27th Sunday 2024
Genesis 2:18-24; Hebrews 2:9-11; Mark 10:2-16
That is a wonderful First Reading, and a powerful Second Reading and Gospel. I can imagine the more dopey among the atheists decrying the Genesis reading on the grounds that “That wasn’t how it happened”. Of course it wasn’t. It was never intended to be taken literally. It is not an attempt at writing history: it is a beautifully poetic expression of God’s love for humankind, of the interdependence of the sexes, and of human responsibility for, and stewardship of, creation and especially the animals.
Some feminists may regard it as patriarchal, considering it to assert a dependence of woman upon man. Again, that strikes me as over literal. Admittedly there is a masculine bias, but the real emphasis is on mutuality, the two becoming one. And whilst we are more aware now than then of the complexity of human sexuality, the Genesis passage gives us a starting point for an understanding of sexuality and sexual attraction.
How does it play out? God brings all the animals and birds to the man, demonstrating the interrelationship of all creation. The man is interested, to the extent of naming all the creatures, bringing them into relationship with him. There is nothing, though, to set his pulses racing.
This changes when he sees the woman, whom he recognises as deeply related to him. You can imagine him leaping up and down with excitement as he shouts “this at last….”. I think we can safely add “Yabadabadoo!” I hope that we can assume that the woman was equally excited, and our imaginations can fill in the rest.
We mustn’t overlook the footnote: “This is why a man leaves father and mother, and joins himself to his wife, and they become one body.” This is the antidote to casual sex. Sexual intercourse is a holy and precious thing: it brings about complete union, making the two into one, and so it needs to be wrapped around with care, treated with devotion. If, as happens frequently in our society, it becomes something which happens on a first date, or a one night stand, it loses its meaning, its beauty, its God-given excitement, and becomes simply one more bodily function.
This is also why rape is one of the vilest of sins, because it seizes by force something which must only be given freely; it destroys mutuality; it violates by aggression and brutality that which is integral to the very humanity of the victim. It is practically a form of murder.
It is this aspect of mutual self-giving and union which Jesus takes as the basis of His teaching on marriage. He quotes the Genesis text asserting that the two become one body, and then amplifies it, leaving no room for doubt: “They are no longer two, therefore, but one body”. This, He adds, is a God-given union, a sacrament, a concept which St. Paul would develop by declaring that it symbolises the union of Christ with His Church.
One question for the married people here, to ponder rather than answer: “Do you still have those ‘Yabadabadoo!’ moments in your marriage? Do you need them?” Actually, that is two questions, but perhaps the two will become one—see what I did there? (Incidentally, my own belief is that marriage is too precious, too much of a self-giving, to be combined with that other self-giving which is involved in priesthood, and that it would be a tragedy for both sacraments, and for the Church as a whole, if the Church were to abandon the concept of compulsory celibacy, an abandonment which has been described as a “middle class cause”.)
There is something remarkable, almost staggering, in the Second Reading, from the Letter to the Hebrews. “It was appropriate,” we are told, “that God….should make perfect through suffering the leader who would take them to their salvation”. Jesus had to be “made perfect”. Was He imperfect? Not in the way in which we commonly use the word.
“Perfect” here means “thoroughly made” “complete”, the literal meaning of the Latin word on which it is based. Until He suffered, there was something lacking in the humanity of the Son of God. Suffering is part of the human experience, and without it Jesus would not have been complete as a human being. This has a bearing on His own injunction “You must be perfect”.
Like Jesus, we must become thoroughly made, complete. It is not something which will happen to us all at once. It is a process which will take a lifetime, and for most of us be finished only by Purgatory. If you feel that you are not perfect, don’t worry—you are on the way. If you feel that you ARE perfect, worry—because you have something seriously wrong.
