Daily Office 8/11/2009: Let no one put asunder...

“From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God had joined together, let not man put asunder.” * * * “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” Mark 10:6-12. (Daily Office Readings, Year One, Vol. 2, Proper 14, at page 280).

In today's Gospel in the Daily Office Jesus gives us what appear to be some pretty explicit instructions: Marriage is one man, one woman, for life. His condemnation of divorce and remarriage is extreme. It is adultery, for which Leviticus requires execution by stoning. For many years, these verses were taken very literally. Today, with their bishops’ blessing, a huge number of the members of our Church divorce and remarry, including a rather large number of our priests and bishops. As I understand it, the theology underlying the shift is that Jesus used hyperboles in this passage to shed light on the true spiritual union God desires for us—unions so intense and transforming that we become as if we were one person, one flesh, such that breaking that bond would be a crime, even a “hanging offense,” to mix metaphors.

Jesus used hyperboles all the time (e.g., if your eye offends pluck it out) to direct our attention to spiritual truth. Not to be taken literally, these hyperboles must be seen for what they are—vivid caffeinated images to shake us up and shape us up. They must also be tempered with common sense and compassion for our fallen nature.

The opponents of sacramental equality for gay and lesbian Christians seem perfectly able to understand that “one flesh” does not REALLY mean the partners’ bodies are literally merged and that Jesus does not REALLY mean that remarriage after divorce is literally adultery. However, they seem unable to imagine that Jesus used the poetry of Genesis to teach us that God creates women and men equally in the divine image, and calls us to reflect that reality in our relationships. They seem bewildered that Jesus may not have been commenting about the genders of the persons involved when he described the holiness of the bond created when we leave the security of the people and things that are familiar to build a new home, to be knit into one flesh, to bear witness to God’s love for the world. They seem even more confused by the suggestion that in refusing to support the relationships of same sex couples they may be violating a rather clear instruction which does not seem to be metaphorical or hyperbolic: Humans have no business trying to separate what God has joined.
Peace.
Jim