27th Sunday Ordinary B
[“Arguably the most important document to come from the Second Vatican Council was its Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum. The final paragraphs dreamed of a people of God committed to living by the Scriptures at every level of their lives. The council yearned for the whole Church to be renewed spiritually through the Scriptures and to become much more biblical in all aspects of her existence.”] Fr. G. O’Collins, S.J.
27th Sunday Ordinary B
(October 4, 2009)
It is by following Christ, renouncing themselves, and taking up their crosses that spouses will be able to “receive” the original meaning of marriage and live it with the help of Christ. This grace of Christian marriage is a fruit of Christ’s cross, the source of all Christian life.[1]
Scripture: Gen. 2: 18 – 24; Ps. 128; Heb. 2: 9 – 11; Mk 10: 2 -16
Introduction:
Last Sunday, we were invited to – if necessary – “cut off” whatever “limb” in us that does not help our entering into the Kingdom of God. Next Sunday, we will be invited to – if we wanted to be perfect – follow the hard way of Christ beyond the simple habitual practice of the religious/cultural laws. Between the hardship of “mutilating” ourselves or refraining from certain strong drives and the hardship of setting aside everything to follow Christ, we have Jesus’ hard teaching on marriage and divorce today. When are we going to relax? Everything has been so serious lately! It is indeed a hard teaching about the Way of Christ. I have decided to approach this Gospel through the lens of these two surrounding gospels: divorce as the hardship of cutting off part of oneself, and marriage as letting behind everything to follow Christ. I do not know about you, but these words bring to my attention various issues in my own life and the lives of people dear to me. In case they work the same effects for you, stay close to Christ whose Word I am meditating upon in the light of our context today. Common wisdom says, “The soul is the place where man’s supreme and final battles are fought. [But] what lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
For the context, let us imagine Jesus of whom someone asks a question such as it would be for a person working for the U.S White House in 2002: “Is it lawful to wage war on another nation for any reason?” In a local context, imagine yourself today; and imagine a fictional boss at office, who happens to have issues pertaining to sexuality, much at odds with Catholic teaching; yet you hear your boss’ “brother” asking you: “What is your stand on California, 2008, Proposition 8?” This is the type of hot spot for Jesus today. We recall that he is on his way to Jerusalem. The imaginative symbols aim also at stating my own struggle to understand and explain the application of divine teachings like these, to God’s people like this Church, knowing that most of you have had profound experiences of life and of relations. Yet I cannot deny seeing the theme of the day: marriage and divorce. You surely remember that it was not easier for me to talk about my experience of the priesthood either. Matters of vocation are important and much beyond words and concepts. Therefore, God will bless us all us we reflect together through my words.
Part I:
Divorce and remarriage, according to experts on the question, were happening in the administrative court, like the Governor’s office today (or any other administrative entity) and with many other governors around the country in Jesus’ time, living and tolerating that act. In other words, the interlocutors of Jesus came to hear him speak like John the Baptist (against Herod-and-Herodias), so that Jesus will attract more hatred, and that will lead more rapidly to his demise. Not only was he going to be in conflict with the actual situation of the powers in place, but also with the religious tradition of Moses (if he says simply “divorce is unlawful”), since Moses set in Deut. 24:1 the conditions for such juridical acts, that came to be overused by common practice.
Jesus wisely uses an earlier passage of Moses’ Law, namely Gen. 1: 27ff, and the absolute authority of God who spoke to Moses and who instituted kings and rulers. God ordained marriage. Human wickedness distorted it. Moses allowed a way out that consisted of “cutting off” the “evil limb” of the one single body, only in case of extreme necessity (something indecent happened). God’s people were seeking the highest possible justice within a corrupted situation. Jesus is here to restore the initial plan of God. I understand that he wants to say, “Live your marital life in such a way that you will never need to divorce, because God did not intend the common life of spouses to be hell, but heaven, communion with God Himself. Love your whole ‘body’ so that you may enter into the Kingdom of God with every part of it, with your whole community of life.”[2]
The Church teaches that God created woman to be man’s helper, just as God himself was supporting man in the first garden of life (CCC 1605 talks of “helpmate” representing God). Marriage, therefore, “is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics.” (See CCC, 1603). The history of the Church and many stories of believers confirm the truth of this hard teaching. The following lines are a dialogue of our time with issues already raised in the 12th century of our Era:
Though inextricably linked to the world and its affairs, both social and economic, marriage can bring the partners to union with Christ if they persevere faithfully in their commitment to Christ in one another and if they take appropriate ascetical measures to offset the distractions and temptations that the world of commerce sets in their path….A Christian may respond to the call of Christ in the vocation of marriage, the saintly Abbot Aelred affirms, confident that it will bring her to Christ, knowing that it expresses her commitment to his cross. Her commitment will involve continual struggle: she will have to engage fully in the economic sphere of the common good even while fighting against its myriad temptations. She will have to work at fidelity. But she enters the boat of marriage as her husband’s friend and equal partner in sailing and bailing and will reach the other side together with him. Their friendship, with its sweetness and challenges, will give her a foretaste of divine love and become “a stage bordering upon that perfection which consists in the love and knowledge of God.[3]
These conditions created by God, re-affirmed by Jesus, and which the Law of Moses and other cultural norms support by just allowing exceptions when the failure of the relation is unbearable by the spouses, namely divorce, are the best conditions we can think of for raising children. Although perfect situations are not always possible, these conditions remain our ideal of family life. [Here is what happens at a certain stage of marital life: “One woman’s (creative) definition of retirement: “Twice the husband at half the salary.”]
However, we do not have to be overcome by guilt when we acknowledge failure and take action, with reverence to our feelings-for-life. God always loves us – His Mercy will save us. Our sins do not remove his Holiness; He loves us even more when we tend to depart from him through sin and suffering. The truth of our acceptance of successes and failures on the Way of Christ will “set us free” (Jn 8: 32, Mk 14: 72). The last section of our gospel seems to be an appeal from Jesus for parents’ ability and willingness to expose children to the grace of God very early on. Jesus is indignant when adults do not judge children worthy of drawing near to him. Feel that feeling of his, and get the lesson from him! We cannot enjoy Jesus alone. His spiritual space is large enough to welcome new comers. Between God’s intention that children should be part of the sealed love of husband and wife, and what we can practically afford in our real context, the Spirit of God guides us to sobriety of mind and humility of heart in the decisions we make: Never to raise our failure as norm, against God.
Part II:
Practically, children constitute a key component of marital life: their coming as fruit of the union and their being nurtured by the originating love of the parents. Children are important for Jesus because, it is only those who keep their attitude of receptivity to the gift and values of the Kingdom that Jesus reveals himself, and it is for their sakes that efforts are worth our self-giving. Simplistically, if tomorrow did not exist, and if there were no person to pass something on to, we would surely be much more careless in our daily living. Jesus passes on to children his ministerial power through the blessing. Faith is living a child-like life. Indeed the blessing with hand that we practice more often today, Jesus used to touch the sick, the needy and the socially “untouchable”. As reported in Scripture, only special people received a blessing from Jesus’ own hands, and these include the apostles whom he blesses officially only when ascending into heaven so that they will keep his teaching alive through the centuries down to us today.
Conclusion:
The hard teachings of Jesus show us who God is: Holy, Loving Father and supportive Presence. But how can we enjoy God? By keeping alive the Teaching, which is an integral part of his Love. At times, the words, “You shall not eat the fruit of that particular tree” (Gen, 2:17) will be his only presence in our dryness of heart and mind – Our memory. That is the moment when a teaching is hard, a moment when we really feel the cross, when our eyes catch sight of the “tree of life,” formerly “in the middle of the [first] garden” (Gen. 2: 9), now the Cross of Christ. With the risen-life of Christ in mind, God is still Love in our crucial moments. More ordinarily, God consoles us by good feelings about his commandments, nourishes us in the Eucharist and the other sacraments; and God places friends on our ways to remind us of how he sees us and how big he “dreams” of our future. May we all enjoy God today, with others. Amen!
[1] Catechism of the Cathlolic Church, 1615. The Scripture reference is Mt 19: 6, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” It is also interesting to see how the following paragraphs (1618 – 1620) associate “Virginity” to “Matrimony”. Our today’s Gospel presents Jesus (the perfectly consecrated Man) blessing children in a way different from the father of a house having them around the family table (Ps 128: 3).
[2] This illustration might help grasp the notion and task around the indissoluble character of marriage: “When you stand beside a 747 jet on the runway, its massive weight and size makes it seem incapable of breaking the holds of gravity. But when the power of its engines combines with the laws of aerodynamics, the plane is able to lift itself to 35, 000 feet and travel at 600 miles per hour. Gravity is still pulling on the plane, but as long as it obeys the laws of aerodynamics, it can break free from the bonds of earth.” Rom. 8: 2 says, “Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”
[3] The italics are mine. Marie Anne Mayeski Ph. D. reflects upon this view (from Sermon 21) of the Cistercian Abbot Aelred of Rievaulx (ca. 1110 – 1167). Her argument is against certain traditional and oppressive positions that tend to subordinate women to men, or that present marriage as anything else but friendship, and more precisely spiritual friendship. The lord-servant model of union, or marriage conceived as a remedy for lust may not be very helpful at this point. Just as Christ calls his disciples “friends,” spouses are real friends before God and before society. (If this quote excites your curiosity about the topic, and for study, see the full text in Theological Studies, Vol. 70, N0. 1, March 2009, 92 – 108).
