Meant to be together

Jesus, teach me to enjoy being around people, even when they bug me! Amen.

Some people asked Jesus, "Is it okay for us to get a divorce? Moses let us have divorces." Jesus told them: "Moses taught that divorce was okay because you were going to do it anyway. But when God created people, God made men and women different so they could be together."

Kids don't get much time alone. If you're at school, there are teachers and other kids all around you; after school, a parent or babysitter is watching you or your brothers and sisters are around. When you're a kid, you're usually with people!

Being around other people isn't a bad thing. In this week's Gospel (Mark 10:2-16), Jesus says God didn't mean for us to be alone.

Sometimes, when you're around people a lot, you wish you could be alone. You'd like to finish drawing pictures without being interrupted by your sister, or play outside as long as you like without your teacher saying, "Recess is over!" But you know that you have to be around people, so you try to put up with all of it.

The Gospel story is really about grownups who want to be alone. For some adults, being married doesn't work out, and they get divorced. But Jesus wanted people to know that they weren't meant to be alone.

If people got married, Jesus wanted them to try as hard as they could to work their problems out before giving up and getting divorced. He knew it's hard to put up with other people sometimes -- even a kid trying to color or play knows that.

But whether they were kids or adults, Jesus didn't want people to be alone unless they had to be.