Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity, 6 October 2024
Readings: Gn. 2.18-24; Heb. 1.1-4; 2.5-12; Mk. 10.2-16
Theme: Being Human
What does the Bible say about being human?
There is much talk today about artificial intelligence and whether machines or robots can be considered to be alive if they possess qualities which intimate at intelligence. When one looks at the Bible it is interesting to note that it is not so much essential qualities which are said to characterize human beings, but rather relationships. The human being is that creature which has a special relationship with God, with one’s neighbour, and with the creation as a whole.
The first reading from the Book of Genesis illustrates this particular biblical anthropology. It speaks of the need of human beings for fundamental relationships of love and companionship. The complementarity of the sexes is designed so that the union of male and female can be fruitful and produce offspring. Most of nature is designed in this way and it connects relationships to fruitfulness. We are made to be fruitful and our relationships are meant to facilitate us to be so.
Yet, like all the animals and plants, the Book of Genesis tells us that we are also made out of the ground. It is the breadth of God which breathes life into us and allows the ground to be the basis of our animated life. Still, like all creatures we are bound to the fact that we are a part of nature and not separate from it. Our life is one which shares in the characteristics of all living things, and this differentiates us from God. We are creatures because God the creator has made us. Yet, this similarity with the rest of nature is also marked by a difference. We are made in the image and likeness of God and so are called to have a particular relationship with our creator that is distinctive. In some sense, we share in the very characteristics of God, albeit in a way whose similarity is outmatched by an infinite difference.
This similarity with God is patterned by the fact that our intimate relationships have been understood in covenantal terms; and no more so than by the image of marriage. God is said to relate to Israel as a bridegroom to a bride, and the relationship between male and female is one which has developed a special place in the life of the church. At the heart of this relationship is the notion of consent. It is this which actually constitutes a marriage and it can only be given in freedom or not at all. That, of course, is the challenge of it. Giving ourselves in freedom to another is easier said than done as it requires a good knowledge of oneself and of the other in this act, and as we know, this is not always the case. The issue of divorce spoken of in the gospel speaks to this giving of oneself in freedom to the other and it is to preserve and to secure this act that Jesus is so clear about the teaching on divorce. Once one has freely given oneself to another the commitment of marriage is intended for life as it says in the marriage service.
These reflections on marriage and divorce should be set within the wider context that is given by the Book of Genesis; namely, that human beings are made to make moral choices (Gn. 2. 18). It is the fact that we are given a conscience (1 Cor. 7-10), that we are able to deliberate and makes moral choices between the good and the bad and the right and the wrong that we bear responsibility for our acts, such as entering into a marriage or not. This is one of the burdens and blessings of adulthood, is it not? It is we who bear responsibility for our choices unlike those children whom Jesus welcomes who have to often simply follow the guidance and will of their elders.
This capacity to make moral choices is what it means to be free and so to bear responsibility for our actions. Maturity, the coming to adulthood, brings with it this charge of carrying the responsibility for what we do on our shoulders. But this is precisely why it is important for us to do this in relationship with God and with our fellow creatures, men and women alike. It is only when we are in right relationship with God and others that the conditions are in place for us to be free to take moral decisions. Our relationships enable us to be free and so to bear the moral responsibility which we are called to carry as adults.
The fracture in these relationships with God and with others undermines our capacity to be truly free and so to live as human beings made in the image and likeness of God. This is why, in the second reading today from the Letter to the Hebrews, we are spoken to directly by the Son of God, who shares in our moral situation of being subjected to the sufferings and death that we are also exposed to as creatures. In being given the Son, we have been invited to share in the intimate relationships that are shared in God, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These intimate relationships are ones of absolute love and so when we worship the Lord we are plugging into, so to speak, an infinite fountain of life sustaining energy. The love that we share in this manner enables us to have the correct focus in life to make the moral choices we are called to make. But we do this in the knowledge that the choices that we make are meant to bring us ever closer to the very one who has made us the kind of relational creatures that we are in the first place.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.