Striving for the Ideal

Homily for Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Today’s first reading from the Prophet Ezekiel is comprised of seventeen of the sixty-three verses of chapter sixteen. Because the framers of the Lectionary for Daily Mass have obviously given us the Reader’s Digest version of this chapter, it may be as confusing as it is surely difficult for us to read. The images which the prophet uses offend our sensibilities. However, Ezekiel uses these images not to offend but rather to emphasize the fidelity that God has exhibited toward Jerusalem. Though the words of the covenant of Mount Sinai refer to political contracts between nations, the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures universally look at the covenant as a marriage contract between God and the children of Israel.

Ezekiel represents Jerusalem as an unwanted, abandoned female newborn baby whom the Lord rescues and cares for. The child was left to die, an accepted practice in antiquity for females, who were considered financial liabilities by their families. That the infant has no one, not even her mother, to tie off her umbilical cord, wash her clean, and wrap her in swaddling clothes emphasizes Jerusalem’s death-like isolation and accentuates the Lord’s gracious action in her behalf.

In verse eight Ezekiel continues the marriage imagery: “I passed by you again and saw that you were now old enough for love. So, I spread the corner of my cloak over you to cover your nakedness; I swore an oath to you and entered into covenant with you and you became mine.” As the oracle continues, Jerusalem is depicted as an unfaithful wife while God is depicted as being faithful to the everlasting covenant.

By sheer coincidence, the reading today from St. Matthew’s Gospel similarly speaks of the question of faithfulness between a man and a woman. The Pharisees approach Jesus, testing him by asking about the lawfulness of divorce. Notice that Jesus in answering their question does not begin with the topic of divorce but with the topic of marriage itself. He reminds the Pharisees that God created them male and female and intended for them to be joined together as one flesh. In other words, in order to answer the question about what humans want – namely, the possibility of divorce – Jesus first tells them what God wanted, an unbreakable union, which human law could not touch.

The very fact that the Pharisees raise this issue tells us that this has been a problem in human society throughout history. Jesus’ words, like those of Ezekiel, speak of the fidelity with which God loves us. That fidelity is obviously at work in the life of Jesus who willingly gives up his life for us, loving us to the end. Imitating that fidelity has always been difficult for humanity. Divorce is still a question that we have failed to answer. God is always ready to show us how much we are loved, more than we can ever imagine. As difficult as it may be, we must always strive for the ideal.