blessed because the Mighty One has done great things for me, and his name is Holy. God’s mercy is eternal for those who respect and honor him. He has done mighty things with his arm – he scatters those who are proud, he has overthrown the rulers and lifted up the meek, he has provided a feast for the hungry, while sending away the rich empty-handed. God has remembered his promise to be merciful and has helped his servant Israel, just as he promised to Abraham and all of his descendants.”

Mary stayed with Elizabeth until just before John was born.

LK 1:46-56

Healer vs. Doctor

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I once saw a medical program on TV where a woman had tendonitis in her thumb. She had a young child and every time she picked him up she used her hand in a certain way that caused her thumb to repeatedly experience stress. On the show, the doctor gave her a steroid shot in her thumb to fix the problem.

The real issue though is that he was simply being a doctor. Doctors fix the symptom. Healers fix the problem.

If he wanted to be a true healer, he would have shown her different ways of using her hand so that she would never ever have that problem again. By being a doctor, and addressing only the symptom, he ensures that in the future she will experience the same problem again and thus need to seek him for help again. She will again get a shot and again not be any better in the big picture.

Mary visits Elizabeth

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Shortly afterwards, Mary went to visit Elizabeth at her home in the hill country of Judea. The child leapt within Elizabeth’s womb when Mary called out her greeting, and Elizabeth was suddenly filled with the Holy Spirit.

Elizabeth exclaimed with a loud voice, “God has blessed you above all other women, and the fruit of your womb is blessed! How did I deserve the honor of the mother of my Lord coming to me? As soon as I heard your greeting, my child leapt for joy in my womb! She who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her is blessed.”

LK 1:39-45

The angel Gabriel predicts Jesus’ birth

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Six months after John was conceived, God sent the angel Gabriel to a village in Galilee called Nazareth, to visit a woman named Mary. She was engaged to Joseph, a descendant of King David.

The angel said “Rejoice! The Lord is with you! You are blessed and favored among women!”

Mary was perplexed by his words and wondered what he meant by this greeting. The angel continued saying “Have no fear Mary, for God has chosen you. You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and called the Son of God, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor King David. He will reign over the house of Israel forever and his kingdom will have no end!”

Mary asked the angel, “How is this possible since I have never been with a man?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and you will be overshadowed by the power of the Most High. Therefore this child will be completely holy and God will be his father. Consider this, your relative Elizabeth who was barren and elderly has conceived and is six months pregnant. Nothing is impossible with God!”
“I am a servant of the Lord,” said Mary. “May everything happen to me that you have said.” Then the angel left.

LK 1:26-38