GOSPEL MESSAGE & RECORDING
Was it strange to anyone else that the Bible reading for today goes from talking about serving God and mammon as well as talking about the general love of money to “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.” The entirety of Luke chapter 16 speaks about being loyal stewards with your wealth. So why is the verse on divorce added in? Verse 18 is included in this chapter, not as some additional teaching, but rather showing what our relationship with God is. Our relationship with God is not merely a master/servant relationship, but rather one of love. Our relationship with God is likened to that of a marriage. It is through this lens that we should look at our relationship with God because, just like in marriage, we do not start this relationship at the height of our love for Him. If that was the case, then the relationship can only go downhill from there. No, we grow in love in our marriage as we also grow in Theosis and love in our journey towards God with God.
If you would allow me to continue this analogy further for the crux of this Gospel portion is based on being Faithful. To reiterate this analogy, if you are a man, you can only marry one woman and you must be faithful to that woman. Women, you can only marry one man and must be faithful to that man. I stress this because infidelity is when another person enters into that relationship, adultery occurs when a third person enters into this intimate relationship. Therefore, when we were married into the Faith through Baptism, we must be faithful to God and, consequently, to His Church, for if you have two masters you will love and be loyal to one and hate and despise the other; love and loyalty being the keywords in our relationship with God and marriage. For example, how would it look if someone who is married takes off their wedding ring and begins flirting with other people? If this is wrong in an earthly relationship, how much worse is this when it is done before God? For there is nowhere where we can go to escape Him, as the Psalmist writes, if we “take off our wedding rings” and begin to flirt with others, we do so in front of God. But what does it mean to “flirt with others” in a spiritual context? This is when we allow evil thoughts and evil passions to enter our thoughts and begin to entertain them. I wish to be clear that the sin is not in having passing thoughts that are ungodly, but rather mulling them around in your mind and acting upon them. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, safeguard your minds from these evil passions and thoughts. As Abba John of Gaza teaches us, “in the case of every passion, there is nothing more beneficial than to invoke the name of God… continually say ‘Jesus, help me;’ and He shall help you.”