Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Genesis 2:18-24 | Hebrews 2:9-11 | John 10:2-12
What is the answer to a child's question: Where did I come from? If ever there was a loaded question, this is one of them, and astonishingly, it comes from a child. The awaiting child expects a simple answer, but an appropriate response can be challenging.
If today's readings prompt questions, they might be: Did God really make a woman from a man's rib? Can what God has joined together be separated? Is my thinking childlike?
Centuries separate the Genesis story, Jesus' teaching, and our lived experience of gospel and academic life. The church provides three cycles of yearly readings to keep us attuned to messages we can use to connect God to our ever changing life. Scripture remains static, but insights do not. If three years alter perceptions, imagine the centuries between and how interpretations influence the belief systems of many cultures.
The author of Genesis delves deeply into history, providing a graphic picture of how two forms of the human body were created. How exactly this happened will not be known unless artificial intelligence enlightens our knowledge base.
In the Hebrew culture, divorce was the recognition that a man and wife were no longer considered a couple. The two becoming one appears to be a temporary arrangement when so many marriages are dissolved in this era. The rejection of children who were presented for Jesus' blessing is difficult to accept. Jesus again has to rebuke the twelve for their action and tell them, and us: "Whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it."
As stories of the apostles reveal how we are often like them, their keeping Jesus away from the children was motivated by the fact we humans perceive ourselves as intelligent and sophisticated people who know how to act in all circumstances when, in truth, this is not so.
Today, there may be a call to examine motives, abandon inflated egos, and simply allow Jesus to bless us.
Sr. Dorothy Maxwell, OP
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