THE  GREAT  DIVORCE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 19th Friday in Ordinary Time is, “The Great Divorce.”

That theme was triggered from today’s two readings - which present strong story and challenging teaching.

In the first reading from Ezekiel 16: 1-15, 60, 63, we have a powerful parable about Israel. She is pictured  being born as a little baby girl. She is thrown on the ground as something ugly. She grows and develops into a  beautiful young lady. Then God says that as I passed by you I saw you were mature and ready for love. I put a cloak over you to cover your nakedness. I washed you. I anointed you. I put on you the finest embroidered gown and leather sandals and robes of silk and a linen sash. I put on you jewelry - bracelets, a necklace. I put a ring in your nose, pendants on your ears, a crown on your head. They I fed you with the finest food. You were a queen. Then you forgot me. You became captivated by your own beauty. You became a prostitute. In spite of all this, God says He will forgive Israel. He’ll remember his covenant and his promise.

The gospel from Matthew talks about the question and the horror of divorce and applies it individual couples breaking a covenant. People can make wrong choices and hurt the other.

The title of my homily is, “The Great Divorce.”

BOOK: THE GREAT DIVORCE

That’s the title of a book by C.S. Lewis that began coming out in serial form in 1944-45. It was next put into a book. It has had an impact on many people - down through the years.

It’s short: 118 pages in paperback.  It’s an easy read - with a very challenging message.  It can still be found in libraries or on line - like the other key books by C.S. Lewis: The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, The Chronicles of Narnia and Surprised by Joy.

The Great Divorce is a parable. It’s also a great dream.

The Great Divorce would be separating and breaking up with God.

The main character - the narrator -  is in a grey zone - a gray area. Everything is vague - strange - unsure. The figures he sees are ghostlike figures. They are floating - moving along. It’s hell. It’s purgatory. It’s not heaven. Heaven is the bright light area ahead - that he and all are being called to - but the ghosts are hesitant to go there.

He senses his thinness of spirit. He’s feels his self-deception through and through. He feels called to go backwards. Yet he’s also called to move forwards towards heaven.

It’s a good read. It’s intriguing.

At the end he senses great blocks of something falling on him.

He wakes up. It’s books that have fallen in his room.

And much of The Great Divorce is interspiced and interwoven with ideas for other books: Augustine, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Dante, Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, and science fiction works. They are the books that can wake us up.

Except for the Science Fiction books, I’ve read them all. They are the type of book that I need to get back to - the classics - the great parables. If we keep those classics in mind, we can be inspired more by Ezekiel - and his parables and stories.

I gave a sermon here a bunch of years ago - about dying and waking up in the outskirts of heaven and we find ourselves heading for a bus stop - and we get a choice to take this bus ride and tour of heaven to make our choice where we want to get off. Surprise, I’m reading about The Great Divorce which I had read in the seminary - only to discover that C.S. Lewis used the image of the bus heading for heaven as well. It wasn’t plagiarism. I was a good bit different - but the major image was there in C.S. Lewis. After being humbled for not being that original, I got the message to keep reading good stuff - because it sticks to us.

CONCLUSION

Good news. The Great Divorce has been put on as a play in 2004 and February of this year - and is going to come out as a movie in 2013. I don’t know how major it will be, but I’m sure it will be around for us to see and be moved by - and allow it to become part of our thinking - so that we’ll avoid The Great Divorce: Hell, separation from God.