Alberic Jacovone OSB
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YEAR B
TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY - 8.10.06
Gen 2,18-24; Heb 2,9-11; Mk 10,2-16
Jesus & the ‘writ of dismissal’
‘Male
& Female Power’.
Today, Mark presents Jesus sitting with his disciples, trying hard to convince
them, that the mystery of the cross is part of God’s plan for Him & for
us: yes we must all be ready to pour out our life, so others may have life in
abundance. Typical of Mark, the disciples continue to think differently &
fail to understand. Only much later, they will come to see how the tragic yet
saving event of cross & resurrection will affect them & help them make
changes in their lives. Mark wants that we, readers of all time, learn from
their mistakes, to value God’s mysterious ways. He lists 4 attitudes &
sets them in the background of 4
situations in order to bring on them Jesus’ harsh words of condemnation. If we
wish to be disciples of Jesus, we -like the apostles- must let go of all lust
for power: power over ‘little-ones’, over women - over children &
possessions. Last weekend, we saw how Jesus lashed out his harsh words against
the abuses of power over ‘little ones’ & scandals in the Church. Today
we turn to abuse of power over women in & out of marriage. It’s tragic
that, not just at Jesus’ time, but at all times & even now, we place
unfair expectations on marriage & indeed on all relationships. As a result,
our personal, ethnic, national loyalties deteriorate into prejudice &
hatred, breakdown & divorce. Against a backdrop of rabbinic teaching which
allowed divorce by a ‘writ of dismissal’, & against a cast of male
dominated culture in Palestinian 1st Century life -(600 years later will come
the Muslim formula: ‘I divorce you’ uttered by the male for 3 times!), Jesus
condemns divorce & re-proposes the biblical ideal of ‘one flesh’. God
created male & female to be joined in one flesh, so neither can divorce or
remarry.
A
favorite Gospel for weddings. Many couples use the main
part of today’s Gospel as text for their wedding ceremony. In it, Jesus quotes
Book of Genesis 2,24 to show that at creation time, God made male & female.
This is why man unites with woman & the two become one flesh - & so,
what God has united, no one must separate. In the marriage rite, Mark’s
reduced text is taken out of context & the overall message looses some
impact. By returning to the biblical ideal of ‘one flesh’, Jesus re-instates
the law of creation, & advocates total equality of man & woman, with no
power of man over woman. And when later the disciples get Jesus aside & ask
more questions to clear the matter, Jesus again re-instates the conviction that
neither man nor woman have a right to dismiss each other.
Today’s Gospel challenges us to explore the attitude of men &
women towards marriage, in the past & even now. At Mark’s time, Christians
were a multi-cultural community from different ethnic, Jewish & Hellenistic
background. Their cultural expectations differed vastly: while Judeo-Christians
(as all Orthodox Jews still do!) took for granted that Moses was the author of
the Torah (=1st 5 books of Old Testament), & he allowed men (but not
women!!!) to dismiss & divorce their wives, Christians from all pagan
countries allowed both men & women to divorce each other. Addressing this
issue, Mark states first, that the Jewish custom of ‘dismissing wives’ was
not a right stemming from Moses’ Torah: it was tolerated ‘out of your
stubbornness of heart’. In God’s creation, neither men nor women can claim a
right to dismiss & divorce each other, just as in God’s creative plan, no
one can usurp God’s right, & substitute him/herself to God. In God’s
creative plan, no human being can claim power over another. It’s an abuse of
power, for a man or a woman to divorce. For annulments, we must look elsewhere.
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