Eventually everything falls apart.
Like building a sandcastle at high tide.
Even the stars, they wear out and die.
Marriages die. Despite everything or often because of everything marriages die, and it makes a mess.
Sometimes choices run out, the only choices left are all bad, and the least bad choice is divorce.
There are so many ways to kill any relationship, and so many ways to salvage a relationship, the marriages that last are always choosing to start over in some way but sometimes it is simply too late, we come to the end of ourselves and there is nothing left.
What does the Good News of Jesus Christ have to say about this? Is it just another way to point the finger, to cast blame, to assign right and wrong? More of the same ole thing? Like that’s what we need more of!
I think a shallow reading of the faith can and has very often led to just that, more of the same finger pointing. But I think a deeper slower reading of the Gospel does something very different. It points to the constant struggle and choice to receive the Kingdom of God when everything is torn apart. The Gospel is about starting over.
Moses struggled with divorce. Jesus struggled with divorce. Scripture has Jesus saying different things in regards to it. There is nothing new about it. Nobody says it’s good. But what do we do next? Point the finger? Tear things apart even more? Or do we receive the Kingdom of God as a child? Start over? Grow up again?
The Gospel lesson from Mark today isn’t really about divorce, it is about the deep purpose of creation, and that deep purpose is to be in relationship. And then it is about the tragedy and the sin of how we tear ourselves and one another apart, and then the ultimate choice to give up the life of tearing one another apart and becoming a child all over again, receiving the kingdom and learning a new way to live, of choosing to create rather than destroy, to build up rather than tear down.
The story moves from Jesus referring back to the beginning of creation and the purpose of relationships being at the heart of why God created everything, then the story moves to how we tear things asunder and it finishes with the choice to begin anew.
Everything falls apart. That’s old news. The Gospel is about starting over, what do we do now?
Jesus was torn asunder on the cross, and we are given the gift of resurrection, of starting over. What do we do with that gift? Do we receive it? Or do we keep tearing things apart?
Today is the feast day of St. Francis. He is often considered the patron saint of creation, both within the faith and outside the faith, thus our custom of animal blessings on this day. But I think he is really the patron saint of New Creation, of starting over, of the constant choice to begin anew, to become a child receiving the kingdom that is about resurrection rather than tearing things asunder.
Everything falls apart. It is tragic and agonizing but there is nothing new or surprising about that. It is what comes next that is the better part. Will we keep tearing things asunder, or will we start over, receive the kingdom that is resurrection?
That choice is with us every day, every moment, every breath. Which will it be?
I say today is a good day to start over.
