Homily for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Biblical Anthropology And Christian View Of Marriage

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, October 6, 2024

The central themes that run through this weekend’s first reading (Genesis 2:18-24) and the Gospel (Mark 10:2-16) are biblical anthropology, that is, who we are in the presence of God and the Christian understanding of marriage. In the opening line of the first reading we hear, “The Lord God said: ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.” I tell you, if you sit and meditate on those words, you will discover it is one of the most fundamental statements of biblical anthropology. God has created Adam, but God immediately realizes that it is not good for the man (Adam) to be alone. The implication here is that we belong in community; we belong together. After the creation of Adam, God brought forth to Adam all kinds of animals and Adam named them one by one. Although Adam was not literally all alone, he was surrounded by many animals, but none of these animals could function as a proper partner to Adam. None of them was a suitable partner to Adam because they are not co-equal to Adam. What Adam needs is not someone he can dominate but someone that can respond to his intelligence, to his emotion, to his creativity, and to his depth of personality. Adam was basically a lonely man. To solve this problem, God puts Adam into deep sleep, and from his rib God creates Eve. Now, don’t read this as a symbol of a woman’s inferiority. It is rather of a woman’s radical co-equality with the man. She is not like the other animals that God brought before Adam that Adam dominates and controls. This is the reason why upon seeing the woman, Eve, Adam joyfully says, “This one, at last, is the bone of my bones and the flesh of my flesh.” In other words, his co-equal partner. Long ago, Aristotle said that you can only have authentic friendship with someone who is your co-equal. And he’s so correct. You can only have authentic friendship with someone whose gaze meets your gaze, whose intelligence meets your intelligence, whose curiosity meets your curiosity, whose capacity for love meets your capacity for love. So, in Eve, Adam finds his friend, the one whose bone is his bone, and flesh his flesh. 

In the last verse of our first reading, we hear, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). What a truly loaded statement. Three things mentioned in that statement that we should not ignore are leaving, clinging and becoming one. For those who are married, if you want to know how your marriage is going, use the three to assess it. For those who are single, if you want to know how your relationship with Jesus Christ is going, you can also apply those three things. Those three things relate not only to Jesus’ relationship with us but also our relationship with Jesus. For those who are married, it relates to your relationship in holy matrimony. If there is any problem in your marriage or in your relationship with the Lord, it is in one of these areas or in all of them. 

The first is leaving. In a marriage relationship, it is very important that the man and woman leave their past behind. It is important they detach from friends and sometimes family members that are affecting their relationship in a negative way. It is also important that you leave behind your spouse’s past ugly life behind and begin to see her or him as a new person. Oftentimes we leave our own past behind, but then we find it very difficult to leave our spouse’s past behind. In general terms, if we are serious in following Jesus, we need to leave the philosophies of this world behind. We need to leave secular views and start listening to Jesus. We need to leave false idols— power, wealth, honor and pleasure of this world behind and then give ourselves completely over to the Lord. Interestingly, Jesus left heaven and came to earth in order to pursue us. We need to leave sin behind and follow the Lord. In our last weekend Gospel, Jesus uses  exaggerated language to urge us to cut off anything or anyone that is hindering and blocking our salvation. So, in your relationship with the Lord, have you left everything behind and follow him? The second thing is clinging. In a marriage relationship, the husband and wife are to cling to one another. What does that mean? It means they are in a sense vigorously pursuing one another, trying to outdo and beat each other in the expression of their love, affection, and in every aspect of their life. As for all of us married or single, being a Christian is often described as a journey out of the world of sin into the world of love. In John’s Gospel, Jesus reminds us that even though we are in the world, we are not of the world. And to be not of the world will require clinging tenaciously to the Lord. In Jesus of Nazareth, God came to the world to pursue us. So, rather than run away from him, we should run towards him and cling to him. 

Finally, the third thing is becoming one flesh. Husbands and wives are literally called to become one flesh. What does that mean? They are to have one vision, one dream, and one plan on how to raise their children. The Bible says that two people cannot walk together unless they agree. Husbands and wives should have one aspiration. Both should love God and pray together. And if you are single, you are called to become one flesh with the Lord. He leads and we follow. If you want a healthy relationship in your marriage, you have to leave many things behind, you have to cling unto each other and when you do, you will become one. If you want a healthy relationship with Jesus Christ, you have to leave the world, cling to Jesus and become one with him, especially by attending Mass regularly and receiving the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the most real and profound way we are christified and become one with the Lord and with each other in the Body of Christ.

God bless you!