27th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B Thomas Uschold

Genesis 2:18-24 Psalm 128 Hebrews 2:9 - 16 Mark 10:2-16

Last weekend I was at a Catholic Answers conference in San Diego. In the course of chatting with various people that we met we had a conversation with a couple from the San Diego area. The usual where are you from and so on. Very interesting, my name tag indicated that I was a deacon and rather than ask me what parish I was at or something like that they instead asked me the name of the pastor at the parish. I thought that was somewhat unusual since they had not indicated in any way that they were familiar with priests of the Archdiocese. Well... I told them the name of our pastor and the response was stunning. FBL! Your pastor is FBL? That is what they had taken to calling the pastor at OLOL – FBL! It turns out that last year during the lockdown that in CA was rather more draconian than here, they had stumbled across the streaming of the 10 am mass and had made that their go to mass to watch when they could not go to mass themselves. They thought that the preaching was just outstanding. So needless to say they were delighted to meet someone from OLOL. I also had to disappoint them about this weekend, I told them that they would not be getting FBL as they called him but rather they would be stuck with the deacon. Just as you are.

The theme of the conference was “Who do you say that I am?” There were talks by the Catholic Answers apologists as well as a couple of guest speakers, one came from the far away city of Denver CO, oh, right that's where we are now. That was Sister Maris Stella from the Sisters of Life. She discussed how Jesus reveals the dignity of the human person. There were talks about the historicity of Jesus and why we can truly believe based on the evidence that Jesus was really here with us and rose from the dead. There were also talks on how Jesus reveals the dignity of the human person, another on how Jesus was truly a man. Ultimately the end result was that we each need to be able to answer the question, Who do you say that I am, just as St. Peter answered the question – You are the Christ, the son of the living God.

The talk that discussed that Jesus was a man also developed that he was truly masculine but with out what some people today refer to as toxic masculinity. The gospels reveal him as being well balanced and able to express anger, as you will recall the scene in temple with the money changers and merchants where he turned over their tables and told them to get out. He also was able to teach with love and to reach out to show that all people are loved by God, including children who were not considered at that time to have much value. He was able to respond with great wisdom to the various pharisees and scribes who tried repeatedly to trap him. That is one of the things that we hear today. There is an attempt to trap Jesus. That is what is going on in the Gospel passage. The pharisees only wanted to trap Jesus, they didn't really care about the question about divorce as such, they just wanted Jesus to contradict Moses so that they could attack him on that point. What does Jesus do? He acknowledges what Moses taught, but points out that it was because of the hardness of their hearts that Moses allowed divorce. He says it was not so in God's plan! He proceeds to quote scripture to the pharisees, the same passage that we heard as our first reading today. Reiterating that God made us in His image and likeness, male and female he made us, just 2 genders. And 2 with a purpose.

If we think about the history of marriage we will see the development over the centuries of marriage as we know it today. Going from women being viewed almost as property to where we are today. So much so that if you are getting married in the Church today there is a question that must be clear, this was not always so; but today it is crucial. What is it? Is there full and free consent? There can be no coercion on the part of either spouse. This includes full or reasonably full knowledge of what marriage is, what it entails, what the expectations are and also of who the intended spouse is. There must be complete freewill in choosing to marry. It took many years for these requirements to be fully developed, but they exist today. They try to ascertain that each spouse is giving themselves fully and freely to the other as a full gift of self. St. Paul discusses these aspects of marriage in his letter to the Ephesians where he writes – Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. And then ; Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her.

St. Paul writes that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the Church, so we need to reflect on what it was that Christ did for the Church? What was it that Jesus modeled for husbands that they are called to emulate. He gave himself fully and freely for his bride the church. So what St. Paul was writing at that time was radically different from what the culture of the time expected. It is kind of radical today in our culture.

Of course we understand that Jesus died for the Church. Jesus was the bridegroom and the church was the bride. He gave himself completely for the us the church so that we might live in Him.

We see these particular aspects modeled by Jesus the bridegroom in relation to the Church. Jesus allowed himself to be tortured and killed to save us, to save His bride the church, that is us. In our celebration today we observe his passion, death and resurrection and he continues to give himself fully to us in the Eucharist. We receive His real presence, His body, blood, soul and divinity. His full gift of self out of love for each one of us and out of love for His bride the church. He makes an everlasting gift of Himself, one that has no end, one that emulates his teaching in the Gospel passage that we hear today. As you receive Him today, His real presence, reflect on how significant it is that He gave himself fully for you and given that think about how you would answer His question, “Who do you say that I am?”