Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity
“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
Overview
It is tempting to skip to the end of today’s Gospel reading (Mark 10:2-16) and focus on the image of Jesus with the child in his arms whilst missing out all the difficult talk of divorce and adultery. The hard talk, however, gets to the heart of Jesus’ message: it is not that Jesus is fixated on rules and laws; what he is concerned about is our hearts. Do we have a heart for those who are vulnerable? In his time, both women and children were extremely vulnerable and reliant on male householders for their care and continued existence. Jesus is asking us to be concerned for the person not for the rules. If we obey the law but ignore the individual then we have hardened our hearts. In today’s context this involves paying attention to how our actions impact the most vulnerable: divorced women may not be the most vulnerable people for us; instead our focus may be fair trade, climate change, living wages, racism. The call is the same: opening our hearts and minds and taking responsibility for the harm our actions may cause the little ones among us.
Reading
GOSPEL
Mark 10:2-16
Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
