The injunction in our gospel: “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate,” is spoken in response to a question asked of Jesus regarding divorce. Today it speaks to me on a different level. It speaks to me of the oneness of all creation, macro and micro, the interdependence of all the animal, vegetable, and mineral worlds throughout the cosmos, however separate they may appear to be.

In particular, I relate the injunction to “this fragile world, our island home.” For eons we on earth were separated from one another by geological barriers, transportation barriers, communication barriers. Those barriers no longer exist, technology having dissolved them away. As we, day by day, participate in our global economy, talking with people around the world, utilizing global resources, seeing the results of war, famine, disease, and natural disasters worldwide, we can’t help but realize the interdependence of all of us, even as we recognize the social barriers we have so carefully--and strongly--erected throughout the centuries. It is clear to me that God has joined us all together on this planet, all the races and ethnicities, all the religions, all the political factions, and that all our efforts to separate from one another doesn’t bode well for us or for the earth. As the apostle Paul points out in his epistle to the Romans (Rom.8:19-22), all creation is groaning in anticipation of humanity getting our act together, when we finally recognize the sacred unity of all creation, animate and inanimate, that is God’s will for us.

All creation comes forth from the heart of God, from the love of God, created out of self-giving love, for self-giving love. When we wear our self-centered blinders, focusing only on me and mine, my family, my church, my community, my country, to the exclusion of others, we are separating ourselves from those God has created both for us to love and from whom we may experience God’s love. We are truly joined together “for better or worse.” It is the giving and receiving of self-giving love that makes the world go round, that brings us to wholeliness (Carmen Harras’s term from her book Wholeliness: Embracing the Sacred Unity that Heals our World), in harmony with all God’s creation.