Thoughts for Sunday October 4
The Scriptures are on Jesus' words on divorce. Mark, Chapter 10
My Dear People,
Every now and then, I see a church advertising itself as the Full Gospel Church. I don’t know that much about the churches in question but my reaction is always that the Catholic Church is the Full Gospel Church. Today’s readings are a graphic reminder of that. In our Sunday liturgies we read the Full Gospel, even those parts that make us squirm.
I want to acknowledge the presence of many divorced and remarried people in our midst and comment in a way that is not shaming or judging. We don’t know all the circumstances and can’t judge.
Our church has legal procedures for dealing with divorce and remarriage. I can only acknowledge that some people I’ve met have found them healing and freeing. Others have found them deeply wounding. Again, I don’t know the circumstances and can’t judge.
The Scripture Scholar, Francis J. Moloney, describes chapter 10 of Mark’s Gospel as where the rubber meets the road. “The disciples, attempting to live God’s design in their affective and sexual lives, and in the administration of their possessions, draw principle into every day life. In marriage and in the administration of possessions the call to the cross, service and receptivity are most at risk. Mark 10: 1-31 is concerned with the practice, rather than the theory, of discipleship.
I might also note that the question of the Pharisees concerns the right of the man to dismiss his wife. Moloney comments, “The practice of placing a writ of divorce in a woman’s hand, sending her out of the family and marrying another male is male arrogance and, as Jesus has just shown in his debate with the Phraisees, opposed to God’s design.”
God’s Design! The Scriptures have many words for God’s design for human relationships, for marriage, for our use of possessions and wealth, for treatment of children as the least in society, for the use of created goods and the unity of creation, for the equality of man and woman and their essential unity, for the treatment of the poor, for sharing of goods and wealth (health care?). The story of the Scriptures is a story of human failure to live God’s design and of God’s faithfulness and mercy. Our failure is described sometimes as sin and sometimes as hardness of heart.
I’m not interested in shaming or judging individuals. There’s enough shame and guilt in our world. I’m interested in challenging us to judge our culture, its institutions and our society as a whole. As we look at the vast discrepancy between God’s Design and our human reality, where is the problem? Is it that God’s Design is unrealistic? Or is it with our hardness of heart?
Love,
Fr. Larry
My Dear People,
Every now and then, I see a church advertising itself as the Full Gospel Church. I don’t know that much about the churches in question but my reaction is always that the Catholic Church is the Full Gospel Church. Today’s readings are a graphic reminder of that. In our Sunday liturgies we read the Full Gospel, even those parts that make us squirm.
I want to acknowledge the presence of many divorced and remarried people in our midst and comment in a way that is not shaming or judging. We don’t know all the circumstances and can’t judge.
Our church has legal procedures for dealing with divorce and remarriage. I can only acknowledge that some people I’ve met have found them healing and freeing. Others have found them deeply wounding. Again, I don’t know the circumstances and can’t judge.
The Scripture Scholar, Francis J. Moloney, describes chapter 10 of Mark’s Gospel as where the rubber meets the road. “The disciples, attempting to live God’s design in their affective and sexual lives, and in the administration of their possessions, draw principle into every day life. In marriage and in the administration of possessions the call to the cross, service and receptivity are most at risk. Mark 10: 1-31 is concerned with the practice, rather than the theory, of discipleship.
I might also note that the question of the Pharisees concerns the right of the man to dismiss his wife. Moloney comments, “The practice of placing a writ of divorce in a woman’s hand, sending her out of the family and marrying another male is male arrogance and, as Jesus has just shown in his debate with the Phraisees, opposed to God’s design.”
God’s Design! The Scriptures have many words for God’s design for human relationships, for marriage, for our use of possessions and wealth, for treatment of children as the least in society, for the use of created goods and the unity of creation, for the equality of man and woman and their essential unity, for the treatment of the poor, for sharing of goods and wealth (health care?). The story of the Scriptures is a story of human failure to live God’s design and of God’s faithfulness and mercy. Our failure is described sometimes as sin and sometimes as hardness of heart.
I’m not interested in shaming or judging individuals. There’s enough shame and guilt in our world. I’m interested in challenging us to judge our culture, its institutions and our society as a whole. As we look at the vast discrepancy between God’s Design and our human reality, where is the problem? Is it that God’s Design is unrealistic? Or is it with our hardness of heart?
Love,
Fr. Larry
posted by Fr. Larry Voelker at
9:13 AM
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