The Divine Spark in Us - Lectionary Reflections for the week of Oct 7

Here are my reflections on the Lectionary Readings at Sunshine Cathedral for Oct. 7. I have been posting these reflections in the weekly newsletter (The Sun Burst), but space constraints this week didn't allow for it. So, i'm posting the reflections on this blog for this week. Best wishes - Durrell

The Wisdom of Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)
“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.”
Psalm 8.4-6, 9 (The Inclusive Bible, PFE)
“What is humanity that you should be mindful of us? Who are we that you should care for us? You have made us barely less than God, and crowned us with glory and honor. You have made us responsible for the work of your hands, putting all things at our feet…[O God], our Sovereign, how majestic is your Name in all the earth!”
Mark 10.13-16 (NIV)
13People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the [kin-dom] of God belongs to such as these. 15I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the [kin-dom] of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.

Both Gibran and Mark affirm children. Mark, of course, goes further to suggest that children as a symbol of powerlessness and marginalization show us that all people have sacred value and we are to acknowledge the divine spark within every human soul.

 

Additionally, Mark affirms the “inner child” that is always a part of us. Children play, question, are curious, love to learn, unless they are taught to mistrust or fear people will expect the best of most people, are initially free of prejudice, respond well to affirmation and praise, live in the moment rather than harboring resentments from the past or anxieties about the future…as we mature, our challenge is to hold on to these childlike qualities that are already part of the kin-dom of God that is with and within us. We come here as citizens of that divine kin-dom, but somehow travel away from it and lose our passport! The spiritual journey is largely about remembering what we innately know, that we are as Emerson said, “part and parcel of God,” that is, that we are part of the kin-dom of God; it is with and within us, at hand/in our hands. To remember what we knew in our original innocence, that “it is in God that we live and move and have our being” is goal of the spiritual quest.

 

Finally, the Psalm also reinforces this affirmation of our divine dignity. We are, as Nona Brooks said, “in God, of God, like God.” We are “crowned with glory and honor.” We are responsible for the work of God’s hands, that is, our hands are God’s hands. What God does for us, God does through us. This makes us responsible for our lives and for our world, but it also suggests that we have been honored by being trusted with those sacred tasks.