Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jan 30 2025

True Family Values

Jesus’ teaching on divorce can sound harsh to our ears and even cause pain to anyone who has suffered the trauma of a divorce. It is important to understand that the scribes are testing Jesus the rabbi/teacher and his understanding of the law of Moses on marriage and divorce. Maybe they simply wanted to know what Jesus thought, but it is more probable they wanted to get him in trouble either with the authorities (consider the preaching of John the Baptist on Herod’s marital situation) or with the people who revered Moses and the law that allowed for divorce.

Two rabbinic schools of thought had weighed in on this matter. Rabbi Shammai allowed divorce only for adultery; Rabbi Hillel allowed it for just about anything. In Jesus’ day a more liberal interpretation prevailed, and divorce was allowed for trivial reasons.

Jesus the teacher becomes Jesus the prophet here, going back to Genesis and proclaiming the intent of the Creator: that a man leave his mother and father’s home and cling to his wife, the two becoming one. Here the woman was equal to the man, not subordinate, made “from (a rib) nearest his heart to be alongside him, equal to him, loved by him, and from beneath his arm to be protected by him.”

The Church’s teaching flows from that of Jesus. God’s plan is that marriage be graced and life-giving, a community of love and life. Children, the fruit of marriage, are to be cherished, blessed, and protected, never neglected or abused in any way.

Consider/Discuss

How do the teachings of Jesus and Genesis relate to the contemporary experience of marriage?
Why does the kingdom of God belong to children and what does it mean to accept this kingdom like a child?

Responding to the Word

Loving God, you created man and woman in your image, and have called many to the vocation of marriage as a witness to and participation in the love that binds you, Father, with the Son and Holy Spirit. Hear our prayer for all married couples; make their love faithful, fruitful, and forever.

Jan 30 2025

Scripture Study for

In the second creation account no animal was found fit to serve as a suitable partner for the human being. The word for partner (’ezer) denotes a source of blessing after some kind of deliverance. It is not good that the human creature be alone, but the other animals are not suitable partners, so God creates the woman. The detail that she was built from one of the man’s ribs stems from an ancient source in which the word for “woman of life,” comes from the same root word as “woman of the rib.” Since she is united to him in “bone and flesh,” a typical way of expressing comprehensiveness, the man now has a suitable partner. Jesus’ solidarity with the rest of the human family is outlined in the second reading. While in his human nature, Jesus shared the status that human beings enjoyed. However, assuming human nature was for him a humbling experience. In accepting the human condition, he emptied himself of his divine privileges, and if this were not humbling enough, he did so in order to empty himself radically in death for the sake of us all, thus reconciling the human race with God. Jesus’ self-emptying death shows that he is not ashamed of the human nature that he shares with all humanity.

The Pharisees test Jesus with a question about divorce. They were probably probing to see if Jesus would disagree with Moses, who allowed it. They challenge Jesus: Is divorce ever acceptable? If so, on what grounds? Jesus does not undermine the authority of Moses, but he points out its concession to human weakness. He insists that in God’s original design the couple become one flesh and should not be separated. Jesus’ teaching does not make the demands of marriage easier, but it does place the marriage partners on an equal footing. Speaking of the reign of God, he states that one can only enter it with the unpretentiousness of children.

Jan 28 2025

A Broad, Expansive Love

A friend came into the break room and announced, “Today, my husband and I have been married for thirteen happy years!” We all congratulated her. When the room quieted, she said, “Well . . . we’ve been married for twenty-four.”

Marriage can be beautiful. Marriage can be broken. There is nothing that can get an argument going as much as the topic of marriage. That was true in the times Jesus lived in. That is still true in our own.

Some of the priests whom I coach in homiletics tell me that they’d rather talk about anything else than preach on marriage and divorce. They know people in their pews who have been hurt by betrayal and brokenness; some had their childhood ripped apart when their family split up, leaving wounds that have never healed. Why would you want to awaken that pain?

The words of Jesus teaching about the permanence of marriage can feel rigid and even harsh from a Teacher who was neither. Yet his words have been slung like a weapon ever since. But what is the ideal that Jesus, the man of love, is looking for?

At the center of this scripture are the words “joined together.” They connote a God-given intimacy; not just walking beside someone, not simply a physical union, but an integral give-and-take of one’s whole life. Jesus extols becoming childlike, but childishness has to be left behind for two people to come together to serve one another.

Sometimes we get glimpses of God’s expansive vision for what marriage can be. I recall Tom and Sally at daily Mass. She was frail and leaned like the Tower of Pisa. He led her into church by the elbow. When he smoothed her hair, she looked up at him and smiled. They had gone through many decades and many sufferings, but the two of them seemed to be “joined together” in mutual joy. I think they made God smile.

Consider/Discuss

God’s vision for marriage is broad and expansive—a gift of belovedness from one person to another. Where have you seen that vision take hold? Who do you know as a model of being “joined together”?
Just as the Pharisees put Jesus to the test over the issue of marriage and divorce, so our culture wrangles over the issue of marriage. It is deeply divisive topic. What kinds of disputes arise among your family and friends? In Christian charity, how can you speak to those conflicts in a way that will be heard as love?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, you saw a model of marriage in your childhood home in Nazareth. And yet even your Holy Family was not free from its trials. Early on, Joseph thought about divorcing Mary. There may have been conflicts about how to raise you properly, whose fault it was you got left behind in the temple, how to carry on as Joseph lay dying. Married life is full of the tug and pull of conflict. Send your grace upon all families. Help us to handle our differences with love and kindness. Your vision is that we be one. On our own, we cannot make it happen, but come, Prince of Peace and make it so.

Jan 28 2025

Scripture Study for

The Genesis passage gives an account of the origination of sexual attraction and marriage, as well as the fact that there are many different kinds of animals in the world. God recognizes that humans are not meant to be alone; they are essentially social creatures. None of the animals, both similar to the man yet fundamentally different, is a “suitable partner.” The woman, on the other hand, is an exact counterpart to the man, being made of the same “stuff.” The fact that man and woman are both essentially the same (bone of bones, flesh of flesh) and yet differentiated explains why there is such an irresistible attraction between them and why they regularly seek to “become one flesh.”

The Letter to the Hebrews begins with an affirmation that “in these last days” God has spoken to the world through the Son. This Son is “far superior to the angels,” yet when he became human, he was “for a little while” lower than the angels. Only by becoming incarnate could the Son be made “perfect through suffering.” Only by becoming a human could Jesus be a true brother to those who “taste death,” and thus bring them salvation through that death. As will become clear later in the letter, by offering himself on the cross, Jesus became the eternal High Priest, and as such he is able to consecrate others, giving them access to God and bringing them to glory.

The Pharisees test Jesus to see if he will uphold the Mosaic teaching allowing a man to divorce his wife (Deuteronomy 24:1– 4). Possibly behind the question also lies the execution of John the Baptist, who was put to death precisely because he challenged royal marriage practices. Were the Pharisees hoping to get Jesus in trouble with the authorities? In any case, in his response, based on Genesis, Jesus insists that marriage cannot be abrogated by human—even Mosaically-sanctioned—power. Perhaps because this response seems to deny the authority of Moses, the disciples are perplexed. Yet Jesus insists that anyone who claims to divorce someone is not, in fact, divorced in the eyes of God, who alone can effect such a separation.

Jan 15 2025

Bearing Fruit: Not Just for Vineyards

God’s relationship with people is at the heart of both the first reading and the Gospel, but there is a difference. In Isaiah, destruction comes to the vineyard; in the Gospel, it comes to those entrusted with the care of the vineyard.

Isaiah’s song highlights the people’s failure—the house of Israel and the people of Judah—to bear fruit, to provide the Lord who has lovingly tended this vineyard with anything more than wild grapes, that is, bloodshed and violence against each other. Because of this, the owner will turn his back on them, no longer giving care but letting it be trampled underfoot, no longer pruning or hoeing, but allowing thorns and briers to take over. This song is demanding conversion. In Jesus’ parable, the focus is on those entrusted with the care of the vineyard. Jesus addresses the chief priests and the elders in Jerusalem, not only criticizing their failure to care for the people adequately, but also their rejection of those God sent to call them to conversion. The parable calls all religious leaders to remember that authority is for service.

Bearing fruit in our lives, being true and honorable, just and pure, lovely and gracious is the fruit God desires from all, as Paul reminds the Philippians. God’s people, but especially their leaders, have a responsibility to bear fruit. No one is let off the hook. God expects a return for love so lavishly given.

Consider/Discuss

Have you ever tended a plant or grown a garden? What did this experience teach you?
What fruitfulness God is asking of you?
Is there anything that prevents you from making a return to God for all that has been given to you?

Responding to the Word

St. Paul calls us to set aside anxiety and to make known to God any requests we have for more fruitful lives. In prayer we will find that “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”