The Pharisees approach Jesus and ask him whether it is lawful for a husband to put away his wife. They themselves could have answered: "The whole tradition says that it is permissible in some cases to divorce a wife, and the rabbis discuss the causes that make this gesture permissible, from burnt tortillas to adultery". But they ask him, who always defends the weakest and therefore the repudiated, and they want to put him against the law. Jesus answers with a question: "What did Moses command you?" (to you). By speaking in this way he puts himself above the law. They could answer: Moses (they attributed to him all the books of the Pentateuch) commanded us "a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." Or: with the tables of the law he commanded us:
Do not commit adultery", "do not lust after other people's wives", "do not lust after other people's wives", "do not commit adultery".". Instead, they go to what interests them, to what Moses "allowed". They talk about legal permissions, but Jesus leads them to look at the hardness of their hearts, the real problem. And he brings them back to the beginning, to what God through Moses commanded them.
More than a command, it was a joy for God, a brilliant remedy for man's loneliness, who could not find adequate companionship in any of the other beings on earth. Genesis speaks as if God realized, in the midst of his work of creation, that man does not have enough inferior creatures, not even God alone, to develop relationships that fulfill him as man. He needs a being similar to himself, who places before his eyes and heart a tangible and incarnate image of God in humanity. And God creates woman, his masterpiece. The two understand each other and rejoice. The need for relationship is mutual. "He shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh." Giotto, in Padua, paints the kiss and embrace of Joachim and Anne at the Golden Gate, after the angel, according to the Protoevangelium of James, had revealed to them that Anne was already pregnant with Joachim's seed and was expecting a girl. Looking at the union of the two faces of Mary's parents, one sees only two eyes, one nose, one mouth: one flesh.
"Let not man put asunder what God has joined together." God unites, the devil divides. Sometimes even man divides by the hardness of his heart. Jesus wants the weaknesses of both to become an occasion for compassion, mercy, forgiveness, gentleness of heart. As he did with the adulteress. Children are presented to him for his touch, and the hard-hearted disciples scold them. Instead, the children are tenderhearted and show their parents the way to persevere in marriage: to be like them. Jesus embraces and blesses them.
The homily on the readings of Sunday 27th Sunday
The priest Luis Herrera Campo offers its nanomiliaa small one-minute reflection for these readings.
