Gen.2: 18-24; Heb. 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-16.
AIM: By
explaining Jesus= teaching about marriage, to show that God=s love embraces all.
I am one of the dwindling number of
people able to remember the Model T Ford car. Henry Ford produced 15 million of
them between 1909 and 1928, the year of
my birth. There were still Model T=s on the roads in my early childhood. There was only one model. And you could have
any color you wanted as long as it was black. The Model T made Henry Ford an
enormously rich man. On his fiftieth wedding anniversary Henry Ford was asked
his secret for marital success. His reply was simple: AJust the same as in the automobile
industry: stick to one model.@ Jesus says the same thing in today=s gospel.
We all know, however, how common
divorce is today. Few families today are untouched by it. Divorce is always
painful B even the so-called friendly divorces
we sometimes hear about. The reason for this pain is rooted in what the Bible says
marriage truly is. Jesus reaffirms this teaching in today=s gospel when he says that when two
people marry, Athey are no longer two but one flesh.@ The rending of this one-flesh
relationship is inevitably painful B as painful as the cutting off of an arm
or leg. People who have experienced the pain of divorce deserve our sympathy
and support.
To understand Jesus= teaching about marriage we must know
something about the male dominated world of Jesus= day. Women were considered the
property of men. Girls belonged to their fathers until they married; and marriage
made her the property of her husband. The commandment, AThou shalt not covet,@ lists a man=s wife along with his other property.
From childhood to old age, the Hebrew woman belonged to the men of her family.
This subordination of women to men
was reflected in the Jewish law of divorce, which was normally available only
for husbands. Asked about this in today=s gospel, Jesus replies that divorce
was not part of God=s original plan in creation. It arose, he says, Abecause of the hardness of your
hearts@ B in other words, as a result of sin.
It was this sinful hard-heartedness which had created the whole male-dominated
world in which Jesus lived. With this world, deformed by sin, Jesus contrasts
the good world created by God.
Jesus is referring to the Gene sis creation story that we heard in our first
reading. It opens with God=s statement: AIt is not good for the man to be alone.@
The first thing that God looks at in the Bible’s story of creation and says
Ait is not good@ is loneliness. Therefore, God says, AI will make a suitable partner@ for the man. The man has no part in
her creation. God casts the man into Aa deep sleep@ to create his Asuitable partner@ B a phrase connoting woman=s equality with men. Through a story
simple enough even for children to understand the Bible is telling us that God
created the two sexes to complete each other. He did not make men and women for
rivalry: domination on the one hand, manipulation on the other. That rivalry was a result of the fall B the choice of both woman and man,
recounted in the next chapter of Gene sis,
to sin by disobeying the God who had made them.
In the gospel Jesus affirms this
partnership between the sexes intended by God in creation, and hence the
fundamental equality of man and woman. His teaching about marriage and divorce
is a strong condemnation of the double standard which prevailed in his world: a
strict law for women, and a more indulgent one for men. Today this is reversed
in many situations: a strict law for men, a more indulgent one for women. The
double standard is wrong in both forms. If men and women are partners, equally
loved by God, there can be only one standard for both.
The scene which follows in the
gospel, in which Jesus welcomes little children and blesses them, makes the same
point. We are all God=s children, all equally dear to him. The same social and
legal system that assigned women a lower place than men also considered
children inferior. This explains why Jesus= disciples thought they were doing
him a favor by keeping children away from him. Jesus rebukes them: ALet the children come to me; do not
prevent them, for the kingdom
of God
Behind both parts of the gospel B the seemingly legalistic teaching
about marriage and divorce, and the scene of Jesus with little children B is the message of God=s universal love. The world of God=s making reflected that love. The
world of human marring has perverted this love into lust, which means using
others for selfish pleasure.
We betray God=s universal love when, instead of
welcoming children as God=s gift, we resent them as burdens that interfere with our
comfort. This is the attitude which has produced, all over our world today,
laws permitting the killing of unborn children for any reason whatever, often
merely for convenience. Already we are witnessing the next logical development:
the direct killing of the newborn, during the process of birth itself (partial
birth abortion), or through starvation, when they have some physical or mental
handicap. Is it any wonder that Pope Saint John Paul II, spoke of Aa culture of death@?
In the face of these and countless
other horrors the Church proclaims Jesus= timeless message of God=s universal love for all he has made:
not just for the able-bodied and fit, not just for those of Agood moral character@, but for all. In a special way,
Jesus tells us, God loves the weak, the defenseless, the neglected. He loves
every one of us just as we are, in strength and weakness.
We all remember the last years and
months of Pope John Paul II, how he soldiered on in great weakness and serious
illness. What an encouragement to people all over the world who are weak,
handicapped, gravely ill. The Pope showed us, by his example, that life is
still valuable, and is still worth living, despite weakness and pain. No merely
human organization could long survive with such weakened leadership. From the
point of view of administrative efficiency the Pope=s continuance in office was little
short of a disaster. The Church, however, lives by a higher law than
efficiency. It lives by the law of God himself: the law of love.
God did not make us for rivalry, for
exploitation, for strife and war. He did not make us to be thrown away when we
get old and weak. God made us to support one another. He made us to be
partners. He made us for love. In the world of God=s making that love was as natural as
breathing. In the world of our marring the power to love must be given us
afresh, from outside. The One who gives us this love is the One who is love
himself. He is the one, our second reading tells us, who is Anot ashamed@ to call us B every one of us B his brothers and sisters.
His name is Jesus Christ.
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