Proper 22 :: Genesis 2:18 – 24 / Psalm 22 / Mark 10:2 – 16
This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon,
Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, October 3, 2021.
“IT’S
GONNA TAKE WORK”
(Homily
texts: Genesis 2:18 – 24 & Mark 10:2
– 16)
One
of the illusions that seem to beckon to us human beings is the idea that things
are “maintenance-free”, and that if we don’t find items in our lives to be
useful any longer, we can simply throw them away. Truth is, we live in a
“maintenance-free” society. We also live in a “throw away” society.
But,
of course, there’s no such thing as a “maintenance-free” anything. Consider,
for example, the changes that have taken place with our automobiles: Time was,
an oil change was required every 2,000 – 3,000 miles or so. Nowadays, oil
changes take place at far greater timespans. But oil changes are still
required. Cars, for all the advances that have taken place with them over time,
are still anything but “maintenance-free”.
Everywhere
we look, the things that occupy our time and attention all require maintenance
and work. That list would include our cars, our households and all that is
them, and our relationships.
Moreover,
simply throwing things away when they no longer work, or when they need some
sort of attention that we’re unwilling to offer to fix them, is wasteful. If we
throw away our personal relationships, we run the risk of creating enormous
problems for ourselves, and for others.
All
of this discussion leads us to a consideration of our Lord’s teaching about the
nature of marriage, and of the reality of divorce.
Taken
on its face, our Lord’s prohibition against divorce, and against remarriage,
seems harsh and uncaring toward those who find themselves in the unenviable
situation of being in a destructive relationship. But if we look beneath the
surface of the Lord’s teaching, we can see that He was addressing abuses of the
ability to divorce that were taking place during the time of His earthly
ministry.
The
Pharisees’ approach to Jesus, asking Him about the ability to divorce, is
rooted in the debates about the subject that were ongoing at that time. There
were three main rabbinical schools of thought about the reasons a man might
divorce his wife:
·
Rabbi Shammai held the most restricted
view, limiting divorce to situations of unfaithfulness to the marriage
relationship on the part of the wife. [1]
·
Rabbi Hillel maintained that man could
divorce his wife for many reasons, even including occasions when she “ruined
his dinner”.
·
Rabbi Akiba allowed for many reasons, even
to include divorce from a wife if the husband had found another woman who was
“more attractive” than his current wife.
It’s important to notice
that in all of these discussions, it’s the man’s prerogative to divorce. Under
the Law of Moses, a woman had no legal rights, so she couldn’t initiate a
divorce. This was a “man’s world” (which isn’t always a good thing!). [2]
Instead of taking the
Pharisees’ bait, Jesus reconfigures the question, citing God’s original purpose
for marriage, a relationship whose goal is a lifelong one. He cites Genesis,
chapter two, in His response.
It strikes me that the
attitudes of many men during the time of our Lord’s visitation show that they
were looking for loopholes, as ways to get out of a marriage.
But what was the outcome,
the fallout, from their capricious ways? In the process of abandoning their
wives (and children) in the “man’s world” that existed then, many women were
thrown into poverty, and their children along with them. It seems, therefore,
that the Lord was speaking out of a deep concern for the welfare of women and
children, who were among the weakest and least powerful members of society at
that time.
The Church, down through
time, has struggled with the issue and the reality of divorce. For example,
consider St. Paul’s writing in I Corinthians, chapter seven. Over time, the
Church has (for the most part) considerably relaxed its position about the
possibility of remarriage after divorce. Perhaps this is a good thing, if,
indeed, the circumstances of the marriage are such that extreme damage could
result from preserving the marriage. (If some sort of abuse exists, for
example, it seems prudent to end the marriage for the sake of the welfare of
the spouse….that would be one example of the advisability of ending the
marriage, as regrettable as such a decision would be.)
Alas, there is, yet today,
no shortage of the hardness of heart that the Lord speaks about in His response
to the Pharisees. We live in a fallen and imperfect world, one in which people
do not take their promises seriously, one in which far too many think they can
throw away a marriage and a spouse (and possibly, children, as well).
Yet the Lord would ask us
to do the hard work of preserving and building up our marriages. For it’s gonna
take hard work in order to strengthen our marriages. There’s no such thing as a
“maintenance-free” marriage, or any other relationship, for that matter. They
will all require work, lots of it.
AMEN.
[1] This view is reflected in two texts that are found in Matthew’s Gospel account, at 5:32 and at 19:9. This view is based on Deuteronomy 24:1 – 4.
[2] Under Roman law, a woman had more legal rights, and could initiate a divorce.
