Growing Down

A few of you will have read the latest Mumologic blog post. It is a conversation between my daughter and her 21-month-old son, Jasper. I’m going to take that conversation and insert it into the last part of today’s Gospel and I’m going to make Jesus the one having the conversation with little Jasper.

Mark 10: 2-16

 Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.’ But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 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, let no one separate.’ Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.’ Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. One small boy stayed with Jesus and settled onto his lap. 

Jesus: Look, Jasper! An airplane.

Jasper: Fly. Moon.

Jesus: It's flying to the moon?

Jasper: Yeah.

Jesus: What's on the moon?

Jasper: Puddles.

Jesus: Anything else?

Jasper: Bananas.

Jesus: Anything else?

Jasper: Stickers.

Jesus: Anything else?

Jasper: No.

What a delightful and refreshing conversation that must have been for Jesus after spending time debating law with the Pharisees. I’m feeling sympathetic to Jesus’ desire to have children around him because I just spent a good portion of my afternoon researching Jewish marriage, what it meant to them to be ‘one flesh’ and what the Jewish laws state about divorce. It was a long afternoon.

Some of it was quite interesting, though. For instance, did you know that the Hebrew word for ‘one’ in the phrase ‘one flesh’ is the same as the Hebrew word that is used for ‘one’ in Deuteronomy 6:4? "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one." And did you know that some Jews believed that God originally created one human being with one soul. Then he created them male and female and he divided the soul between them. They believed marriage was the coming together of two equal soul halves to make one complete soul.

And then I got into the divorce laws and I realized, once again, that we humans sure can make things complicated. Every little possibility and complexity had to be worked out and defined. What constitutes a valid reason for saying, “I divorce you”? Can a woman say it to man? What is a ‘Get’? What happens to the dowry if a couple gets divorced? Can a man remarry a woman he already divorced once and get another dowry? The dowry issue was huge. It often was the sole thing that kept a man from divorcing his wife because she often got to take the dowry back! What a great reason to stay married. I’m sure that really pleased God.

By the time I was finished reading all that stuff I totally understood Jesus getting indignant with the disciples for sending the little children away and why he said, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

We adults have forgotten how to be simple and how to receive the Kingdom with wide-open hearts full of innocence, awe and wonder. We’ve forgotten how to open ourselves to pure mystery and let mystery be…mysterious. Mystery is supposed to be something we cannot figure out, identify, define, label and put on a shelf but we always want to do that. We want to be completely sure, totally right and in control of all possible outcomes.

We absolutely need laws and rules just like children need laws and rules. Marriage and everything else in life can be messy with hurtful complications and without some guidelines it can be hard to maneuver through pitfalls and find our way along roads that have taken a wrong turn.  Having the Law isn’t the problem. The problem is when we obsess over the Law and stay there. It’s like owning a beautiful light filled house with many rooms and a good solid foundation but insisting on living in the basement and refusing to leave.

The law cannot show us the realms and joys that are beyond our present situation; it can only tell us when we’re wrong. It does not open us to spiritual possibilities but keeps us focused on our human limitations and if we live too long focusing on just what the law says, we become hard of heart like Jesus said the Jews were. That didn’t mean the Jews weren’t serious about serving God; it meant they were locked into trying to justify themselves by knowing and keeping all the rules. They lost the softness of heart that comes from living by faith and believing that God is far beyond the limited perceptions of the human mind.  They became seriously ‘adult’ and lost the capacity to envision with awe and wonder and to yearn for the mysteries of God that would lead them like children into the Kingdom.

We think we know everything we need to know about being good Christians. For the most part we know very little. If we understood how little we know it would be cause for huge celebration and freedom, for when we become comfortable with knowing nothing, we stop telling God what he can and cannot do and stop telling ourselves what can or cannot be.

We all know children are not perfect little beings. Before they can even speak they display selfish behavior and stubborn willfulness. The word “no” comes to them very naturally and very early. Children are not saints. But to them, the realm of spiritual possibility is wide and fantastic. They can see angels and are astounded by a God who is invisible but is with them everywhere. Before they are given different images, they will worship a God who not only has a lap but also, quite possibly, has a dinosaur with him in heaven. They have no grasp of theology and therefore have not put limits on what is feasible or possible in God's eyes. They haven’t broken life down into sections and subsections and they haven’t learned about all the boxes we grown-ups like to keep God in.

Here’s a critical theological question for you. Think carefully before you answer because the answer has serious implications.

Can your God put puddles on the moon?