TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY "B"

TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY OF YEAR “B”

Gen 2, 18 – 24; Mk 10, 2 – 16

There are many stories of the creation of the world and of man. According to one, god was supposed to be taking an afternoon nap when he felt something heavy on his chest; and it was not his lunch but the sky. So he pushed it up and there was the sky and galaxies. The so-called “tree of life” is a hoary old symbol of man’s desire for immortality. From among all the stories available, the Bible story-teller was inspired by God to choose the most suitable: the ones that would safeguard God’s transcendence and man’s unique dignity above the animals and indicate some similarity of man to God. Many myths and superstitions were proliferating even right up to the margins of the chosen people of God. So God, the master pedagogue, gradually weaned his people away from such ideas and customs, some of which could be very enslaving, even destructive. That process would take a few thousand years. For instance, this particular passage, “It is not good for man to be alone” of Genesis 2, 18, was finally written on papyrus leaves between 950 – 900 B.C. It is the very oldest and most original source about man-woman relationship. We now call this source the Yahwist tradition. “Yahwist” is from the word Yahweh, a name for God. You will recognise the Yahwist tradition in the book of Genesis very easily from the very human images that the writer made use of to present God. For instance, God has very human feelings: he feels sad about man’s loneliness; he blows the breath of life into man’s nostrils. God performs a surgical operation: after giving Adam a soporific he cuts open his side, removes a rib and stitches up the opening. He conducts the ceremony of introduction of Eve to Adam. “Madam, I’m Adam.” Then God comes down every evening to walk with the couple in the cool, cool, cool of the evening (as the old song goes). To put it in a learned way, the God of the Yahwist tradition is a very anthropomorphic God.

Let me convey a few messages that underlie the text of the first reading of today. The central figure is not Adam or Eve, but God himself. The central truth is God’s love and concern for his people. He wants his children to be happy in good company. Notice the poetic nuances. God arranges an animal parade to allow Adam choose a mate. But there is no satisfying companionship except with fellow humans, whom God provides when Adam is in deep sleep, which is to show that human relationship is established by God and cannot be engineered or manipulated by man.

We are not sure who the writer of this part of the Bible was, probably Moses; but the point is that he was inspired to write the story in such a way as to correct certain bad practices in the culture, and to teach the chosen people the decent way of life, as against, for instance, the Canaanite custom of temple prostitution and sexual indecency with animals.

When God presented the animals to Adam, Adam named them, i.e. he perceived their nature as unequal to his, and rejected them. Only with others equal in nature can humans find completeness and joy. When a man deals with a woman as a commercial object he treats her as less than human. The part about the rib taken from Adam and made into woman is to show that men and women are equal in nature by divine intent. Humanity is univocal. In the same vein we must realise that the complementarity of the sexes and marriage are intended and established by God. When a man and woman marry they enter into a realm higher than themselves, and respected as such. And this is what Jesus emphasises by insisting on the indissolubility of marriage.

The Hebrews were not a thoroughbred nation from the start. They were drawn out from cultures that were perverse, one feature being man’s dominance over woman. The man could commit adultery and get away with it. If the woman committed adultery it was mandatory for her to be sent away by the husband. The woman was always the loser. The Jews couldn’t get this way of doing things out of their system. It took Jesus more than a thousand years later to challenge the system, stand up for equal rights for women, and equal responsibilities too: not only the man but the woman who divorces her husband and marries another commits adultery.

To become “one flesh” brings out the physical nature of the relationship. But “flesh” also stands for the human condition – “The Word was made flesh.” This signifies the unity of life and fullness of human nature. The union of man and woman brings man’s social nature to fulfilment. St. Ireneus said, “The glory of God is man fully alive.” It is paradoxical that when Jesus died on the cross our flesh came fully alive.

The problem of human relationship is basic to all others: family life, alcoholism, drugs and marital stability. At rock bottom the problem today is the trivialisation of human relationships, e.g. pre-marital sex and prostitution. Human relationships are treated as banal and superficial, not something worth a commitment. The reason is that God has been turned out of it all; God, the guarantor of all relationships. Don’t forget that beautiful little phrase in the Bible: “God would come down and walk with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening.”

All intimacy is based on intimacy with God.

Let us, with our families, walk with God.

 PRAYER:        Lord God, I thank you for your love and concern for my happiness. Teach me to be happy by forming healthy relationships which I must not trivialise, and, above all, teach me to bring all my human links into that great and everlasting love you have for me. Amen.