A Broad, Expansive Love
Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Genesis 2:18–24 / Psalm 128:5 / Hebrews 2:9–11 / Mark 10:2–16 [2–12]
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Reflecting on the Word
By Dr. Karla J. Bellinger
A friend came into the break room and announced, “Today, my husband and I have been married for thirteen happy years!” We all congratulated her. When the room quieted, she said, “Well . . . we’ve been married for twenty-four.”
Marriage can be beautiful. Marriage can be broken. There is nothing that can get an argument going as much as the topic of marriage. That was true in the times Jesus lived in. That is still true in our own.
Some of the priests whom I coach in homiletics tell me that they’d rather talk about anything else than preach on marriage and divorce. They know people in their pews who have been hurt by betrayal and brokenness; some had their childhood ripped apart when their family split up, leaving wounds that have never healed. Why would you want to awaken that pain?
The words of Jesus teaching about the permanence of marriage can feel rigid and even harsh from a Teacher who was neither. Yet his words have been slung like a weapon ever since. But what is the ideal that Jesus, the man of love, is looking for?
At the center of this scripture are the words “joined together.” They connote a God-given intimacy; not just walking beside someone, not simply a physical union, but an integral give-and-take of one’s whole life. Jesus extols becoming childlike, but childishness has to be left behind for two people to come together to serve one another.
Sometimes we get glimpses of God’s expansive vision for what marriage can be. I recall Tom and Sally at daily Mass. She was frail and leaned like the Tower of Pisa. He led her into church by the elbow. When he smoothed her hair, she looked up at him and smiled. They had gone through many decades and many sufferings, but the two of them seemed to be “joined together” in mutual joy. I think they made God smile.
Consider/Discuss
- God’s vision for marriage is broad and expansive—a gift of belovedness from one person to another. Where have you seen that vision take hold? Who do you know as a model of being “joined together”?
- Just as the Pharisees put Jesus to the test over the issue of marriage and divorce, so our culture wrangles over the issue of marriage. It is deeply divisive topic. What kinds of disputes arise among your family and friends? In Christian charity, how can you speak to those conflicts in a way that will be heard as love?
Living and Praying with the Word
Jesus, you saw a model of marriage in your childhood home in Nazareth. And yet even your Holy Family was not free from its trials. Early on, Joseph thought about divorcing Mary. There may have been conflicts about how to raise you properly, whose fault it was you got left behind in the temple, how to carry on as Joseph lay dying. Married life is full of the tug and pull of conflict. Send your grace upon all families. Help us to handle our differences with love and kindness. Your vision is that we be one. On our own, we cannot make it happen, but come, Prince of Peace and make it so.