Not my words, but Jesus' found in this Sunday's reading from Mark 10:2-16.
Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.’ But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But 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. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
Before the fall,
But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.”
But we live east or west of Eden and so we have all manner of names for males and females these days and all kinds of ways they might hook up in trying to become "one flesh". These alternatives to God's original plan are the works of humankind, and you know how that usually works out.
Woe to the Church that messes with God's plan.
And how about Malachi 2:13-15: "And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth."
ReplyDeleteSpeaking as a wife who is no longer the twenty-two-year-old I was on my wedding day, I thank God for giving me a faithful husband who after fifty years will not discard me for someone without the marks of age.
I feel sorry for the secular marriages that do not have the Holy Spirit present as the third party. 40 years for us thanks be to God!
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