As Jesus enters Judea, he is immediately
challenged by the Pharisees. As we will
see, it is not just a challenge but a trap.
What is it they are trapping him with?
It is important to notice, that Jesus is not a literal interpreter of
scripture. The Torah had an incorrect
balance of the nature of man and woman, and thereby distorted the understanding
of humanity and of marriage.
The Pharisees
approached Jesus and asked,
"Is it lawful for
a husband to divorce his wife?"
They were testing him.
He said to them in
reply, "What did Moses command you?"
They replied,
"Moses permitted
a husband to write a bill of divorce
and dismiss her."
But Jesus told them,
"Because of the
hardness of your hearts
he wrote you this
commandment.
But from the beginning of creation,
God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and
mother
and be joined to his
wife,
and the two shall
become one flesh.
So they are no longer
two but one flesh.
Therefore what God has
joined together,
no human being must
separate."
In the house the
disciples again questioned Jesus about this.
He said to them,
"Whoever divorces
his wife and marries another
commits adultery
against her;
and if she divorces
her husband and marries another,
she commits
adultery."
And people were bringing children to
him that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them.
When Jesus saw this he
became indignant and said to them,
"Let the children
come to me;
do not prevent them,
for the kingdom of God belongs to
such as these.
Amen, I say to you,
whoever does not
accept the kingdom of God like a child
will not enter
it."
Then he embraced them
and blessed them,
placing his hands on
them.
~Mk 10:2-16
The absolute best and
fullest of the explanations on this passage is from Fr. Geoffrey Plant again. There are so many enlightening thoughts in
this exegesis.
Fr. Geoffrey identifies
the trap of the Pharisees to be of the beheading of John the Baptist. It is over the divine rules of marriage and
not rules created by human hardness of heart that leads to the Baptist’s
execution. Marriage we see is a
sacrament, not a contract.
Jesus—perhaps the
first truly great feminist in the proper sense of the word—elevates women here
by making it a sin to divorce. By
allowing men to divorce their wives, the natural balance of man and woman are
distorted. Jesus ennobles women by
returning her to man’s complement, not man’s servant. Genesis is restored to proper order.
But what about the
four verses at the end which deal with Jesus welcoming children? Most homilies I bet are not going to touch on
this. It seems like it was tagged on at
the end. By Jesus restoring men and
women to their proper order, it establishes the family as the building block of
society. It is only in this context that
children can be raised to proper flourishing.
Proper order in marriage leads to those that are disposed to enter the
kingdom of heaven.
Sunday Meditation: “For this reason
a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife, and the
two shall become one flesh.”
Our hymn today will be the beautiful “Ode to
the Bride,” by John Michael Talbot
