Reflection for 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time (B) – October 7, 2018
Reflection:
In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus teaches the Pharisees about marriage by beginning with creation in the Book of Genesis. We’ve heard this passage many times and we’ll hear it again in both this Sunday’s first reading and Gospel: “God made them male and female. For this reason a man should leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” No matter our state of life, we all can appreciate this deep form of union in which two become one, because not only is it beautiful, but it points to the communion God intends for all of us as well.
“We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.” These words from Thomas Merton hang on one of the banners in the hallway downstairs. How many times have you walked underneath these words and contemplated their meaning? To take them seriously means believing that every other person who walks beneath that banner belongs to you and you to them. It can be so hard to remember this and actually live it out – there are some people we encounter and wish we didn’t have to be connected to, but our relationality is intrinsic to who we are; it’s who God created us to be. This manifests itself differently in every life – for some of us as one flesh in marriage, for others as members of religious communities, but for all of us, as members of the Body of Christ. We need each other, and in the Father’s great love, we’ve been given to each other. Through God’s grace, may our own loving folk choir community remind us all that we are always in communion and we are never alone.
Gospel: Mark 10:2-12
The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked, “It is lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him. He said to them in reply, “What did Moses command you?” They replied, “Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her.” But Jesus told them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you a commandment. 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, no human being must separate.”
Hymn: Song of Ruth
Never let me part from your side! Never let our paths be divided,
for as road begets road, and days run their course, so is my path ever destined with yours.
Wherever you go, there shall be my journey;
Wherever you live, there shall be my home.
Your people shall be my kin and my companion, and your God I shall call as my own.
Join your heart with mine, all our days. Weave your hand in mine, on our journey, when all
wand’rings are done, when one road remains, Love, make us one in God’s promise to come.