Friday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 5:27-32

In today’s reading from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes two more texts from the Old Testament to continue illustrating his attitude to the Law and its meaning.

One of the Ten Commandments says: “You shall not commit adultery”. Adultery is here understood as a sexual relationship between two people, at least one of whom is already married to someone else. But, for Jesus, for a man even to look at another woman with lust (he does not say whether either of them is married) is already to have violated the spirit of the commandment and the kind of relationship that he expects between people. We would need to distinguish here between a man finding a woman particularly beautiful or attractive and, on the other hand, looking on her as an object for sexual gratification. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with the former. We might also add that what is said here of men applies equally to women. If women are not mentioned it is because in ancient society the initiative for sexual activity seldom was available to the woman.

This commandment, in fact, is not primarily about sexual acts; it is about the inviolable dignity of each person. It is about the deep respect that people ought to have for their own bodies and the bodies of others. Other people cannot be used simply for one’s personal pleasure or to satisfy one’s sexual appetites—not even in the secret recesses of one’s mind and heart.

Jesus puts the situation rather graphically. He says it would be better to go physically maimed through life rather than allow oneself be led into a situation where another person could be so dishonoured. In human beings, our sexual powers have a double purpose: to express a deep and genuine love between two people, and for the procreation of new life.

Related to this, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy (24:1): “Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a writ.” The original text reads as follows:

Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house and goes off to become another man’s wife.

The text goes on to say that if:

…the second man dislikes her, writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house (or the second man who married her dies): her first husband, who sent her away, is not permitted to take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled, for that would be abhorrent to the Lord… (Deut 24:14)

Two things seem clear in Jesus’ time: it was men who could initiate divorce and on the flimsiest of pretexts; it was the woman who was considered guilty of adultery by marrying another man, which is why she could not be received back by her first husband.

Jesus strongly challenges both of these traditions. The Jews accepted divorce, but Jesus is ruling it out. The only exception for a marriage to be dissolved is on the basis of “sexual immorality” (Greek, porneia). There is much discussion on the meaning of this term, but it seems that it refers to a special situation in Matthew’s community. Certain types of marriage between Jews were regarded as incestuous, but were allowed in the case of a Jew marrying a Gentile. But Matthew is saying that in the case of a Gentile becoming a Christian (and marrying a Jewish convert), such exceptions would not be allowed and divorce should not take place. Jesus says further that a man who marries a woman who has been divorced commits adultery.

It is important to note that Jesus is first of all putting men and women morally on an absolutely equal level. He is making the marriage contract something to be taken very seriously with grave responsibilities on both sides. This issue will come up again later (in Matthew, chapter 19) and cause some dismay among Jesus’ disciples.

In our day, the whole question of marriage and the family is fraught with serious problems. Among them are divorce and adultery, although the problems here are somewhat different from that of Jesus’ time. The kind of divorce that Jesus speaks about is of a unilateral decision by a husband who wants to be rid of his wife, often for trivial reasons. In modern society, it is more often the result of the painful breakdown of a marriage relationship. While emphasising that nowadays each case must be treated with great pastoral sensitivity, we do need to remind ourselves of the fundamental values and attitudes that Jesus is underlining in this passage.

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Friday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on 2 Corinthians 4:7-15

Having presented an impressive picture of the Christian as someone brighter than Moses’ reflecting the glory and beauty of God’s Word, Paul now goes on to the paradox which this situation raises.

He confronts the difficulty that his present existence does not appear glorious at all, that it is marked instead by suffering and death. He deals with this by developing a topic mentioned earlier, asserting his faith in the presence and ultimate triumph of life, both in his own and in every Christian existence, in spite of the experience of physical suffering and death.

Certainly, many of his critics would have called into question the image he himself offered to the world. And Paul is the first to make the admission:

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.

The treasure is the glory that he proclaims and into which all those who hear and accept the message will be transformed. But the instruments carrying that treasure are very fragile, like the small terracotta bowls used for oil lamps.

He will make the same point later on in the letter in his famous passage about the mysterious “sting of the flesh” with which he was afflicted, saying:

…whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12:10)

In doing the work of the gospel, Paul describes some of the troubles he has experienced, but their net outcome is that others have benefited:

We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed…

The picture is a negative one, but there is always an underlying experience of bringing help and salvation into people’s lives. As, of course, was the ultimate outcome of the appalling suffering and death of Jesus.

And so Paul concludes that we are:

…always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.

What a marvellous saying! Jesus is the paradigm. Paul’s sufferings are connected with Christ’s and his deliverance is a sign that he is to share in Jesus’ resurrection. Even when battered and bruised and rejected, he is reflecting the life-giving suffering and death of Jesus. This is a saying that could be applied to many who have suffered for the gospel.

He continues in the same vein:

For we who are living are always being handed over to death for Jesus’s sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us but life in you.

In other words, his experience of suffering does not end in himself, but affects others. The Christ-like suffering which Paul experiences brings life to those to whom he brings the gospel. Here is a living out of the eighth Beatitude:

Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
(Matt 5:10)

All of this is an important clarification of what he meant earlier by the dazzling brightness of the Christian disciple and apostle. The greatest brightness is seen in the one who is ready to undergo every suffering and every indignity for the sake of Jesus. It is the thinking behind John’s Gospel where the evangelist sees Jesus’ last agonising moments on the cross as his moment of glory. It was at that moment that the presence of God in Jesus shone brightest. It was the centurion, seeing the dying and battered body of Jesus, who said:

Truly this man was God’s Son! (Matt 27:54)

So Paul makes no apology for all that he has done in Corinth. Quoting from Psalm 116, he says:

I believed, and so I spoke…

For him, there was no alternative. Like the Psalmist, he clearly proclaims his faith, affirming life within himself despite death and the life-giving effect of his experience upon the church.

And Paul continues:

…we know that the one who raised Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and will present us with you in his presence.

Paul sees God presenting Paul and his companions together with the Corinthians to Jesus at the final parousia. We may note the strong expression of unity and reconciliation between Paul and the Corinthians in spite of the difficulties between them. As he says:

Indeed, everything is for your sake, so that grace, when it has extended to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

Whatever people might say or think of him, Paul had only one aim: the glory of God and that as many as possible should know and acknowledge Jesus as Saviour and Lord. Undoubtedly, Paul had his faults—glaring faults. And some of these faults must have rubbed some people the wrong way, but as he will say later, it is precisely because of these that God’s message shone out more clearly through him.

The same can be said of us. Let us learn to see our weaknesses not as obstacles but as opportunities.

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