Comfort zone

Mark 12:18-27

          There's nothing really quite as pleasant sometimes as laying on your couch on a lazy afternoon, perhaps reading a book, the paper or simply counting the clouds as they float by. Comfort. Ahhh! I think we all love being comfortable whatever your vision of it may be. Laying poolside doesn't seem all that bad either. 

          Have you ever had the experience at work or even with friends when you start a task and one person says, 'well, at such and such place, we do it this way' or better yet, "We don't do it that way".  We do love our comfort. Sometimes it seems we'd rather have it wrong or screwed up with the 'devil we know' rather than exercise the effort o change lest we find 'the devil we don't know. We do love our comfort.

        The problem is however, we start to look at things with a tunnel vision and fail to see other possibilities. Not only for ourselves but for the rest of the world. The Sadducee's could only see there limited vision and tried to trap Jesus with a question based on their tunnel vision. I could just see Jesus shaking his head thinking how ignorant they are, how sad they are, or blurting out "you just don't get it do you?"

        Yesterday my husband and I marched with a group protesting how a transgendered person was treated in a popular local tavern.  We chanted "No bias, No violence, No more!" The closest I have ever come to anything resembling transgendered was dressing up as a woman for a Halloween party a long, long time ago.  There was no stigma attached, it was a Halloween party.  But I am quite familiar with feeling like I am being judged. I am quite familiar with people telling me as a gay person 'that I am not using my parts the right way' or the way they feel they should be used. I know in some situations I would be a likely target of violence or discrimination. For the most part I do live a safe, comfy and wonderful life. Great family, friends, perfect husband, adoring super cat and nice diggs. I could easily stay on the couch after getting up at 3 am to blog, working all day alone because my support staff was at home sick and I had a big shipment of supplies that came in. I could have come home and gotten quite comfy.

         The thing is, those Sadducee's were really ignorant, pretentious, perhaps even cocky with Jesus.  I dislike the word hate very much but that's comes pretty close to how I feel about arrogant, self righteous, ignorant people.  My life is pretty easy though so I probably would not run into any on my couch. But what about the children? The more vulnerable ones? My brothers an sisters? 

         Shouldn't I reach beyond my comfort zone to help my brothers and sisters? And even for myself, shouldn't I move beyond what I am comfy with and perhaps don't even totally understand to help my brothers and sisters out of love?

         We all love our comfort but we are not called to take the easy road. That breeds arrogance, laziness and ignorance. Even Jesus asked the Father if this cup could pass him by but Jesus drank fully of the cup. He embraced our humanity in every way, in it's beautiful diverse way and stepped up to the plate.  I think we are called to do the same.

Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, saying, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children; and the second married her and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; none of the seven left children. Last of all the woman herself died. In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her.’

Jesus said to them, ‘Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.’