Today’s Gospel reading, Mk 10:2-12, has me thinking not so much about the rules concerning divorce, which vary among our various churches. I’m thinking about the above-quoted part, where our Lord takes us back to the very beginning of creation, to remind us of the whole point of the difference between male and female, which is unity.
Christ refers to both accounts of creation found in Genesis 1 and 2: He refers to what is called by scholars the ‘Priestly’ account of Gen 1:27b, “male and female He created them,” and adds the ‘Yahwist’ quote from Gen 2:24, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother…” The first account of Genesis 1 has Eve created together with Adam, after all the animals. The account of Genesis 2, on the other hand, has Eve created after Adam and all the animals, and after Adam fails to find (among the animals) “a helper comparable to him.” In this account of Genesis 2, God then creates Eve from Adam’s rib while Adam is sleeping, and then brings Eve to Adam, who immediately recognizes her as an inherent part of him, saying, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” And right after that, the Bible says: Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife…, followed by: “And they were both naked, and they were not ashamed.”
But things went wrong, not because male and female were too different to ‘see’ each other as different parts of one whole. It was because their capacity to ‘see’ anyone different from themselves was broken by sin, by dis-connecting with God through losing faith. I mean, they believed the serpent more than God. But He is our source of Light, who empowers us truly to see, as He sees all of creation, as one. So, when we’re disconnecting from Him, instead of faith we reap fear, because the opposite of faith is fear, which blocks or distorts our vision. Nonetheless, God works with us in our crippled state, allowing even for Moses to issue a Plan B, a ‘commandment’ that helps people divorce, when staying together becomes too hard.
The little point I’m making in this long reflection is, ‘from the beginning’ we are created with different others. In our brokenness, it’s hard to ‘see’ them as part of us, and us as part of them, but that’s how God sees us, as tesserae of one big mosaic. We don’t un-break ourselves and ‘return to wholeness’ (become ‘saved’) overnight, or just by figuring that out. Nor do the ‘others’ in our broken relationships do so. ‘Salvation’ that is a ‘return to wholeness’ is a life-long process, which takes time. In practical terms, what I can do with my broken self on this Tuesday morning, is to work a bit on my faith, which dispels fear; to re-connect with God in my little prayers, as I proceed to tend to my responsibilities today, putting one foot in front of the other. God sees me and all of us as part of His whole, even in our brokenness, which He is willing and able to gather up in His loving Oneness, even if we need a Plan B or C or whatever. The main thing is that we work on our faith, reconnecting with God, rather than pick at the wounds of our fears. Help us, save us, have mercy on us, and keep all of us, O God, by Your grace.❤
