THE EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Genesis 2:18-24
Hebrews 2: (1-8)9-18
Mark 10:2-9
Proper 22/Year B
The introductory chapters of
Genesis are among the most theologically profound and sophisticated of any in
scripture. Their subject matter is well known, even in the secular world,
though easily misunderstood.
Take for example six year old
James, who listened with amazement to the story of creation in Genesis;
especially the part where Eve was created out of one of Adam’s ribs. Later in
the week, James, not feeling well, was found by his mother lying on his bed,
clutching his side. His mother said “James,
what’s wrong? Are you in pain?” “Yes”, he said “I think I must be having a wife”.
The problem with today’s
gospel is that most people hear it from a current day understanding.
In Jesus’ day marriages were
usually pre-arranged. The father of the bride drew up a contract with the
father of the groom when the bride was often only eight or nine years old. If
you were wealthy your marriage might be arranged to enhance your fortune,
further a political alliance, or improve your social standing. Other priorities
were land, inheritance and children.
Awhile back the Sunday
newspaper carried an article and picture of a 12 year old gypsy bride in eastern Europe. In her several thousand dollar wedding dress
it described how she fled the wedding ceremony and hid. When she was found and
brought back she cursed everyone starting with the groom. The marriage finally
carried out, her father said she would be properly disciplined, meaning, so the
paper said, beaten. Picture Jesus standing today in a place like
The Pharisees asked Jesus
what was legal to test him. What was legal was the right of a man to divorce
his wife – not the reverse, because a woman was a piece of disposable property.
Deuteronomy said “When a man takes a wife
and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found
some indecency in her, he writes her a bill of divorce, puts it in her hand and
sends her out of his house”. One
school of Jewish thought said if your wife spoiled dinner it was grounds for
divorce. If her voice could be heard by the neighbors, that too would do. The other
school of Jewish thought said divorce could never happen. Just send her out for
matza and change the locks on the door.
Such a woman often had no
other choice but to live by prostitution. This was what appalled Jesus. Jesus
said the intent of the legislation was to provide mercy so that the woman would
be free to remarry.
For the most part the days
are gone when clergy used to preach hell fire and damnation about divorce to
many people who sat in the pews in agony; the legal piece of their marriage
intact, but their relationship essentially a disaster zone. I once heard a
priest, who had never been married; say he had a great problem with divorced
people remarrying. He touched a nerve in me because I don’t think he had a clue
what it’s like to try to live in a relationship where pain and loneliness are
the only emotions palpably alive.
Before we say that marriage
is made in heaven we’d better remember that so are earthquakes and hurricanes.
Behind many a closed door people are hurting. They maintain the facade for the
sake of their friends, the sake of the children, the
sake of the property. Divorce is only the public recognition of a private
reality.
Deep down the desire for
marriage is the longing to be loved unconditionally; to be the apple of the
other’s eye, the center of another’s universe. We thirst for that relationship
in which we will not be judged but accepted and cherished.
So why in our world where no
one is forced to get married, is the divorce rate so high? Often marriage is
entered, not as a magnetic attraction fueled by the fire of God’s love, but the
power of immaturity, other people’s expectations, or both. Sometimes it’s the
thinking that we can change the other person; mold them into the person we want
them to be. But as poet Maya Angelou says, “When
a person shows you who they are. Believe them.”
Most priests ordained more than
about ten minutes aren’t crazy about weddings. That’s because the majority of
couples do not wish to waste time talking about what marriage is supposed to be.
They’re interested in the wedding; the way the candles will twinkle, the way
the flowers will cascade in glorious splendor. As one writer says, when the big
day finally arrives, “They stare at one another and seem to say, ‘I will always cherish my original misconceptions
about you’”.
Suffering and pain can – and
do – infect the marital union, but God does not will for us to suffer. God
intends for us to be whole. That’s what the Incarnation and resurrection are
all about! One thing is for certain; if one person in the marriage is unhappy,
you can count on the fact that the other person isn’t happy either; stuck
maybe, dug in maybe, but not living the life God intended for them. That’s why
the Episcopal Church has for so many years, allowed remarriage. For years the
Church of England dragged its feet here, but in some ways they are now ahead of
us, allowing the priest who knows the couple to make the decision about
remarriage, as opposed to the bishop, and creating liturgies recognizing that
the most healthful thing, for both parties, may be a new beginning.
A new Book of “Pastoral Prayers”, from
“An unpleasant fact of human existence is that
relationships, including marriages, end, because the strain placed upon them is
too great. While recognizing that God’s ideal is that this should not be, it is
preferable to recognize an ending rather than hide a failure. ‘…The Church has
been given the awesome power to loose as well as bind.’ These prayers are
offered to allow those in a relationship which has come to an end to affirm all
that has been good, to acknowledge its formal ending, and to play their part in
its new status…… (these prayers are seen) as a formal act of…. commitment to a
new future.”
Many of you will remember Fr.
Todd McDowell, someone I mentored and whom you sponsored for the priesthood.
Fr. Todd is now the Vicar at the American Cathedral in
To say that some marriages
should never have been, or cannot go on, never negates the beauty and glory of
God’s creative intention. We should no more abandon the ideal of marriage
anymore than we would stop having babies because there is an abundance of sexual
promiscuity in the world. The end of a marriage, the end of any relationship,
is not the end of God’s promises or holy intentions for our future.
The reading from Genesis
shows us that God is deeply concerned about our loneliness. We were not created
to be alone. What God intended for us is not fantasy or magic, but a
magnificent reality. Classical English has no word equivalent to the Hebrew
idiom which means that God provided the solution. In our slang it would be
almost equivalent to saying that God ‘hit
the nail on the head’, in the uniting of male and female as one flesh, a
partnership wound tightly together in the passion
and joy of God’s embrace; expressed
physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This is not just a beautiful completeness
and complimentary unity; but a mirror image of who God is within God’s Self.
The Pharisees were masters of
religious law who lived by a kind of cosmic balance sheet, believing if they
fulfilled all the law they would earn God’s grace. Jesus went beyond their
question of legality to the fundamental question of God’s intent in creation.
He says that God’s intention in all relationships; especially marriage, is
wholeness. Thus the law is always superceded by God’s grace. It’s called
redemption. We are called to receive it and model honestly in all aspects of our life, so that we
will know -and can show our children and our children’s children – the
wonderful truth and beauty of God’s will for us.
AMEN
The Rev. Virginia L. Bennett,
D.Min.
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church