27th Sunday Year B
See Commentary on Mark 10:2-6 in Mark 10:1-12
Homily 1 - 2006
In today's Gospel the Pharisees' question whether a man could divorce his wife arose out of the culture, but it assumed an attitude that Jesus would have nothing of. In the unchallenged patriarchal culture of Jesus' day men virtually owned their women. Women had no legal rights. It was taken for granted that a man could divorce his wife. Of course! No question! Jesus would not buy that attitude because, in his mind, men and women shared the same humanity; they shared the same human dignity.
That vision of Jesus reflected the ancient story of the creation of man and woman that we find in Genesis. To make Genesis even clearer, Jesus used the image of their union being like a shared yoke, husband and wife, side by side, sharing in the common project of creating each other and other human beings, setting each other free, and nurturing the human growth and wonderful potential of each other through love. Neither superior. Neither more important.
In today's Gospel Jesus went even further. It was not just adult men and women who shared the same humanity. Children, too, simply by their being alive, shared that human dignity also. Jesus had a wonderful insight into the heart of God. God loves every person. Consequently, every human person has a God-given dignity. It goes simply with being human and alive. It can neither be surrendered through sin or other crimes nor disregarded by others for any reason.
The deep, passionate conviction of Jesus of the God-given dignity of every human person seems particularly appropriate in our own day. We already confront the on-going issues of abortion, euthanasia, the inhuman deprivation and dispossession of peoples of the Third World, the total and heartless absence of hospitality to genuine refugees and asylum seekers, and even the practical discounting of the less powerful and well-off in our own society.
Another distressing issue has confronted us recently the issue of torture, or its euphemistic equivalent, aggressive interrogation. I was reading an article in The Age yesterday that talked about how the advent of terrorism in the West had changed the goal posts. It raised the question of whether the greater good of protecting nations from further potential terrorist crimes justified the use of torture (and aggressive interrogation) of terrorism suspects. Whatever about those who do not share the vision of Jesus, those of us who have consciously chosen to follow his way could never condone the use of torture. Culture, of course, tends to blind us. The Church itself in past centuries, to its shame, condoned and even encouraged the use of torture just as it condoned slavery and the suppression of women.
But we have haltingly moved beyond that, and we had hoped, too, that civilised humanity had done so as well. The argument that the greater good justifies the degradation of individuals is a very shaky and undefined claim. The end does not justify the means, if the means undermines the very basis of human dignity. Torture violently degrades not only its victims. It also degrades the torturers and the society that condones it. If people want to talk of the greater good, it is important to remember that deliberately and in cold blood to degrade ourselves morally is to compromise a higher and greater good than the good of our own possible protection from random acts of terrorism. Jesus consistently stressed that we may not save our lives physically by destroying ourselves morally.
It was Caiaphas who said: It is better for one man to die for the people, than for the whole nation to be destroyed. Eminently sensible the greater good! The one man, obviously expendable in the interests of national security, was Jesus.
Those of us who think Jesus' way are a minority. But we do believe ourselves to be a privileged minority. Jesus has entrusted to us a mission - to make our world a human world, a civilized world - in other words, to spread the values of the Kingdom of God. We cannot impose our vision. To try to do so would itself compromise it. Any vision based on the sense of the dignity of the human person clearly respects the value of human freedom. But we have a responsibility to speak out as clearly as we can, and to try to convince anyone who might be prepared to listen to us.
Homily 2 - 2009
I don't believe that Jesus was generally into laying down rules of behavior or prohibitions - as such. To hear him that way, I think, is to misunderstand him. But Jesus was not slow to challenge, and to challenge radically. He called to conversion - to step back and to critique fearlessly many of the attitudes and practices commonly accepted in the culture, and to begin to act in ways that would profoundly change society and shape it according to what he called the Kingdom of God.
Paul understood Jesus that way. Paul didn't read Jesus' comments on divorce as hard and fast rules - but he certainly shared the vision of Jesus, and translated it into the different social situation of the cities out in the Roman Empire.
Jesus' starting point was the dignity of every human person - a dignity based on the fact that each person reflects the image of God and is personally, individually, loved by God. We probably all nod our heads to that. It's just what we believe - or Is it? Consistent with his recognition of each person's dignity, Jesus challenged people to relate in love, not just to act as if - but to apply themselves to the task of genuinely loving people - an enormous challenge: to most people unrealistic, or hopelessly naive, or impossible. Cultures don't work that way. Invariably societies have their privileged classes and their underprivileged classes; those enjoying most of the nation's wealth and resources and those missing out; and, often, not just missing out, but effectively excluded and unjustly oppressed.
Jesus' world was an unashamedly patriarchal world. Men were respected, women weren't (nor were children); men had rights, women had none (nor were children regarded as having any). For example, with regard to marriage, men could divorce their wives, and could do so under virtually any pretext. But women could not divorce their husbands. If a man was unfaithful to his wife, and divorced her, it was the wife's father and brothers whose honour was offended. The fact that she was betrayed didn't figure in the equation. She had no rights, no share in the property, no right to dignity, respect or deep love..
It was these unquestioned patriarchal assumptions that Jesus rejected. He was talking to men. Jesus insisted that 'What God has united, man must not divide.' The image that he used (It's not obvious in the translation) was of two people yoked together; so a partnership, a partnership of two people of equal worth, where each recognised the dignity of the other, and chose to love the other because each was deeply and personally loved by God. Jesus saw the potential of that mutual love to profoundly change each of the partners and, together, to become something new: They are no longer two, but one body.
He saw how, through their love, they could empower each other to blossom and to grow; cooperating with God in creating each other. Because it was a partnership of two equals, he said that the man who divorces his wife and marries another is guilty of adultery against her - his wife: not her father, or her brothers, but against her. He saw the relationship of husband and wife not only as good but as the primary relationship - having priority over responsibilities to parents (who are still to be loved). A man must leave father and mother, and the two become one body.
I also think it important that couples also see that the quality of their relationship, and their responsibilities to each other, have priority over their responsibilities to their children. Indeed, the most practical way for them to love their children is to work diligently at cultivating their love for each other, and letting their children see quite clearly that children take second place to that first priority, their love for each other.
Homily 3 - 2012
The Gospels tend to raise questions rather than answer them or lay own regulations. Jesus aimed at getting people thinking for themselves, reflecting in their hearts, getting in touch with and forming their consciences.
Take last week's Gospel for example: "If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off". That is not a regulation – but raises a question. What is Jesus concerned about? What is he saying? What is he interested in? Or take the second section of today's Gospel: "Anyone who does not welcome the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it". It teases us, inviting us to think for ourselves.
What is Jesus concerned about? Elsewhere in the Gospel, he says it is our intentions that are important. Why? … because they are the indicators of the kind of person we are. Why I do things is the crucial issue. What does my behaviour mean? The Pharisees all did the right thing. They all marched perfectly in step. But Jesus constantly challenged them. God's Kingdom is not about marching in step.
What is Jesus concerned about then? What do you think? Essentially, I believe he is concerned about relationships: to live justly, to love tenderly, to walk humbly with your God – as he did. He sees that as the way to personal maturity and blossoming, as well as to the development of the common good of society at large.
Life is complex. Life in our twentieth century global world is becoming increasingly complex – much more complex than in rural Galilee of the first century where Jesus lived.
How do you understand today's Gospel? Is it answers, regulations? or challenge to think and to reflect, and in the process to form our consciences? Why did Jesus say what he did? What was he hoping? What was his vision? What really mattered to him? What does it mean to live justly, to love tenderly, to walk humbly with your God in the area of married relationships?
I imagine that today's Gospel arouses strong responses, stirring deep questions for many of you – perhaps for yourselves personally, or for ones close to you within the extended family. It is touching very important, quite profound issues.
But your situations are all so different. How do you work out what you think? Why are the questions important? What are the values at stake? Where do I stand? Where do you stand? and why?
Where do I stand? I don't believe that in a brief homily with such a diverse congregation, I can do justice to the important issues involved. There is so much that I would like to reflect one, or talk about. Even the Scriptural tradition itself is confused – but it would take too long to expound. Given the complexity of people's lives, I am prepared, however, to talk with anyone and everyone seeking to clarify where they stand, searching and needing to be honest with themselves.
Jesus raised questions. He stimulated reflection. His aim always was not "people in step" but people listening for and responding honestly to the call of God in the various situations in which they found themselves.
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.