Why do we have to read that? Mark 10: 2-12

Yesterday, my sermon was about Jesus’ words on divorce. As I prepared to preach about this difficult topic, I consulted some resources and commentaries, and I also spent time in prayer trying to understand what Jesus was teaching us. One commentator said, “If you are going to read this text in church, you need to preach about it. You can’t just leave it hanging out there.” The tension between our Lutheran understanding of law and gospel seemed particularly important to discern in these complex passages.

I want to be clear about WHY I chose Mark 10: 2-12 as my sermon text.

The sermon is the tool that we, as pastors, use to proclaim the gospel to our congregations during worship. Our sermon preparation always starts with a text from scripture. These texts are not randomly chosen. We preach using the Revised Common Lectionary, a collection of readings or selections from the Scriptures, arranged and intended for proclamation during the worship of the people of God. Lectionaries were known and used in the fourth century, where major churches arranged the Scripture readings according to a schedule which follows the calendar of the church's year. This practice of assigning particular readings to each Sunday and festival has continued through the history of the Christian Church.

These common texts are used by churches worldwide, and across all denominations. If you visited several different churches on a Sunday morning, you would probably find that most of the pastors and priests were preaching on the same text. It would be an interesting study of theology! There are many reasons to use the lectionary, but one of the best, I think, is that by using the lectionary, we are invited to address all different kinds of texts and not simply choose our favorites week after week.

And sometimes, a text pops up that we would rather skip because it makes us uncomfortable, or it is difficult and harsh. It is our job as pastors, to work and to pray and to study so we can find the grace in even the most judgmental sounding scripture. And we know, because of our trust and faith in the unconditional love of God for us in Jesus that grace, the gospel, is always found there.

I hope that you all heard a word of grace yesterday if you were in worship. It is never my intention to hurt of offend anyone with my preaching, but God calls us to look at ourselves in the mirror and to realize our brokenness (with the law) – we are all broken in one way or another. It is that brokenness that shows us our need for a savior. Thanks be to God for giving us once for all, what we so desperately need – Jesus Christ – unconditional love, and forgiveness, and grace (it’s the gospel!).