Twenty-seventh Sunday of Year B [Mk 10:2-16]
03.10.2021
Indissolubility
of Marriage and Blessing Children
Readings: (1) Gen 2:18-24 (2) Heb 2:9-11
1. Theme in
brief
Marital
fidelity and the children as models
2. Focus
Statement
Since
marriage is not a human invention but a divine institution, humans have no
power to break the marital union between spouses that is willed by God, and
children born out of marital bond represent some of the qualities of God’s own
Kingdom.
3. Explanation of the text
Today’s
gospel text is about Christ’s dispute with the Pharisees concerning divorce in
marriage (10:1-12), and his comparison of children’s nature with that of God’s Kingdom (10:13-16).
The
Pharisees wanted to test Jesus, just like the Satan tempted him in the
wilderness, to see whether he was for divorce or against it (10:2). Hence they asked him whether divorcing
one’s wife was permissible, since Moses allowed it with a stricture such as
submitting a divorce notice (10:2-4). At the time of Jesus, there were
contradictory opinions on Mosaic Law regarding divorce as mentioned in Deuteronomy
24:1. What the Law says here is that a man could divorce his wife if he found in
her conduct something “objectionable” or some “indecency.”
There
were mainly two schools of thought in Judaism regarding the interpretation of
this word “objectionable.” One school taught that a husband could divorce his
wife only in the case of adultery; whereas another taught that any fault on her
side, even a trivial one – like spoiling a dish while cooking, or making
her voice heard in the next house while fighting – would be a sufficient ground for
divorce. The Pharisees wanted Jesus to take one of these sides so that they
could pitch him against the opposite camp. It is also probable that they wanted
to create enmity between him and Herod that could lead to Jesus’ elimination as
it happened to John the Baptist. He had
criticized Herod for marrying his brother Philip’s wife after divorcing her
husband (Mk 8:17-18).
In
Moses’ time, divorce and polygamy were so
common that it was next to impossible to put a drastic end to such age-old practices.
Divorce on trivial grounds was becoming so common that marriage had become such
an insecure state for women. Hence, Moses
regularized the customary laws of his
days by asking men who wanted to divorce their wives to write a certificate of divorce (10:4). Moses only brought
in some regulations to control its rate
and make it difficult for men to divorce their wives at their whims. Surely, it
was not a general permission to anybody and everybody to divorce their wives.
According to today’s text, Jesus told the Pharisees that Moses had allowed
divorce not because God permitted it or willed it from the beginning of
creation (10:6). It was only a concession given to them to reduce the evil
effects of a hardened heart (10:5).
Jesus
took the matter from Moses back to God himself, and from Mosaic regulations
regarding divorce to God’s original intention
of instituting marriage itself. In Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 we read that God's
original intent, when he created human beings as both male and female
(and not just only male and only female, 10:6), was that they could become "one flesh" (10:8). Since God joined one man with one woman from the
beginning, and not two men with two women, no power on earth had the authority to disrupt his design or
intention (10:9). In other words, since God himself was the originator and
establisher of marriage, only he had the power to “put asunder” (that is, overrule)
what he had “joined together” (that is, had designed originally,10:9).
Finally, Jesus stated that if any divorced man or woman remarried, both of them
would be considered adulterers (10:11-12).
Immediately after this, in the second
part of today’s text, Mark mentions about Jesus’ comparison of children’s traits
with those of God’s Kingdom (10:14). Perhaps Mark wanted to relate marital
fidelity with children
born out of such a bond. People brought children to Jesus not for healing but
to get his touch and
blessing for them
(10:16). By custom parents used to take their children to the Rabbis for a
blessing. The disciple might have found
children a nuisance or a disturbance; hence they forbade them sternly (10:13).
But Jesus rebuked the disciples “indignantly” for forbidding the little
children to come to him, because he said that the
4. Application to life
Two conclusions can
be drawn from Jesus’ teaching on marital fidelity
and divorce: (1) All that is legal
from the days of Moses to our own days in civil society need not necessarily be
morally right. For example, abortion,
divorce, euthanasia and homosexual marriage may be legal in some countries. A
Christian who considers these things morally
wrong has to follow his/her conscience.
This requires a lot of courage to stand against public opinion, since there is
a lot of social pressure on us to do something morally wrong because the State
allows it or ‘everybody’ does it. As Jesus says elsewhere (Mk 12:17), we must
give to the State what belongs to it (like taxes, welfare schemes and good
governance) and to God what belongs to him as per his laws and the voice of our
conscience.
(2) Jesus’ teaching
in today’s gospel about the unity, indissolubility
and fidelity in marriage needs to be
worked out by the couples by modelling their love-relationship after the
teachings and example of Christ. Quoting Genesis 2:24 Jesus says, according to God’s original
plan
of creation, married persons are no longer two but constitute “one
flesh”
(10:8). The
term, "one flesh" suggests that the original purpose of marriage was
not only sexual union, but also to live a life of most intimate union based on an enduring or lasting relationship. Marriage
from the beginning of creation (as per God’s original plan) is indissoluble: a
man and a woman by marriage become one in heart, mind, body and spirit. Jesus
insists that the matrimonial union is so sacred
that it cannot be violated at human whims. Marriage is not invented by humans; it is a divine institution. It is so inviolable that in the OT (cf. Is 54:5-8)
God’s own union with his chosen people (
We learn from the
above-mentioned explanation that divorce was only a concession to human weakness
(hardness of human heart). Indissolubility of marriage is based on the original
plan of God for humankind which was spoiled by human hardness of
heart, and which Jesus wanted to restore. Thus he upheld the permanent and indissoluble
character of marital union between a man and a woman by which they become one
in heart, mind, body and spirit. However, not all marriages are made in
heaven. Can I also say in the same tune: Not all priestly ordinations and final
(perpetual) professions are made in heaven? If I would say it, it would be a
heresy; but if Pope Francis would say it …….? There is a temptation in some
societies/ regions to yield to the popular culture around
there, and not to insist on faithfulness to God's original intention to join one man
to one woman "until death do us part." Similarly, in priesthood
and religious life also there is a temptation to dilute one’s consecration
and commitment by blindly succumbing to worldly values.
When I conduct
Marriage Preparation Courses for would-be couples, every now and then some
young boys ask me how celibate priests like me could teach them about marriage!
By asking this question, they must be thinking marriage means only sexual
union. But it is a well known fact that more problems in marriage come up in
the area of inter-personal relationships among spouses than in sexual sphere. And as
far as inter-personal relationships are concerned priests/ religious men or
women and married couples face the same challenges and difficulties. I learn a
lot about inter-personal relationships for my religious life from married
people – how to accept others, how to make adjustments in our differences,
how to forgive our hurt feelings, how to make sacrifices for others’ welfare
and how to communicate in a deeper level.
Today’s gospel-message
challenges both married persons and the religious/ priests to be faithful unto death to the
promises/vows they make before God and community. Humans as we are, fidelity
and unity do not happen automatically. One of the most important ways of
growing in them (both in married as well as religious life) is depth-level communication. Communication is an
act of self-disclosure of what is going on inside us – a deeper sharing of our thoughts,
feelings, likes, dislikes, plans, aspirations, hopes, fears and faith on a
regular basis. This creates a communion of hearts. This type
of union is established only when I make known to the other what is going on
inside me, what worries me, what struggles are going on inside me. By this I discover who the other person is;
then I discover his/her love. For this I must choose or decide to communicate in a
deeper level with the other. Even the complementary nature of the sexes is
willed by God with a purpose when he created humans as male and female. Communication
is a wonderful path to achieve respect for the differences of
masculine and feminine traits, accept them and get enriched by them. Just like
married partners, priests and the religious too face the same challenges/
difficulties when they work together as men and women in their ministries.
Either in married state or in religious life, if we do not care at all to
consciously cultivate complementarity and collaboration among us as men and
women, does it not amount to “hardness of heart” mentioned by Jesus?
That is why unity or union of minds and hearts
needs to be consciously cultivated by making daily decision of the mind to love
as Christ loved us; that is to care for each other; to serve and not to be
served, to be compassionate towards each other’s weaknesses (faults, needs,
etc.); to forgive the hurt feelings; to make sacrifices of self-interests and
one’s own likes/dislikes; to accept the other as he/she is; and to adjust with
each other. When we knowingly fail to seriously put these principles into
practice, sometimes due to hardness of heart, divorce in marriage, and
unfaithfulness in consecrated life, become an escape-route and an easy way out.
Then where is the commitment we made first? Only when we abandon our
‘sterile individualism’ and humbly communicate in trust and openness, our original commitment
is automatically renewed. For this, a childlike trust and inter-dependence, highlighted by
Jesus by putting the child at the centre stage, are necessary.
Jesus presents (or
the evangelist places) the little children as models for God’s
Kingdom in this context, probably because they were considered as the greatest
wealth of the family. Children’s nature and attitudes are similar to some
of the attitudes and qualities required to experience God’s governance over
us. Children belong to the category Jesus favoured or made a preferential choice of concern in his
ministry. In his days children had no legal status and could be bought,
sold or exploited without any system of legal redress as we have today. For
Jesus, they represented all those who did not have a legal status and were
marginalized, such as lepers, women, tax collectors and slaves or servants.
Today they are symbols of powerless, helpless, vulnerable, fragile, dependent and non-influential
people or the little ones. Jesus insists that the least important, the most
vulnerable and the marginalized should be brought to the centre stage, or brought from the
margins of society to the centre. Just
like children we too have no right to God’s mercy and salvation, and
are totally dependent on his free gifts. The
5. Response to
God's Word
Do we regularly spend
time to share (communicate) each other’s joys, sorrows, hopes, fears, doubts,
emotions and expectations? Do we realize that our failure to practice this
principle could lead to breakage of marriage or separation of hearts? What can we
do as married partners, or as consecrated persons, to consciously cultivate
unity and harmony in spite of our differences? Do we welcome God’s Kingdom with
humility, trust and dependence like little children? Do we try to bring those
who are in the margins in various walks of life to the centre?
6. A prayer
Lord,
make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is
despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness,
joy. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment