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27th Sunday of Ordinary Time B

October 4, 2015

Reading I: Genesis 2:18-24
Responsorial Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5, 6
Reading II: Hebrews 2:9-11
Gospel: Mark 10:2-16

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100415.cfm

Reading 1 Genesis 2:18-24

The LORD God said: "It is not good for the man to be alone.
I will make a suitable partner for him."
So the LORD God formed out of the ground
various wild animals and various birds of the air,
and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them;
whatever the man called each of them would be its name. 
The man gave names to all the cattle,
all the birds of the air, and all wild animals;
but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man.

So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man,
and while he was asleep,
he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
The LORD God then built up into a woman the rib
that he had taken from the man.
When he brought her to the man, the man said:
"This one, at last, is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called 'woman, '
for out of 'her man’ this one has been taken."
That is why a man leaves his father and mother
and clings to his wife,
and the two of them become one flesh.

Gospel Mark 10:2-16

The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked,

"Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?" 
They were testing him.
He said to them in reply, "What did Moses command you?" 
They replied,
"Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce
and dismiss her."
But Jesus told them,
"Because of the hardness of your hearts
he wrote you this commandment. 
But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. 
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.
So they are no longer two but one flesh. 
Therefore what God has joined together,
no human being must separate." 
In the house the disciples again questioned Jesus about this. 
He said to them,
"Whoever divorces his wife and marries another
commits adultery against her;
and if she divorces her husband and marries another,
she commits adultery."

And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them,
but the disciples rebuked them.
When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them,
"Let the children come to me;
do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to
such as these. 
Amen, I say to you,
whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child
will not enter it."
Then he embraced them and blessed them,
placing his hands on them.


http://cdn.theologicalstudies.net/65/65.3/65.3.1.pdf


Ynot question?

At the best of times it is hard to find questions to ask of these scripture passages. That Jesus was against divorce is one of the most unquestionable doctrines we've been brought up to believe. It's a touchstone of catholic identity. Millions have suffered marital breakdown and been excluded from communion in the church when they've had another go at marriage and family life. Martyrs to the fact, clearly. Furthermore, Sunday will see the beginning of the second session of the Synod on the Family. It should be enough to read again some of the working document Instrumentum Laboris, i at least Parts I and II of the basic document – the paragraphs in italics - just to see where the Synod people are up to.


Nevertheless, I find myself going back and forth through the texts from memory, looking for a way in. There's something odd about it all. Something doesn't fit, as my favourite TV detectives remark as they set about going through all the evidence again with fresh eyes.

Here, the question lingers around the edges: Is Jesus laying down the law? If he is, it must be the one and only occasion in the whole gospel where he actually says specifically, “This is the law, and you must obey it.” I wonder is it a unique moment, and if it is, what is it about marriage that would make the one who taught a deeper morality than law, a deeper spirituality than servile obedience, what would make him thump the table against divorce?

But the church has always seen it as law, hasn't it! That's what you're up against if you talk about taking a merciful attitude to divorced and remarried people to allow them communion: You can't, many say, because the law was laid down clearly and unambiguously by Jesus. So let's go back to the text.



Is it a question of law?

'The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” ' Clearly the question is a legal one, about the law. Jesus even gets the legal men to spell out the law as they read it, and they told him: "Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her." They would all have known the text:

1 When a man, after marrying a woman, is later displeased with her because he finds in her something indecent, and he writes out a bill of divorce and hands it to her, thus dismissing her from his house,2 if on leaving his house she goes and becomes the wife of another man,3 and the second husband, too, comes to dislike her and he writes out a bill of divorce and hands it to her, thus dismissing her from his house, or if this second man who has married her dies,4 then her former husband, who dismissed her, may not again take her as his wife after she has become defiled. That would be an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring such guilt upon the land the LORD, your God, is giving you as a heritage. (Deut 24:1-4)


A bit of a shocker to us as we read how the woman was treated as a possession, as a commodity to be handed from one man to another. Note that what the lawmaker found repugnant was the danger that the original owner, in taking her back, might take on a spoilt commodity since she had by now been defiled. Even to our pragmatic minds this is disgusting.



What exactly did he say in response?

I don't know why the churchmen have never pointed out how very hard was this 'hardness of heart'. Commentators tend to stay with the Pharisees' reference to the Mosaic law, as if that's all there was to it. In fact the whole text would have come to everyone's mind.

As he did on many other occasions, e.g., in the Sermon on the Mount, Jeshua lifts the matter out of its legal setting in order to illustrate the value embodied in the law. He went right back to Genesis to show how we are made, from the beginning: Male and female he made them.

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. 
Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate." 


Our traditional understanding is that by these words Jeshua somehow reiterates and reinforces the law that the marriage bond can never be dissolved. However, no matter how your read them these words are not a statement of law, but a statement of fact, a statement about how we are made. Male and female we are made, complementary to one another not merely biologically but in that special human way that we, animated by the breath of God, are able to relate to one another as partners personally, spiritually, and of equal dignity.

God made them male and female: so equal are we, men and women, that the filial relationship of dependence on parents that forms the person of the child gives way to this new relationship when a fitting partner is found, and the two, in equality, become one flesh. They are no longer two but, each contributing equally, they become one. This is the order of creation as God has made it: let no man overturn it to make of a woman a chattel to be passed from one to another, each one defiling her by use and abuse. So says Jesus the teacher as he again illustrates that one cannot live by law alone.



The couplet

The gospel writer makes a point of adding that there was much more explanation after they went indoors away from the argumentative legal eagles. He sums it up in two sentences of startling brevity which unfortunately have lent themselves to being interpreted out of context, even in Matthew's gospel.ii As a stand-alone it would surely represent a veto on any divorce by which either party rejects the other to marry a new partner. The traditional understanding has been that we are made male and female for the two to become in marriage one entity, which union is of God and cannot be dissolved by humans.


The way the couplet is put together, however, makes me think that Mark also wants to direct our attention back to the matter of equality. Sauce for the goose / sauce for the gander, or vice versa. Man divorces woman = adultery. Woman divorces man = adultery. Equal rights, equal responsibilities, in sharp contrast to a culture in which a woman had no rights and would never be thought able to divorce her husband.


Hence divorce as it was practised in Mosaic law is never allowed “for any reason”. Which leaves us with the question of divorce where the relationship has died. We are given no reason why a person abandoned by their partner is still bound by a bond which they experience as dead – other than this statement of Jesus extrapolated to all cases. The trouble is this universal embargo on divorce is contrary to experience, to nature, to the notion of a spiritual journey, and to mercy.


How wide is this umbrella embargo?

First I'd like to put this in context - in the context of natural things as we understand them in a common sense sort of way. Relationships do fail. That is a simple fact, and as experience shows, it is often nobody's fault. Whether the couple were so profoundly incompatible or whether outside pressures became too great, or even if the reason remains a mystery, couples every day experience the awful moment when they know their relationship is no longer living, nourishing and supportive of life. Their life together has become at best a matter of duty, at worst a daily torture, and this can happen through no fault in either party.

What then about the gospel embargo on remarriage after divorce? It seems to me that when this couple separate and go through divorce proceedings, they are facing the fact that their relationship, their marriage has ended. The Australian law in which a legal divorce may be granted on the grounds of irretrievable breakdown recognises this as the reality of life for these people. When the “divorce” is no more than a declaration of the fact that the relationship has ended, can they marry someone else, or are we allowed only one go at marriage which must last into old age – unless death mercifully cuts it short.



The crux of the matter: What did Jesus intend?

Was it the intention of Jesus to place the marriage contract in a category apart from all other human experience, apart from nature itself? And if so, why? Observing natural processes of life within the framework of evolution, we see the world around us studded with failures. Life begins full of promise, and the promise is cut short by some natural event. In the orchards and vineyards it might be an untimely frost, out on the plains it might be drought, in the hills a bushfire caused by lightning strike. Nature's response is to shrug it off, painfully perhaps, and then get on with regeneration, with trying again.

|f a person whose marriage has simply failed, with or without blame on either party, is not allowed to try again, there ought to be some reason for it, some value either for the persons or for society as a whole. This value ought to be a value easy to grasp since marriage is a most natural process, and while it goes better if prepared for with understanding, marriage is still valid and true for those who simply want to be married and live their lives as best they can in creative harmony.



The Church explains

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that “the intimate union of marriage as a mutual giving of two persons, and the good of the children, demand total fidelity from the spouses and require an unbreakable union between them.” (No. 1646) Well, I'm sorry. It's not an explanation, but a statement of doctrine. The following number is an attempt to explain: “the deepest reason is found in the fidelity of God to his covenant, in that of Christ to his Church.” iii

This last idea originates from a remark Paul made (Eph 5:31-32) about marriage being a great mystery, “and I am speaking in reference to Christ as his church”, he added. The trouble is that not only does this insight not appear in the gospels but it is in fact a perception of a mystical order. One wold not expect young couples wanting to get married to give much thought to this “great mystery”. Indeed it will normally be appreciated only with the maturity of the years when many finer points of value become clearer. So to demand a commitment to an indissoluble bond from persons incapable of grasping the reason reduces the whole issue to one of discipline and law. “Don't ask why! That's the law: just do it!”

This, then, is the marriage that can never be dissolved, the one that embraces a commitment to be faithful to one another as Christ is to the Church. Indeed it is a symbol, a sign, a sacrament of that divine faithfulness. Perhaps this would make sense if it were celebrated as a sacrament once maturity is achieved. Short of that mature insight there will not in fact be full consent to this mystical significance simply because they don't know what it means.



There's movement at the station

It may well be that the church has already confronted this imbroglio. The recently-announced simplification of the annulment process is an acknowledgment that often, even very often, the marriage contract does not fulfill the conditions required of a sacrament.iv Come December the procedures will be so simplified that a decree of annulment could be granted as quickly as 6 weeks from first hearing. Significantly, the applicant's word will be taken as sufficient in itself, and typical “reasons” seem to be quite commonplace, such as one party persisting with a prior relationship, pressure resulting from a pregnancy, lack of total honesty between the parties, etc.


Two important considerations:


(1) Firstly, theological thinking seems to be still looking for an adequate reason for the indissolubility of the marriage bond such that another marriage is ruled out while the original partner lives. In that search, the focus has shifted in time from the simple complementarity indicated in Genesis (which may be all Jesus was thinking of, and which does not provide a reason for an unbreakable bond since it is simply the way we are made), to the covenant with Abraham being reflected in the marriage covenant (an idea preached by the prophets when they compared YHWH's fidelity favourably against Israel's infidelity as being parallel to the experience of marriage), and in recent times to the mystical union of Christ and his church which Paul alone mentions, in passing.


If as the Catechism says, this is the ultimate reason why this sacramental bond is indissoluble we would expect that it should be clearly understood by anyone taking on that commitment. I think the upshot of this would be that the sacrament of marriage could be adequately, and validly, celebrated only in one's mature years when one has grasped the significance of this “great mystery”.


(2) The logical consequence of this is that most of the marriages celebrated in the church by young people do not fulfill the conditions required of the sacrament, and are in fact civil marriages only. Although one would readily concede that they are a beginning, and would of necessity include the intention of progressing to the full commitment of the sacrament in that mystical union of Christ and the Church, they can be only an introduction to the sacrament – barring quite exceptional cases of a truly enlightened couple. (This takes nothing away from the reality of that loving commitment the couple make in full awareness of its uniqueness and life-long promise.)


Annulments in fact already declare only that the sacramental bond does not exist, and the obligations and constraints of the sacramental marriage do not apply, i.e, one is free to marry again. The annulment does not declare that there was never a marriage of any sort. In fact the celebrant-witness being authorised also by civil law performs a civil marriage in the same act as a church one.


And further...


In the shake-out there will need to be more honest talk about marriage as a natural state of life, in itself a good foundation for a christian family. Couples who celebrate their wedding in the church will be taking only a first step towards the fullness of sacramental marriage, the goal to strive for as they grow towards spiritual maturity.


This arrangement would parallel religious vows which are made “for life” only after years of trial and annual renewals. It would also allow catholics to see marriage as a human experience and challenge rather than a potential religious trap. Permanence would be the norm and intended as far as the partners were capable of it, with assistance to grow in that commitment.


Today it is quite the fashion in some quarters to marry without intending a lasting union. The possibility of divorce is implicitly built into the contract which therefore falls under the gospel ban. However experience shows that most people intend to stay married for life, even those who have little motivation for it other than their love and respect for each other. Instinctively we all know that once the two have become one, to separate involves a painful tearing apart of the 'one flesh'.


POSTSCRIPT


This “reflection” is neither a solid academic study nor a product of mere flights of fancy, but something in between. It amounts to an insight into the reality people live within the Catholic Church. While being already too long for a weekend reflection it suffers from being too brief. It is nothing more than a summary of elements many of which could be expanded into a whole chapter in the book I will never write. Perhaps someone with real competence in the field will be inspired to do that. I think each point I make will stand up to scrutiny, and I look forward to questions and critiques. Perhaps we can expand the insight one point at a time. Thank you for reading this far.


ihttp://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_synod_doc_20150623_instrumentum-xiv-assembly_en.html

ii19:3-9 The treatment of the issue is less nuanced.

iiiThe Australian Bishops, introducing the new procedures for annulment, give this as common teaqching: “It is Catholic teaching that Christian marriage is a sharing in the unbreakable love between Christ and his Church. Just as that bond can never be broken, so the bond between husband and wife is unbreakable.” https://www.catholic.org.au/

iv. Francis has been absolutely convinced for some time that at least half of the marriages celebrated in church all over the world are invalid. Sandro Magister http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351131?eng=y