What God Has Joined Together
October 3, 2021: A Reflection for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
Mark 10:2-16
What God has joined together, no human being must separate. (Mk 10:9)
At first glance, today’s Gospel appears to be about marriage and divorce. But a closer look reveals that what Jesus is really trying to teach is about the Kingdom of God. He is approached by some Pharisees whose intent is to trip him up in his speech and Jesus carefully answers their test question, aware that their intent is to have him speak against the Law. He is then approached by people bringing their children to him in order to touch them but his disciples send them away, only to have Jesus tell them to LET the children come to him, because it is to such that the Kingdom of God is given.
What is the Kingdom of God? The Kingdom of God is God Himself. The Kingdom of God is our deepest still point where we come forth from the creative hand of God at each moment. And God speaks our name, not in audible words but in the creative fulness that bestows on us our being, our meaning and the unique presence that is proper to each one of us. It is pure, exhilarating gift! With the bestowing of our being we are called forth to live from this deepest place within where God and our spirit are one, and to live out our call to be a Christ-bearer, to yield to the presence of God in love, in service to others in the simplicity of the love of God. To be the hands and heart of God in our own unique way. To be a ‘yes’ to God in whatever way God pours out our lives. God has joined us to himself at our deepest center and “What God has joined together, no human being must separate.” We don’t have to earn it. It simply IS. We have only to receive it. And then live from it.
So what do children have that Jesus would place them before us to show us how to receive. Children are like little sponges, ready to receive love. They soak it up and give it freely in return. No wonder Jesus would want the children to come to him! He who IS love desires with all his being to pour himself out and to cherish the freely-given love of his creatures.
In Jesus, we see the Kingdom of God in our own flesh. We see the longing of the heart of God to enter, by love, into the dailiness of our lives: its joys, its sorrows, its darkness and pain and its light. Jesus, you who are the Kingdom and have joined all creation to yourself at our deepest center, give us the simplicity and openness of a child to soak up the love which fills us and to be that love in a world so much in need.