The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity
“Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it”
Summary
At first glance our readings today seem to be all about marriage and divorce but they are about so much more than that. Genesis 2:18-24 gives us part of the second creation story. I tend to prefer the first (Genesis 1) in which all humanity (and all genders) are created at the same time, whereas here the woman seems to be created only after the man to help him out. But perhaps we are creating gender distinctions were there are none: as men and women appear at the same time in today’s reading too, both being formed out of one ha-adam or earth creature. The creation of gender divisions is something that Jesus comments on too in Mark 10:2-16. Divorce, as the Pharisees make clear, was something only a man could avail himself of whereas Jesus refers to both men and women divorcing their spouses as if they had equal rights. It is the inequality that Jesus wants to draw our attention to. Once divorced, a woman risked destitution and death, as did her children. The law is less important than the people affected by it. Both our readings centre on dependency: our need for one another, for God and for the whole of creation. Jesus does not condemn us for breaking any laws but for our hardness of heart; our refusal to take care of each other and our world. When we do so, we forget that we too are dependant, created as part of one flesh and one earth. As Jesus takes the child into his arms to honour and bless it, he invites us to do likewise: when every creature of earth, together with the earth from which we were formed, is honoured and cherished, we enter again the kingdom of God.
First Reading
Genesis 2:18-24
Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
‘This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,
for out of Man this one was taken.’
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
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.
