Note:    This homily addresses one of the most delicate and difficult issues that Christians face.  It seems to me that at the end of the homily or the end of Mass, anyone who is in a marital situation that needs help (relationship problems, marriage outside the Church) should be invited to contact a parish minister to discuss the issues and to find help in dealing with them.  This, of course, means that the ministers need to have resources to whom they can refer people

  

 

The word “gospel” means good news.

Now if there is any confusion

that good news and easy news are the same thing,

today’s gospel reading dispels that idea.

To make a commitment to one person

for the rest of one’s life,

(as one does when one marries)

is no easy matter.

 

To live that commitment for the rest of one’s life

is no piece of cake, even wedding cake!

Not only is there the effort on one’s part

to make such a commitment work,

there is the intense reliance

on the other person’s sense of commitment

and ability to live out a life together

“until death do we part.”

 

Yet, this is exactly what Jesus teaches

when asked the question about marriage and divorce.

He says that the intent of God

is that marriage is to one person of the opposite gender

and is to be lived until one of the partners dies.

To put an end to the living the relationship

does not end the marriage,

at least as far as God is concerned;

therefore, to marry again is to live in adultery.

 

Even the Pharisees,

so strict about so many lesser issues,

allowed for divorce and remarriage

in a number of instances,

from adultery to burnt dinner.

 

This teaching of Jesus,

which the Catholic Church has,

since its early days, interpreted very strictly,

is one of the most difficult

for modern Christians to accept, much less follow.

There are many people who have tried heroically

to make a marriage work but to no avail;

there are sometimes situations in which one spouse

walks out of a marriage or refuses to even try to make it work;

there are cases of marriages that have to end because

of danger to a spouse or child’s mental or physical health.

All of these cry out for a reason to be allowed to start over,

to enter into a new marriage with someone else.

Yet, Jesus does not seem to give on this matter.

It is indeed a hard teaching for us to accept.

 

We could, like the rich man in another Gospel story,

simply walk away in sadness

deciding not to follow this demanding teacher or his teaching.

We could also decide

that Jesus really didn’t mean what he said,

although the Gospel does not in any place

show that Jesus intended us

to tame his teaching on the matter.

Or, we can ask ourselves,

“What it is that leads Jesus −

and his Father, who first gave the command at creation −

to place such a demand upon us?”

 

If we search for an answer,

we find that God intended marriage

to be permanent from the creation of the world

because God sees marriage

not simply as a context in which two people

could be happy and in love for life,

but as part of a much bigger context,

and that is
that marriage is the means by which people would participate

in building up the society in which they live.

They would build it up

by bringing new people into society

through their children;

in the context of married love and care

they would form their children

to live as people capable of interacting in society,

nurturing and strengthening the society

because they learned to be self-giving, responsible individuals;

in the context of marriage,

the husband and wife would nurture, challenge, and comfort

each other to live in society as self-giving and responsible individuals.

When people know that

there is the stability of love and care

in a permanent relationship which does not end at the whim of another,

one can be all the more secure to grow and develop,

not only as a child, but all through life.

 

This is the first reason

why God intended marriage to be permanent

and why Christ reaffirmed and renewed his Father’s teaching.

 

Yet, there is another reason

why, as Catholics, we believe that marriage may not be dissolved,

and this reason has its foundation

in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

In the fifth chapter,

Saint Paul refers to marriage as “a great mystery.”

(Now I am sure that there are many

who think their marriage is at times a big mystery!)

Here, the term mystery is used by Paul

not to mean a conundrum that cannot be figured out,

but a way in which the plan of God is revealed.

In other words,

marriage, according to Saint Paul, shows in a concrete way

the relationship of Christ and the Church.

It is a loving relationship,

with all the joys and crosses

that loving an imperfect person bears.

It is a permanent relationship;

Christ will never abandon his Church

now matter how much

the members and leaders of the Church screw things up.

It is a fruitful relationship;

through the love of Christ and the Church,

the work of salvation spreads,

the number of the members of the Body of Christ grows,

and life in Christ for the Church’s members increases.

In other words,

marriage reveals the love of God

and makes real the plan of God

by doing what God intends.

Therefore, even when a couple must separate

and a civil divorce ends a marriage from a legal perspective,

the relationship of husband and wife does not end

because it is a relationship that is permanent in God’s eyes.

 

Marriage in the eyes of God

is not simply a life choice two individuals make

so that they can be happy in life;

it is rather a vocation − a call to service −

for the good of the Church and human society

to which they are invited to respond.

 

This is indeed a lofty ideal,

and no married couple does it perfectly.

Yet, all married people are called to strive for it as best they can,

in the context of the graces and difficulties they may face;

on judgment day God will ask

not if we have been perfect at what we have lived,

but have we lived trying the best we could.

 

The teaching of Christ in today’s Gospel

is not to be heard simply to be about divorce and remarriage,

but ultimately about seeking to live the reality that marriage symbolizes:

the loving relationship of Christ and his Church.

 

All of us, married or not, are called to pray for and support

our brothers and sisters who are married,

as well as those who are divorced

or are in the difficult situation of being remarried after divorce.

No one is called to bear the weight of the challenges of the Gospel alone;

we who are united in Christ to one another are their to support each other.

What God calls us to do,

God provides the grace we need to do it,

and each of us may be God’s means of grace.

 

© 2006.  Jeffrey M. Kemper