Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
I find it more than a bit ironic to read today's readings this week, especially THIS week. Like many people, I find this time of year hectic with all the busy-ness of changing from summer to fall. My 5 year old started kindergarten this week, and I am getting ready for my own classes to begin next week. I know the summer harvest is at its peak; some friends of mine are picking and canning tomatoes and zucchini like crazy. And there's all the busy-ness of preparing for various new fall programs like our parish retreat and the new Sunday School year.
The danger of being too busy is that we can quickly become focused on what ourselves and what we need to get done in the moment, and sometimes that means overlooking other peoples' needs (usually unintentionally). How many times this week have I told my kids, in an exasperated voice, that I couldn't do whatever the wanted in that moment because I had something else I needed to do. I wish I'd taken the time, at least some of those times, to stop focusing on my own busyness and focus on them.
So the irony for me in reading today's lessons is that while my busyness keeps me rather focused on ME, the Old Testament and Gospel ask me to focus on God's work in my life.
In the first lesson (Joshua 24:1-13), Joshua is telling the story of God's interaction with the people, from all the way back to Genesis, with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, right down to their present day, where they live in lands they did not till, and eat from vineyards they had not planted. Everything becomes a gift to receive and take care of. We realize that all of life is a gift that is not ultimately up to us.
In the second reading (Matthew 19:3-12), Jesus overturns a common thought about marriage, which is that the people had been used to thinking of marriage as something they did for themselves. Therefore they had the right to use marriage as they saw fit, for their own purposes and without necessarily considering their spouse. This led to numerous injustices, particularly for women. In those days, there were two major arguments when it came to interpreting the particular Old Testament passage about divorce from Deuteronomy 24:1, about a man divorcing a woman who "becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her." One group argued that it was only matters of indecency that could permit a man to request a divorce. The other group maintained that was any matter that caused displeasure at all that permitted a man to divorce his wife.
Ultimately the Pharisees are asking a trick question meant to embroil Jesus in a heated dispute and make some people hate him by forcing him to side with one group over another.
But characteristically, Jesus sidesteps the controversy by taking the question to a new level. Jesus is well aware of the pain and problems that divorce causes in his society: in ancient Israel, women without families had almost no way to support themselves, and this was even worse if they had children. This is why the Old Testament so frequently features laws about taking care of the widows and the orphans, because they were the poorest of the poor. So when Jesus suggests that people should not divorce at all, it is a matter of care and justice for the poor, just as healing on the Sabbath is a matter of justice for the very ill. Jesus is thereby saying that the ones who follow only the "letter of the law" are too hard of heart and do not quite understand the nature of God's kingdom. God's love and mercy push us to seek beyond the mere letter of the law to living a more full life of discipleship that particularly means not just divorcing a woman for any reason at all.
Jesus suggests that the result of living only for our own desires- whether that is getting rid of a spouse for a vague charge of indecency of whether that is simply letting her go, as the Pharisees ask- is that we don't experience justice, love and mercy in our own lives either. By receiving the gift of another person in spite of our own desires, we come to see God's great gifts in our lives.But putting this into practice means accepting marriage, and one's spouse, as a gift that is not entirely in your control, even and especially in the times when the marriage seems not so much to be a gift.
In both of these readings, we are called to step away from our busy lives for a moment, and reflect the gifts God has placed in our lives. How will we respond to God's gifts in love?
- Jana M. Bennett