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10/3 - 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
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Creation, Marriage and the Mind of GodThe readings of this weekend bring to forefront some of the burning issues of Jesus’ time and they are also very pertinent in our own time. All three readings taken together spells out the Creator’s plan for the world and human beings. At the same time these readings have been misinterpreted or distorted to fit the narratives of various groups with vested ideologies.
The creation story of the Genesis contains within it the beautiful and harmonious inter relationship of the creation with God as the center. By putting humanity at the top rung of creation with the privilege of ‘naming’ the creatures, God is entrusting the stewardship of his creation to an intelligent being who is only ‘just lower than the angels’. This is not dangerous anthropocentrism, distracting us from the biocentrism that the future of life on planet Earth demands. This story is about neither bio- nor anthropocentrism; it is about Theo-centrism. It is about the relationship among creatures that stems from our relationship with the Creator. We can never authoritatively speak about the care of the universe and human responsibility without reference to the Creator.
The creation story continues like a blockbuster script of intense scheming by a God who wants the outcome perfect. Please be attentive to the plot of the story! The other creatures were not enough for the Human (ha adam). Ha adam needs an equal, a real companion made of the same stuff. So, the original language—ishsha (woman) is made from isha (her man) – we lose the pun intended in translation into English. This is a story about how men and women were made for each other, not about who got the power. The ‘rib business’ is also a way of celebrating how the marital union—becoming ‘one flesh’—is a kind of recovery of a union that was meant to be from the beginning of humanity's creation.
Jesus was consistent in every narrative in the Gospels about Marriage, that the Creator intended a ‘covenant relationship’ between man and woman and God. The words of Jesus in this Sunday's Gospel pick up on the language from Genesis. The Pharisees, perhaps already aware of Jesus’ challenging teaching about the permanence of the marriage covenant, ask him to comment on the divorce statute in Deuteronomy: When a man, after marrying a woman and having relations with her, is later displeased with her because he finds in her something indecent (erwath dabar), and therefore he writes out a bill of divorce and hands it to her, thus dismissing her from his house (Deut. 24:1-4).The vagueness of the phrase “something indecent” as grounds for divorce had led some authorities to include reasons as frivolous as poor cooking.
Understood in this context, Jesus’ response can be heard as a defense of the women who suffered from this lenient interpretation of that law. He affirms the vision of the male/female relationship expressed in Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 and then confronts this abuse of women: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.” Jesus' vision of marriage as a permanent covenant commitment comes not as a new stricture but as an affirmation of a relationship built into the original blessing of creation. So, if today you find yourself divorced, or alone, or left without your beloved because of death, or if your mate and you do not get along, what can you do? Do everything you can. Like the rest of us, you are trying to mirror in your life the loving unity of the Holy Trinity in whose image and likeness you are created. Pray and live it as best as you are able.