Mk. 10: 2-16
Once, David Langerfeld, associate pastor of Harrisburg Baptist Church in Tupelo, Mississippi, shared a moving story about a girl. She was a gorgeous and beautiful girl. In fact, she was so beautiful that an international photographer from her hometown used her photo as a model to advertise his business. She had not only external beauty but also internal beauty. Her family members and friends were highly appreciative of her charming character. She had Christian parents and they moulded her character with Christian values. Honesty and sweetness were a few of her characters. Here, friends wanted to hang around her because she was the sweetest girl that they knew. She never spoke with harsh opinions about anyone. She fell in love with a young man in her college days who loved not only her external photographic beauty but also the wonderful godly character of her internal beauty. They enjoyed their next four years of studies together, and they always believed in true love waits and exhibited a mature love relationship among them and not falling into mere bodily gratification. After one week of thier graduation, they got married. They cherished a wonderful companionship among them. They enjoyed fulfilling all the possible moments of being together. They would walk together, exercise together, go on trips together, go to movies, watch TV, eat pizza, etc. They were so much in love.
She taught at the school for a year. The following year, she worked as a bookkeeper for a surgical supply company. One day while she was working, she lost her balance all of a sudden and fell down. After a while, she could get up and that night she went to meet the doctor and decided to consult a neurologist in the coming days. The next day, however, she had the same experience, but this time she couldn’t get up and had almost lost all feeling sensations in her leg.Her husband came to the hospital, carried her in his arms, and rushed her to the hospital. After six days of examination, the doctors revealed the heart-breaking news to this beautiful lady that she had multiple sclerosis and she could not walk again. The young couple who had been married for eighteen months lost all their dreams. In the next thirty years, her health deteriorated. She had to take steroids on a regular basis. Her bones became very weak and easily broken. Her face became very puffy and lost all its original gorgeous and photographic beauty. She lost all control of her bodily actions and always needed someone to feed her and look after her. However, there was a beautiful twist to this story. In normal cases, if a spouse has multiple sclerosis, the other spouse would leave the marital relationship because of the constant care and psychological and physical changes that would continue to happen. Anyhow, this couple did not separate from each other but remained in love, all the more intense and stronger. David Langerfeld concluded this incident by saying that the beautiful and gorgeous woman who would not walk again and couldn’t feed herself by herself is Lynda Langerfeld, my wife.
In the first reading of the day, we see the creation of man and woman. God creates the woman out of the man’s ribs. They were not identical, but he created them as complementary beings. God Says: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24) Thus, God established the institution of the family and the sacrament of marriage. The purpose that God gave to this sacrament is the conjugal love between spouses which they are called to express in their companionship and the fruit of this love should manifest in the continuation of their future generation. However, from the very beginning, this divine institution of family encountered challenges. At times, human weakness limited us to enter into companionship.
The gospel passage of the day brings to us the challenges that the family encountered at the time of Jesus. The Pharisees posed this question to Jesus: is it lawful to divorce one’s own wife? They had a hidden intention of trapping Jesus because the Law of Moses’ allowed a man to divorce his wife. Anyhow, the criteria for divorce were very vague among them. As per Jewish law, a man can only initiate the process of divorce. The prominent Jewish religious schools, such as Shammai and Hillel, understood the reasons for divorce in a varied manner. Being an orthodox school, Shammai allowed a man to divorce his wife only for grievous matters such as infidelity to the spouse. Hillel, being a liberal school, allowed the divorce of one’s wife for silly reasons, such as burring the food while cooking, etc.
Knowing their intention, Jesus exhorts them to go back to the original plan that God designed for humanity. “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Mk. 10:9) A man who divorces his wife commits adultery because no one has the authority to violate the indissolubility of the marriage bond. Jesus prohibit the woman also from the same because the Jewish law never allowed a woman to initiate the process of divorce, but there was the well-known controversy of Herodias, who left her husband Philip and married her husband’s brother Herod. Questioning this marriage infidelity ended up in the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist, the precursor of Christ. Now, some of us might be thinking about the exception that is mentioned in the Mathean gospel that is if there is marriage infidelity, the spouses can claim for divorce. However, scholarly studies have proved that this Mathean adaptation was meant to curb the consanguinity or marriage between the blood relatives which was common among the gentile converts of the first century.
Dear brothers and sisters, if I ask you about some of the major crises of our time? You may point out various issues, but if we go deeper into the roots of these issues, we realise that the family, which is considered the basic fabric of every society, is challenged by various factors. The major problem that breaks family is divorce. Every day, we hear or read about stories about broken families. What could be the possible reasons? It is because we fail to fulfil God’s will to enter into companionship with our life partners. When my partner is not able to fulfil certain expectations, when I am not able to adjust to his/her little imperfections, we tend to withdraw from our companionship, which is united and sealed by God. It can also happen that spouses may not undergo divorce but willingly accept a kind of emotional divorce, and live as though they are strangers under the same roof without nurturing and cherishing their companionship. St. Paul uses the analogy of spousal love in his letter to the Ephesians to indicate Christ’s love for the Church. Though his bride, the Church, is imperfect, he loved us unconditionally and gave up his very life to build our companionship with God. May Christ transform our hearts to renew and revive our companionship with our life partners.