THOUGHTS ON MARK 10:2-16

I'd like to engage a reading and praxis of Mark 10 over the next few posts.  I hope you'll become engaged and will consider the words of Jesus.

Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” ³ He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” ⁴ They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” ⁵ But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. ⁶ But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ⁷ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,^{[b] 8} and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹ Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

¹⁰ Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. ¹¹ He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; ¹² and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

¹³ People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. ¹⁴ 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. ¹⁵ Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” ¹⁶ And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

 

Did you catch the deeper theme in there?

God is, at His core, relational.
And God created us for relationships.
Man and woman and child.

He could have called His work good and complete when He created Adam, but he wasn’t finished.

No, instead, he created a companion. 

There’s something right in the creative order that says relationships are vital to the kingdom of God.

Even God exists in relationship – Father, Son, and Spirit.

Have you ever stopped to think about that?

Surely if God, in His most perfect essence requires relationship, that we do too.

And we are in relationship with one another and the earth. 
All of it ripe for thriving-interaction and life.
 

When we treat God’s creation with dignity, we reap a wonderful harvest.

When we commit to one another, with love and dignity, we reap a harvest of peace and shalom.
Amen.