Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?

Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers only,
what is unusual about that?
Do not the pagans do the same?

Recently I read an account of a gay man who contracted AIDS during the earliest days of the epidemic, even before the epidemic had a name. He is among the fortunate ones who survived the crisis; he no longer lives to forestall death but has resumed his place among the living. Surprising to me was his mention of the loss of his partner. They were dying together for many years but when they discovered they would live, their relationship collapsed. He called it “divorce.”

It is hard to comment on such a story, though it is told publicly and invites comment, without seeming prejudiced and homophobic, and I must ask the reader’s indulgence.

It seemed that his “divorce” was sad and disappointing to him, but not all that surprising.  It was not as if his world and all its laws had been shattered. Their “marriage” did not preclude divorce.

Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that we Christians are called to live by quite different standards. He tells us on several occasions we should not be like the pagans, tax collectors or Pharisees. Many people today, both straight and gay, enter what they call marriage with the understanding they might divorce if things don’t work out. Jesus Christ does not allow his disciples a “divorce clause.” He said:

…from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother (and be joined to his wife), and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate."

In fact, we don’t really understand a marital contract that allows for divorce. It doesn’t make sense to us, which is why we become so judgmental about it. Today’s Christian must understand that, though the world around us uses similar language, their values are actually quite different.

Marriage, as the Roman Catholic Church understands it, is a covenant between one man and one woman. It requires a commitment until the death of one spouse, absolute sexual fidelity and the readiness to have children should God give the couple children. There is no provision for its “not working out.” The couple will make it work out regardless of how their lives and fortunes change.

And, of course, it will work out because God is always the third party in every true marriage. As they pray together and for one another; forgiving each other at least seventy times seven; finding sexual satisfaction within the parameters of their own likes, dislikes and sensibilities; quarreling for their marriage; giving birth to their own biological children who have a right to parents who love one another; and making the sacrifices that such a commitment entails including the risk of hardship and poverty: they grow in love together.

To a Christian, divorce is an unthinkable catastrophe. It suggests that Jesus Christ might divorce his bride the Church, that Baptism can be annulled, and that the Eucharist might not be the Body of Christ. Worse, if that is possible, divorce tells children that God and his creation are not reliable. In fact, nothing is real if marriage is not.

Jesus’ disciples cannot emulate the lives of “Pharisees, pagans and tax collectors” because they do not belong to the world any more than he belongs to the world. His standards are more demanding and his rewards far more satisfying than anything the world has to offer.