Gn 2:18-24 / Heb 2:9-11 / Mk 10:2-16
A newly-ordained priest was about to perform his first wedding, and he was very nervous. So he asked his pastor for help. The old monsignor told him everything he needed to know and then ended with some advice. “Father,” he said, “if you get lost and can’t think of what to say, quote scripture. It’s always safe, and you’ll never go wrong.”
With that the young priest went off to church and did a fine job of conducting the wedding … until the very end, that is, when he was to pray the solemn blessing over the bride and groom. At that crucial moment, with hand outstretched and every eye upon him, he froze. He couldn’t find his place in the prayer book. His mind was a blank. He had no idea of what to say. Then he remembered the monsignor’s advice: if you get lost, quote scripture. So he ended the wedding by quoting most solemnly the only verse he could remember, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
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Standing just inches away from a bride and groom as they exchange their vows, I find it difficult not to be awed and astonished at the immensity of what two fragile human beings are committing themselves to do and be for one another. To be faithful friends, to be truly one for better or worse, for the rest of their lives. How can such a thing be possible for mere human beings?
The same question always stuns me when a young couple present their new baby for baptism, and solemnly commit themselves to the immense task of being faithful models and guides for that child for decades to come. How can this be possible for ordinary humans? And the question rises yet again when I see a young man commit himself to serve faithfully as a priest for the rest of his life. How can this be possible for a mere human being?
Sometimes all of this surely does seem impossible. Sometimes all these solemnly-spoken commitments to be a faithful spouse, or parent, or priest seem just wishful thinking. And for all too many of us that’s how things actually turn out. But in today’s gospel, Jesus tells us that’s not the way things have to turn out, even with all our flaws and limitations. In this gospel, Jesus says the impossible is possible: we can be part of his kingdom, we can become the wonderful spouses, parents, and friends that we long to be, but so often have not been.
And how is this to happen? Jesus says quite simply, we must become like little children! But what are little children really like? And what makes them different from most of us? First of all they know they’re little, and they know that in order to live they need the help of people who love them. It doesn’t even occur to them to pose as invincible or seriously pretend to be what they are not. Little children trust the people they meet, and they presume the best about them. (That’s why they get all those lectures about taking no rides from strangers.) They don’t label others as enemies before there’s reason to do so.
Little children think of everything as possible and worth trying. You don’t hear a little child saying “you can’t do that” or “it’ll never work.” What you do hear is “when can we start”? Little children are compassionate to those who are even smaller and more helpless than themselves. Legions of stray cats, scrawny dogs, and birds with broken wings could testify to that.
Little children lack the attention span of adults. They have little physical strength, few skills, and only the sparsest of knowledge about the world. Yet they have what matters: they are transparently open and receptive to people, to God, to life. And that means that all that is good can get into their lives and help them.
Imagine what wonderful spouses, parents, and friends we could be — even with all our faults — if only our hearts were that open and receptive. No love, no joy, no person would ever be locked out. God and his whole universe would be inside working for us and filling in those parts of us that are damaged or weak. That is Jesus’ promise: we will get all that just by doing what little children know how to do, by opening the doors of our hearts.
So let us begin now by opening our hearts in prayer:
Lord, hold us in the palm of your hand and show us once more how to be like little children. Help us to lay aside our masks and our pretensions, and teach us to trust, to hope, and never to fear. Let our hearts become so open, so transparent, and so wide that every person and every love may find there a home. Amen.