All God’s Beloved Children

The Nazareth Page - A gospel meditation for your home

October 6, 2024 – Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time -Mark 10:2-16

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Most biblical scholars say that Mark’s Gospel was the first written account about the life of Jesus. It is also the shortest gospel. This suggests that it likely includes some of the most important insights about the personal views and values of Jesus. Today we read about how Jesus related to children, a pressing issue in his time, and, I must add, in our own.

In the time of Jesus’s public life, the value of children was seemingly ambiguous. In today’s gospel narrative, we learn of a time when children were brought by their parents to be close to Jesus, while his own disciples told these parents that Jesus was not interested.

They had the attitude that Jesus was only concerned with important matters, and that children were not one of them. And observing how his disciples reacted to those who might have been viewed as “pushy” parents, Jesus immediately corrected his disciples. And in no uncertain terms!

He responded that children were in fact very important in God’s eyes. They were models of faith and trust in God. Jesus embraced and blessed them and welcomed them to come close to him.

 

In doing this we can affirm that the attitude and love of God, as expressed though Jesus, is all-inclusive. It encompasses all ages of people, no matter what their age, condition or status. And this message is always timely because, as we painfully observe today and throughout history, religion can act more to divide people than uniting them as beloved and valued children of God.

Sadly, we find ourselves in a very divided world. Too often we create divisions between “we” and “them,” those who agree with us and those who don’t. And social divisions, whether religious or otherwise, can even work their way into families. Married couples can drift apart because one is red and one is blue. Parents can lose touch with their own children based on differences that might even have religious dimensions. We too easily forget that we are all God’s beloved children.

Today’s gospel invites us all to examine our consciences. Have we allowed the differences between us to divide us? In our families? In our neighborhoods? In our workplaces? In our country? In our world?  

 

   David M. Thomas, PhD    


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