27th Sunday Year B - Homily 4

Homily 4 - 2021

At the time of Jesus, Jewish men had been divorcing their wives for centuries. It was taken for granted. That simply was the way things were. As far as the men were concerned, it was “common sense”. Even Moses had allowed the practice because he seemed to think it would be inevitable anyhow. The only query raised was around what causes might justify the practice. As happens often on such uncertainties, there were expert scribes who answered one thing; and there were equally expert scribes who answered another.

Where did Jesus stand? Consistently, he challenged people to think, to reflect, to go deeper and to work out what values were involved in reaching a conclusion on the matter. Jesus was not interested in people mindlessly obeying every command and keeping their souls spotless, however. His sense of the Kingdom was nothing like an army parade in North Korea where everyone, immaculate in their uniforms, marches in perfect synchrony, meticulously responsive to every order of their commanding officers.

In fact, he invited people to go back to the origins to get a sense of what God’s vision for marriage might have been; and why. Jesus wanted people to be aware of the values that were involved — and to allow those values to guide their decisions.

The creation stories picture an Adam who was precious to God, the climax of God’s wonderful work of creation — but incomplete of himself. We are told how God fashioned Eve from one side of Adam so that they might firstly be companions, not clones but complementary; and find fulfilment in their unity in diversity — better able to reflect, through that unity and difference, the very “image and likeness” of God. The two, who started off as one flesh, were designed by God to become again “one flesh” in marriage, and thereby, in the celebration of their mutual love, to share in the creative, joyful energy of God. Successive couples would be summoned by God to move beyond dependence on father and mother, and to struggle on towards maturity through loving and being loved by each other.

It was a vision of mutual love, called to be exclusive, life-long, faithful and responsible, and thereby creative of themselves, of each other, and of the new lives by which the continuation of the human race would be assured.

Across time, marriage would take different shapes, depending on cultural developments, opportunities and priorities. Individual persons are called by God to keep maturing across life. At any one time, they are necessarily still “works in progress” with different levels of maturity. Persons grow at different rates. They change. They make mistakes. All that is inherent in simply being human.

In Jesus’ mind, the original vision remained clear and utterly basic [theologically certain, we might say]— yet apparently he carried the reputation of “a friend of prostitutes and sinners” [pastorally sensitive, compassionate and realistic also, we might say]. He had no problem maintaining both.

In our own day, divorce has become quite prevalent. What does that say, among other things, of the stresses people are under, as well as the profound influence that culture has on them? Pope Francis seems to think and act much as Jesus did.

Something similar could be said of a range of homosexual conditions. What the majority of people previously saw as deviant behaviour [and which would be deviant if done by the individuals within that majority] is professionally understood today to be the naturally occurring and consistent experience of a minority variant. Though homosexuals cannot themselves have children, they can still relate exclusively, faithfully and responsibly. Again, Pope Francis amazed a number of people when, to a question raised by a journalist about such couples, he answered, “Who am I to judge?”, even while maintaining as clearly as ever his understanding of the values consistent with traditional marriage. Personally, I have no problem with either issue — particularly as I grow older.