Let us unite ourselves to God and to his will. We can progress to our original perfection!”
A homily from the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time based on readings from
Genesis 2:18-24, Psalm 128, Hebrews 2:9-11, Mark 10:2-16
These readings are available at the USCCB website.
Our first reading and our gospel reading fit together perfectly! Jesus talks about how things were in the beginning, and our first reading from Genesis tells us about the beginning relationship between Adam and Eve, the first couple. These are two very important scriptures.
In our gospel today, Jesus talks about the institution of marriage as God designed it in the beginning. Our first reading gives us an insight into “the beginning” as it talks about the very first couple – Adam & Eve, man and wife. This also gives you and I insight into how we should live out our lives.
Yes, Jesus Really Said That!
In our gospel today Jesus is asked about divorce, and he says that divorce is not permitted. We have all heard that this is Catholic teaching. However, divorce is still very much part of our lives. I doubt that anyone over the age of years old doesn’t have a friend, relative, or acquaintance who has suffered a divorce. That is just the way it is. That is not the way it is meant to be.
It was that way in Jesus’s time, too, although maybe not a prevalent as today. Divorce had been a part of life for God’s chosen people for as long as they had a written law. The Torah described how a man was to divorce his wife. As I said, I don’t know how prevalent divorce was in ancient Israel, but it was prevalent enough that the law provides guidance on what a divorced couple should do if they wish to reunite after the wife has been subsequently married and divorced. If the Law anticipated a double-divorce and remarriage, it couldn’t have been that rare.
The Pharisees already knew the answer to the question; to them it was just a matter of how serious the grounds. That is not the answer that Jesus gave. Jesus, being God and the author of the Law, surprised them. He asks them, “What did Moses teach you?” then goes on to say, “No, that was wrong. I have something better in mind.”
Jesus looks back as only God can do and pointed them to the beginning, to the first marriage, to that original paradise that God designed for us before we turned our back on God and tried to do it our way.
In the Beginning – This Was So
Our first reading from first book of the Bible speaks of creation. For the first two chapters of the Bible, we get a glimpse into the world as God designed it. Our first reading carries three very important themes, (i) the original solitude of Adam, (ii) God’s gift of woman to the man, and (iii) man’s acceptance and welcoming of the gift.
Original solitude
Man was alone, and this wasn’t particularly good. God brought each animal before the man to name, and he did. Then they went off. The man was still in solitude. Why? Because none of the animals were of the same order. They were not on his level. They were significantly different; Man named them, demonstrating that he had dominion over them. They didn’t collaborate on a name. They didn’t discuss it with one another. Adam just picked the name and that was that. Adam went from being alone to being in solitude surrounding by animals, each of which he outranked. He was still very much alone.
The Gift from God
Then comes the gift from God. God makes the woman from the man himself. Theen God himself brings the woman to the man.
Man’s acceptance of God’s gift
Now, God brought the other beasts to Adam and he just named them. [It looked like a duck; it walked like a duck; oaky, it’s a duck, next!] This gift from God is clearly different. Does Adam simply name her? No! What does do? He proclaims her “Bone of my bone. Flesh of my flesh.” He identifies with her and gives her greater honor than himself. What name does he give her? He gives her his name. Woman – in Hebrew, “issa”, the feminine form of the word for man, “is”. This was the state of perfect union that the Lord God intended. One in which man and woman become one flesh in all things. Man and woman, Adam and Eve, the first marriage are joined together by God himself as permanent partners in life. This is the beauty that God intended.
Our reading today shows us the institution of marriage was as it was created by God for the benefit of humankind. That is a very positive message. It is likely many of you listening to this homily are divorced. After all, not every marriage is the Garden of Eden – we fell and are all fallen after all. First, I would ask you not to feel ashamed of that fact; you are certainly not alone. Secondly, I would remind you that the Church has a way of addressing your situation. If you are civilly divorced, I’d ask you have the Church look into your previous marriage and determine exactly where you stand.
The Broader Lesson
There is a lesson here that is broader that than just Jesus’s teaching that divorce is simply not an option. There is a lesson here that is broader than understanding the institution and the beauty of marriage as it was designed by God. The broader lesson here teaches us where to look to find perfection, and it applies to everyone.
Progress as the art of going backward
So, where do we look for perfection? Where do we look for the “perfect society”? Where do we look to find that Garden of Eden on our lives? The answer is staring us in the face, coming from the pages of scripture. It is the Garden of Eden itself.
In the beginning God looked at the humans he created and found them to be “very good”. In fact, the world was as good as it has ever been. There was peace between humankind and God, between humankind and nature, between all humans, and between humans and themselves. All was perfect! God and humankind strolled together in the garden. All our needs were met. Life was paradise. Life was as perfect as it has ever been.
And then there came the fall. We blew it. Life went downhill and we have been struggling ever since.
How do we find perfection? How do we flourish? If progress is tied to human flourishing, which I believe it is, then we progress as we recover our original perfection. We best move forward by going back. We must progress to the beginning, to the perfection from which we fell.
Closing
Our readings today speak of the beauty of a man and woman coming together in that special and inseparable relationship that is marriage. I could say so much more about the perfection of the beginning, but I think you get the idea. But beyond the message on marriage we have a message on the beauty of the world as God originally created it. The beginning, before the fall, that is the time and outlook we should embrace. Is that too old-fashioned? I don’t think so. By uniting ourselves to God and by uniting our will to his we can progress to the perfection that we had in the very beginning. That is true progress.
“Let us unite ourselves to God and to his will. We can progress to our original perfection!”