NEW GROWTH ON AN OLD VINE
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TODAY’S THEME:

NEW GROWTH ON AN OLD VINE is our theme for today’s “Walking with the Word”.

From time to time, certain Bible passages attract a disproportionate amount of attention within Church and culture, and appear to overwhelm the content of all the other verses in Sacred Scripture. How the Gospel is applied in everyday life often provokes greater controversy than any debate or theological argument.

We are aware of the bias against religion in our own culture, and if it weren’t for the occasional contest over the meaning of a vexing verse, the temporal world might forget, for example, that there is a Gospel, that it is most certainly counter-cultural, and that the sanctity of life and freedom of religion are the guarantors of all other human rights in every society. Nevertheless, the meaning of God’s Word is not always evident, and must continually be discerned. This is to say, one must shake the sieve.

In order to know who God is, we must examine the nature of our relationship to Him as well. To seek God is to search within ourselves. God’s nature and that of our own personhood are intertwined intimately. From the Song of Solomon, we read:

LET US go out early to the vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love.  [SongSol 7:12] 

Today, we’re going to discover what God is revealing about the relationship shared by husbands and wives. We’re going to discover God’s miracle of new growth on an old vine.

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TODAY’S LESSON:

We are made in the image and likeness of God. [cf. Gen 1:26] How do we image the Triune God? How is the human person analogous to the personhood of God? For our Divine Lesson today, let us consider three Biblical passages which address the nature of man and woman, the order of relationship between them, and how both relate to God.

First, Adam’s “spare rib”: “And the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” [Gen 2:21-22] That males possess a humanity superior to females is a common misinterpretation of this passage.

Second, who submits to whom?: “Wives be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife.” [Eph 5:22-23a] The notion of male superiority implies that men should dominate, even rule their families.

Third, how does one play fair?: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” [Gal 3:28] As a reaction to the first two quotations, many activists use this third passage to claim that gender is irrelevant to meaningful discussions about men and women, particularly within the Church.

These three scriptural passages quoted have been seized and throttled regularly in the past few years with almost boring monotony. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to resolve the question of how the Church informed culture or conformed to culture over the centuries.

But I would venture to say that much of the confusion and controversy surrounding these verses derives from culturally weighted definitions, not sound theological intepretation. How are these passages to be understood properly? To begin, we’ll avoid reliance upon culturally conditioned interpretations of God’s Word. Rather than asking “How does (or how did) culture construe this?”, we will ask: What is God revealing to his chosen people in this generation?

FIRST MEDITATION:  “And the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” [Gen 2:21-22] The real point of this critically important creation story is spiritual. The rib, of course, is close to the human heart, the so-called center of a human being. As it is used in Sacred Scripture, the rib is a sign of interiority, that is to say, a deep abiding spirituality readily accessed in the soul and easily expressed in fellowship.

The connection between Eve and the rib is manifest: God willed that woman receive the greater measure of the gift. The greater measure is this: Women are able to access and express spiritual realities more readily than men. Men are able to do this, but women do it more easily.

For example, women are more comfortable conversing about spiritual things. They pray more often and for longer periods of time. A woman’s interiority encompasses love, authority, nurturing, self-confidence, child-bearing, compassion, unity, and most important to this generation, the charisms of authentic trust and mediation. Note that the Hebrew name Eve means “mother of all the living”. The rib refers to what is hidden in the tabernacle of the human body—the human soul and the generation of human life.

Sacred Scripture does not support the assertion that Eve is inferior to Adam. The Prince of Darkness had no interest in tempting Eve’s mate, not because he feared Adam’s strength, and certainly not because he couldn’t find Adam in the exterior world organizing all the birds, animals and fishes.  [cf. Gen 2:19-20] 

The Evil One struck at Eve precisely because she was endowed with the noble gift, that is to say, the mysterious and fertile interiority of body and soul. If Eve would succumb to Satan’s temptation, the height and depth of all humanity would suffer. And so she yielded to sin. Yes, Eve betrayed the trust and unity of her relationship with Adam.

But instead of leading Eve to self-reflection and sanctity, Adam joined her in sinning. Adam and Eve sinned against each other. Theirs was the sin of pride, of exalting their human creatureliness above their creator God. They appropriated to themselves what didn’t belong to them. They took precisely that which they were commanded by God to leave alone.

Pride is the metropolis of all sins; yet, in a particular way, it strikes a death-blow to the virtue of justice. The virtue of justice is nothing less than this: giving to another what God has determined to be his due. We may say categorically that neither Adam or Eve gave to each other what God had determined to be their due. And because God is always and in every way involved in the affairs of his human creatures, it is clear that both Adam and Eve sinned against God in the very act of sinning against each other.

Nevertheless, though Eve’s sin was truly grievous and mortal, Adam’s foray into sin was the greater by far. Added to his offense against Eve, it was Adam who destroyed the divine order of their mutual relationship with God. Why? Adam did not mediate on behalf of Eve before God to win pardon for her offense.

Note the words of Scripture:  “Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”  [Gen 2:18]  Adam, the forerunner of Christ, received Eve as his helpmate. The fact that Eve, by sinning, didn’t help Adam shouldn’t be exagerrated. For help serves the person being helped; the truth serves the mediator. The person being helped bears responsibility for the help he receives. The mediator bears responsibility for the truth entrusted to him.

By accepting evil in the illusion that it would lead to good, Adam forfeited his dignity and authority before God. Adam delivered all mankind into the bondage of sin; Jesus Christ ransomed humanity from death by the saving sacrifice of his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Adam’s sin is the greater, for if Adam had remained faithful, all humanity would have glorified Christ in God with one pure voice.

SECOND MEDITATION: Now the Word of God says of a husband and wife: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” [Eph 5:21]  Speaking through the apostle, God teaches husbands: “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.”  [Eph 5:21-23]  When St. Paul writes that wives are to submit to their husbands, he is speaking first and foremost about spiritual things.

A woman's great gift of accessing and expressing spiritual things is intimately associated with the reality that the wife conceives, bears and nurtures children. Hence a mother’s relationship with her children is the strongest natural bond in the world.

As the spiritual head of his household, a man is called to conceive, bear, and birth his children sacramentally in the life of Holy Mother Church. Therefore the sacramental bond between a father and his family is the strongest spiritual bond on earth. This is the origin of a very wise saying about faith: So goes the father, so goes the family.

Ordinarily, women more easily access and express spiritual things. It's not that men can't. It's just harder for men. Men tend to exteriority and mastery, not interiority, hence Adam's mission of naming and ordering everything in the world. Tragically, Adam’s heedless pride led him to an idolatry of created things and a corresponding repudiation of God.

In its worst manifestation, man’s self-exaltation and immoderate attachment to material things leads to violence. Violence is the horrific result of the disordered relationship of man to his exterior world. It cannot be overemphasized that all forms of violence in the world originated in men—and the vast majority of violent acts are perpetrated by men—rather than women.

Unless a man grows in the knowledge and practice of faith, do you see, he will always be on the outside of his family—looking in but never dwelling in the heart of his family. We may say, then, that a husband who is head of his household must humble himself before his wife. He must learn from his wife and the Church how to be a holy man, a spiritual leader, and the best husband and father. “Abide in me, and I in you”, says the Lord, “As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.” [Jn 15:4]  

So the husband who leads the family and his wife who bears the gift should walk hand-in-hand shouldering the yoke of matrimony and the life of a family. Therefore, husbands and wives should submit to one another according to the “mind of Christ” [1Cor 2:16], the Groom, in union with his Bride the Church.

(A word regarding men who are not married:  Single men should conduct themselves with modesty and discretion as if they were married. This is to say that a single man should relate in total exclusive faithfulness and fidelity to the Church who is the Bride of Christ—until the day he sacramentally enters into a covenant relationship with a bride exclusive to him “until death do you part”.)

THIRD MEDITATION: Scripture says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” [Gal 3:28] With reference to Jew or Greek, slave or freeman, male or female, humanity’s traits and differences count for nothing before Almighty God who fashions and loves each individual as if he or she, like Adam, were the only human creature in the garden of the world.

What does scripture mean by saying “there is neither male nor female”? St. Paul speaks of a spiritual equality among all persons before God, that is to say, in relation to God. No member of the human race can claim, on his or her own merits, superiority before one another or God. Equal dignity of male and female is the universal patrimony granted to each of us at the moment of our conception. This is pure justice, an exercise of perfect fairness, which only God can render.

Nevertheless, men and women are radically different in gender and sexuality. Masculinity and femininity are irreducible and non-interchangeable. In God’s design for humanity, male is ordered to female, and female is ordered to male. This Divine Order cannot be legislated or wished away.

The vocabulary of gender, important in many respects, is a totally inadequate and inappropriate means by which to understand the divine persons of the Holy Trinity. In no way can human “maleness” and human “femaleness”—as gender attributes—imply that God possesses gender. God is not male. God is not female.

Though God has revealed the fatherhood of his divine personhood and the sonship of Christ’s divine personhood, neither father or son is constrained by creaturely human gender. In the same sense, we must clarify as well that the Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son is not feminine. The Spirit of God is not the “wisdom” spoken of in feminine terms by respectful and appreciative Hebrew writers in the Old Testament.

What is the more perfect way by which human beings may understand and image the Divine Trinity of Persons? Marriage is the one human relationship which most perfectly images the life the three divine persons of the most Holy Trinity.

The marriage relationship is a complementarity of persons, whole and entire, with no compromise of their procreative and cooperative potential. Do you want to love God more? Love your spouse more. Do you want to love heaven more? Love Christ and his Church more. Do you want to sanctify your spouse and your marriage? Then be reconciled to God and forgive one another.

New growth on the Vine of Christ will be a cause for celebration in the coming millenium. Men and women enjoy a fundamental equality of dignity before God and each other. God calls husbands and wives to show gentle and loving deference toward each other. By spiritual leadership, a husband can establish the trust and mediation which their families need. And finally, Holy Matrimony is the crown jewel of human relationships.

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RECAP:

In conclusion, Sacred Scripture is unsparingly honest in presenting God's design for joyful human living. It is equally truthful in chronicling humanity’s sinful history. God, desiring only our good, understands our human struggle in a sinful world.

The struggle to understand and to live out God’s commandments is nothing new. The challenge of Christian life should be welcomed, for Christ himself accepted his passion and death that we might rise to new life in him.

Each generation must discover how to apply the Gospel to its own contemporary issues. We face the formidible task of rediscovering the authentic meaning of the marriage relationship. As Catholics, we are commanded to prune away the barren branches [cf. Jn 15:2,6]  and to restore the “cultural vineyard” in which we dwell. The tired, old, cultural stereotypes about men and women, while still alive and kicking, are not the issues of men and women in the new millenium.

And like a husband and wife who make their covenant of love with Christ, we are to engage this world “for better and for worse”—precisely for its sanctification in the name of Jesus. We should not be discouraged by the perfection of God’s design or the fallen nature of his sinful human creatures. To disavow authentic relationships is to accept fundamental dishonesty. It would be to jettison the fullness of faith, hope and love. Sacred Scripture asks the question, “Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit?” [1Cor 9:7]

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