The Covenant Loving Kindness Of God

Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Course

Today’s psalm is what might be called a hymn to divine chesed. Over and over we hear the refrain “His mercy endures forever.” God’s mercy endures forever. But chesed means so much more than what we humans call “mercy.” For us, mercy is what we experience when we have done something wrong but the person we offend forgives us or lets us get away with it. “Mr. Shamblin, I’m sorry that I ate a peach from your orchard without asking.” When we praise God for His chesed, that Hebrew word means goodness, kindness, devotion, an act of faithfulness to a covenant. Frequently we see it translated as “loving kindness.” We get that kind of good action from someone who is in love with us, as the Lord has constantly proven He is with us.

Today’s first reading and the Gospel are examples of God’s chesed. After spending his life leading the Hebrew people to subdue the Holy Land, to begin the process of building the nation called Israel, Joshua called all the tribes together at a sacred spot in the center, Shechem. He then relates a fairly brief history of the people from Abraham’s call through the Egyptian slavery and deliverance, the sojourn in the desert and battles with the natives up until the very day. And over and over Joshua, speaking for YHWH, says “I did this for YOU,” even though the people gathered around Joshua were just those born in the desert wanderings. Joshua’s address and the remaking of the covenant with God were a solemn religious ceremony, a memorial. These memorials, very much like our Christian assemblies, view the people doing the remembrance as being right in the middle of the sacred actions. The people gathered at Shechem considered themselves to have been called in Abraham and Sarah out of Mesopotamia, taken to Egypt and being enslaved, liberated with Moses from slavery, taken across the Red Sea, and all the rest. They were one with their ancestors in remaking the covenants, and they knew that their God had done it all out of His chesed.

Now for our Gospel, which should be dear to all Christians. The original covenant was between the first man and woman and their Creator. Jesus goes right back to that reality when some nit-picking Pharisees demanded that He get in the middle of the rabbinic debate about when a man could divorce his wife. Jesus quoted Torah to them: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?” We are given the “one flesh” reality of man and woman in marriage as an inseparable gift. Moses allowed divorce as a concession to hard hearts, but Jesus came to redeem us and give us the Holy Spirit that circumcises and softens our hard hearts and makes lifelong marriage possible and joyful. Please note that what looks like an exception, “unless the marriage is unlawful” refers to declaring a marriage null from the beginning if, for instance, the couple are close relatives, or already married, or don’t intend fidelity or children.

Another part of the gift of marriage is intended for those who would devote themselves without reservation to spreading the kingdom of God, those who would remain unmarried for that purpose. Celibacy is also a gift for clergy and consecrated men and women, just like St. Paul. Evangelization is so important that we need a core of disciples in every generation who will make that not just the most important thing they do, but the only thing they do.