The pharisees sought a motive to condemn Jesus, therefore, the questions of the law. The law associated marriage to possession of goods and recognizing to the man the right to repudiate his wife relagating her to a position of submission. In today’s text, Jesus continues was walk on the road to Jerusalem, where the central religious-political power is going to condemn him to death, the goal being not only with His person but with his teaching.
What we see in the Gospel is Jesus entering first in controversy with the pharisees, the “guardians”of faithful practice to the Law, the group enjoyed great prestige before more simple population and created the right to be the only authentic interpreters of the will of God. Therefore, entering in conflict with Jesus, not wanting to know better the will of the Father, but in stressing the text “to test him.”
The chosen battlefield was the debate over divorce. The reference text for them was Dt 24:1-4, where the legitimacy of divorce is not treated, but the criteria in order that it may happen.
The Gospel of Matthew makes it clearer than Mark on the sense of the debate (Mt 19:1-9) The background was the criteria necessary in order that a man may be able to divorce himself from his woman (it was not recognized in the Jewish law that the woman can divorce herself from her husband, for the woman was considered an “object” that belong to the man.) In the time of Jesus there were two tendencies symbolized by the symbolized by the rabbinical schools of the great pharisees. One school taught that one could divorce his wife for whatever reason, even the most banal. And the other school affirmed divorce was only permitted for serious motives. Therefore, in Matthew the question is defined better: “Is it permitted to divorce oneself for whatever motive?” (Mt 19:4)
In both Gospels, Jesus recuses himself from entering in the casuistic debate what surround the question and limits Himself to reaffirm the project of the Father for marriage: “Therefore, what God unites, man must not separate.” Here, Jesus reaffirms with all strength the ideal of Christian marriage, a permanent union, based in love and strengthened by the grace of the Sacrament.
It would be useless to seek in this exerpt a theology more distant from marriage, but much less pastoral orientations to the practical problems of unsuccessful marriage, for this was not the intention of the author. Mark simple reaffirms the principle that ” What God unities, man must not separate.” This leaves open the question of when is God really united the marriage. Will it be that only because they celebrated validly a wedding, the couple is necessarily united by God? The real problems are much more complex, anguishing and difficult to solve.
The excerpt continues with the question of children. The question, here is not the child as a symbol of innocence, but of dependency. The child resembles them – they live this situation of dependency of being “without power”. Whoever want to enter the Reign of God will have to open his hand of all dominating power, becoming like a child.
Denying to accept the situation in which the woman was simply an object of possession of the man – and thus subject to be rejected – and proposing the weakness and dependence as model, in a society that valued the predominant, Jesus shows the values of the Reign of God are in contrast to the values of His time and His day. Christ proposes a equality of dignity between the man and the woman, a fidelity and permanent commitment and the search for a life of service not of dominion. Really, a proposal in contrast to the modern society that negates the permanent, perpetuates the machismo and admires whomever holds power.
We are invited to day to enter with Jesus into the counter-culture and to create a society based on Christian values.
Lord Jesus, that the Christian couples understand the profundity of the their union, the work of God himself. Amen.
Father Bantu Mendonça