October 8, 2006
Genesis 2:18-24 + Hebrews 2:9-11 + Mark 10:2-16
Today we have a Gospel with three scenes: Pharisees, Disciples, and Children. The Pharisees come along with one of their trick questions. Always a trap, never sincere, they look and wait for ways to discredit Jesus. He will not play along. He takes neither side in their either-or question but goes to the heart of the matter which they cannot perceive. So, he steps inside with those who will succeed him brings them to a new understanding that the Pharisees could never grasp. For you see, the Pharisees stayed in power and had control because they kept everyone split up and divided. Opposition and dispute were their tools.
Once inside with disciples, Jesus lays the foundation for the New Covenant and reveals the Father’s original plan. To help us get the point, the church provides a reading from Genesis today and reviews for us the Father’s plan from the beginning. “Partner” is the description we hear. The woman may have been taken from the man, but the man had no part in it, and he did not even witness it. They are partners says the author of Genesis describing what God intended. In this particular story of creation, the focus is on this relationship. In his teaching with the disciples, Jesus restores that balance and partnership by putting the woman in the case proposed by the Pharisees on the same footing as the man. They are equal, says Jesus.
Alone, separate, neither of them fulfills the creative design of the God. But together, living in unity and interdependence, they are a symbol of restored creation. Mark’s strong stand against divorce is a defense of the unity desired by God. While Jesus presents a vision of what marriage should be, he utters no condemnation of those who are divorced. In fact, in the Gospel of John Jesus comes to the defense of a woman about to be stoned who has often been married.
If this Gospel were really just about marriage, Jesus would have stayed outside with the Pharisees. What Mark leads us to as always is a revelation of God’s plan
being restored in Jesus his Son. Now, marriage as God planned it is not simply a relationship between two people. Rather, it is a covenant between two people and God.
The binding force is not the vows, nor is it the love between the two people. The binding force is God’s own presence in that Relationship. Christ did not say “What the marriage ceremony has joined together.” Neither did he say, “What Love has joined together.” What he said was: “What God has joined together”. This church is filled with sacraments: signs of the God’s Love, signs of God’s presence, signs of God’s healing, forgiving, Love. Married couples do not receive a sacrament. They become one.
The lesson of this Gospel is not only about marriage, however. It is about unity and oneness; about the reality of God’s presence where there is unity and oneness.
The challenge of this gospel is not just found in divorce. It is found wherever we separate what God intended to be one. In our society, in our church, even in our families, issues of race, economics, gender, sexuality, justice, and life leave us divided, not speaking, alienated, hostile, and even violent.
Then comes the third scene: the children. What a powerful and disturbing image it is. Jesus surrounded by children, embracing them calling them, blessing them. It is an image that must haunt the Christian conscience as we see the horror of malnourished and disease-ridden children at home and abroad who in their innocence bear the suffering caused by the collapse of the human family, and the division of this world into haves and have-nots.
Jesus rebukes those who would separate him from the children. He rebukes those who ignore the lesson children teach us about how utterly dependent we are upon one another. To realize that, and to rejoice in it, is to honor indeed what God has joined together.