The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today invite us to meditate on Covenant relationships and how our relationship with God guides our practice to sustain love for others.
Support for relationships
In the reading from the Book of Joshua, the tribes renew the Covenant.
I gave you a land you did not till and cities you did not build, to dwell in; you ate of vineyards and olive groves you did not plant.1
Psalm 136 praises God’s Work in Creation and in History.
* [Psalm 136] The hymn praises Israel’s God (“the God of gods,” Ps 136:2), who has created the world in which Israel lives. The refrain occurring after every line suggests that a speaker and chorus sang the Psalm in antiphonal fashion. A single act of God is described in Ps 136:4–25. God arranges the heavens and the earth as the environment for human community, and then creates the community by freeing them and giving them land. In the final section (Ps 136:23–25) God, who created the people and gave them land, continues to protect and nurture them.2
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus addresses questions about marriage and divorce.
* [19:9] Moses’ concession to human sinfulness (the hardness of your hearts, Mt 19:8) is repudiated by Jesus, and the original will of the Creator is reaffirmed against that concession. (Unless the marriage is unlawful): see note on Mt 5:31–32. There is some evidence suggesting that Jesus’ absolute prohibition of divorce was paralleled in the Qumran community (see 11QTemple 57:17–19; CD 4:12b–5:14). Matthew removes Mark’s setting of this verse as spoken to the disciples alone “in the house” (Mk 10:10) and also his extension of the divorce prohibition to the case of a woman’s divorcing her husband (Mk 10:12), probably because in Palestine, unlike the places where Roman and Greek law prevailed, the woman was not allowed to initiate the divorce.3
Ronald Fussell comments that when we approach our relationships with others, and especially the rules, expectations, and the norms that we place on those relationships, with a hardened heart, then those relationships become more transactional and less human.
So, my prayer for all of us in reading today’s Gospel is that it will prompt us to prioritize relationships based in love, and human dignity, when we set and interpret relational expectations for each other. Trick questions are never fun. But, looking past that, open hearts and deeper reflection are the foundation of healthy relationships where we can encounter Christ in our encounters with each other.4
Don Schwager quotes “Don't separate what God has joined together,“ by John Chrysostom (347-407 AD).
"Then he showed that it is a fearful thing to tamper with this law. When establishing this law, he did not say, 'Therefore, do not sever or separate' but 'What God has joined together, let man not separate.' If you quote Moses, I will quote the God of Moses, and with him I am always strong. For God from the beginning made them male and female. This law is very old, even if it appears human beings have recently discovered it. It is firmly fixed. And God did not simply bring the woman to her husband but ordered her also to leave her father and mother. And he not only ordered the man to go to the woman but also to cling to her, showing by his way of speaking that they could not be separated. And not even with this was God satisfied, but he sought also for another greater union: 'for the two shall be one flesh.'" (excerpt from THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, HOMILY 62.1)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 19:3-12 urges us, if we know of persons going through a divorce or experiencing difficulties in marriage to try to reach out to those persons. As a brother or sister in Christ, we can radiate the love and mercy of Jesus as we accompany them through their trials.
Today, let’s pray for all who are in pain over a divorce or broken relationship. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ, and God loves them deeply. Let’s also lift up all married couples. May the Lord be with them and sustain them through all the ups and downs of life. “Lord, help all who are facing marital challenges. May they experience your comfort, your presence, and your wisdom.”6
Friar Jude Winkler connects Joshua's history to a recommitment to the Covenant. The descriptions and prescriptions about married life were ambiguous to Matthew’s community. Friar Jude cites comments attributed to rabbi Hillel and expands the meaning of the term porneia.
Jack Mahoney SJ, Emeritus Professor of Moral and Social Theology in the University of London and former Principal of Heythrop College, University of London, looks at the two passages in St Matthew’s Gospel in which Jesus appears to tell his followers that divorce is allowed in certain circumstances. These passages contrast dramatically with the rest of the New Testament, where Jesus is several times reported as totally forbidding divorce. He comments on the rabbi Hillel, expanding divorce for ‘something objectionable’ and notes that the term porneia refers not just to a sexual sin but to some special type of sexual relationship which contravened the Jewish law on marriage.
The conclusion is, then, that Jesus was entirely consistent in his absolute rejection of divorce, without exception, invoking God’s ordinance at creation and explaining by the Jews’ hardness of heart the indulgence which Moses had permitted them in allowing for divorce. It is still possible today, of course, to continue to argue, as some Christians do, that the teaching of Jesus (now without ‘exception’) forbidding all divorce refers to an ideal situation often far from the reality of people’s lives and relationships; that the Mosaic situation of hardness of heart can continue to exist or even to prevail in modern circumstances; and even that what God has joined together, God, or the Church in God’s name, can also separate.7
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that people are more comfortable with a divine monarch at the top of pyramidal reality. So we quickly made the one who described himself as “meek and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:29) into an imperial God, both in the West (Rome) and in the East (Constantinople). This isn’t the naked, self-emptying Jesus on the cross. This isn’t a vulnerable, relational one who knows how to be a brother to all creation. The Greek Zeus became the Latin Deus—and then we no longer knew Jesus in any meaningful sense that the soul could naturally relate to (which was the main point of the Incarnation!).
Brené Brown writes wisely about vulnerability and power. She observes that “The phrase power over is typically enough to send chills down spines: When someone holds power over us, the human spirit’s instinct is to rise, resist, and rebel. As a construct it feels wrong; in the wider geopolitical context it can mean death and despotism.” [1] There’s no seeking of power over in the Trinity, but only power with—a giving away, a sharing, a letting go, and thus an infinite flow of trust and mutuality. This should have changed all Christian relationships: in marriage, in culture, and even in international relations. Instead, we continue to prefer kings, wars, and empires, instead of an always leveling love.8
Our desire for rules from above to define our relationships threatens to remove our prayerful openness to the prompting of the Spirit to enter the loving interaction of the Trinity as we make decisions on action for others.
References
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