(Mk 10:2-16)
Legalistic conception and hardness of heart
(Mk 10:1-12)
The controversy with the fanatics of the law highlights the need for a new messianic community, which goes beyond the exclusively legalistic moral conception.
The theme chosen by the Pharisees lent itself to putting Jesus in difficulty regarding the ideal of love.
The marriage law required the wife to become the property of her husband.
So in any case the divorce redounded to the detriment of the woman, always seen as an inferior being.
In the society of the time, male domination and marginalization of the weak were established situations.
To protect the freedom of women (Dt 24:1-4), the law required that the tired husband [even for a nonsense or whim] still wrote a divorce "letter" that sanctioned her free.
Unlike Roman society, the wife didn’t have the same right: a social plague, which obscured her dignity.
In practice she was like an object, and a slave even in her own home.
But in creating the human being, this was not the intent of the Creator. Thus Jesus takes away the privileges - even domestic ones - asking for maximum equality of rights and duties.
He knew that the apostles themselves preferred not to marry than to renounce the exclusivity of command (Mt 19:10: «If the situation of a man with a woman is like this, it’s not worth getting married»).
The Master does not allow the dominion of the strong over the weak, therefore the man must lose hegemony over the woman.
The new law is love, and love doesn’t allow possessions, emotional exploitation, fixed chains of command.
Both marriage and celibacy are choices that recognize the value of the Person.
Awe-inspiring options for God's Kingdom - not in the service of any compromise, supremacy, or other pretentious interests.
The divine plan for humanity is transparent, broad and generous. The marriage union itself is called to express the goal of a Fullness.
The stronger does not buy the weaker in ownership, but both enrich each other - with loyalty and even in differences, seen as advanced points of a proposal for growth and expansion.
Christ demands a new approach to ethics. This goes beyond the regulations, which they try to adapt to the order.
Therefore, the Lord's teaching here appeals to the divine creative Act which has engraved a capacity for gift and growth in person's nature - and it can’t be regulated by contract clauses, nor subjected to conditioning and subjection.
The step of the Faith builds people and communities, completing them without too many accelerations, or forced restrictions. For a Love that originates us without rest.
The Family thus becomes a ‘small domestic Church’ because it’s both autonomous and comprehensive; no more nomenclatures, compromises, masks, gags or straitjackets.
Then the complementarity experienced in an authentic way - without exteriority - can go beyond the case studies of the legal systems.
In this way it has good personal and social outcomes, evoking the very Presence of God in the world.
Let the freewheeling excluded come to Me
The renunciation of pride - and the ‘nose’ without citizenship
(Mk 10:13-16)
«Because in the synodal process, our listening must take into account the sensus fidei, but it must not neglect all those “intuitions” found where we would least expect them, “freewheeling”, but no less important for that reason. The Holy Spirit in his freedom knows no boundaries or tests of admission. If the parish is to be a home to everyone in the neighbourhood, and not a kind of exclusive club, please, let’s keep the doors and windows open […] Don’t be disheartened; be prepared for surprises» (Pope Francis).
Jesus identifies with the weak (v.16). And in certain terms He even intends to propose them to veteran followers!
This is precisely to indicate the type of believer he dreams they will become (v.15): persons who recognize the desires of others as legitimate, and doesn’t make too many fuss if see themself diminished in social consideration.
Not infrequently church leaders felt expert and self-sufficient from the very beginning...
Conversely, they must be ready in Christ Jesus to be ‘born’ again and again, otherwise their eye will remain in a caricatured and blocked vision of the Kingdom.
The "little one", on the other hand, has not mental reserves - as well as fewer ballast: he throws himself in a genuine and enthusiastic way toward the exploits of the Faith’s adventure.
The Lord doesn’t refuse to «touch» directly (v.13) those who are considered impure, women, little ones or their mothers: a disgrace according to the ritual norms of the time.
Women and children - together with pagans - were considered unreliable and impure by nature, indeed contaminants.
The Master has no fear of transgressing ancient religious law, or of being evaluated as infected himself!
Christ embraces, blesses, puts his hand on the small servants - as if to recognize and truly consecrate them: He is reflected in them as if were one of them.
It means that the concern of the disciples mustn’t be that of “re-education” common to all various more or less mystery creeds of the time.
Indeed, the most eloquent sign of the Kingdom of God on earth is precisely the welcoming spirit of the marginalized: those who do not even know what it means to claim rights only for themselves.
The quality of Life in the Spirit is measured by the ability to recover the opposite sides in each believer who has the desire to walk towards his own completeness.
Thus, in the Community this dynamic of recovery increases and overtakes thanks to the ‘integration’ that becomes a fruitful conviviality of differences.
Welcoming, hosting the weak, distant, small and excluded is personal and common enrichment - an eloquent sign of the same life and divine character in us and in the Church.
Not a winning institution, but servant of humanity in need of everything.
And it’s precisely the ‘little’ ones in Christ who become teachers of adults.
This the angelic modesty and evangelical ‘littleness’ that makes us emancipated and immediately up to par; but above all Blessed, happy to be «minors» even ill-considered.
[27th Sunday in O.T. (B) October 6, 2024]
