Marriage and Divorce in Mt. 19:1-12
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Date
2000-02-12
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Tangaza University College
Abstract
The sun was like a robin egg blue down coming when the Fr. In-charge of Bondeni
Parish invited his confreres for a wedding ceremony that afternoon. But the response he got
from the Assistant Parish Priest caused a laughter in the whole community. "You go and
marry them but tomorrow I will open my marriage tribunal office and they will be the first to
come requesting me to have them divorce one another", responded Fr. Keller. This is one of
the jokes that a community of Priests make in parishes but from the out look of the joke it
gives a clear picture on how severe the problem marriage and divorce is.
In these last years the parish of Bondeni experienced a lot of divorce cases, and also
experienced a lot of cases on polygamous marriage as well. Today divorce have become
rampart, it is being experienced more often than before. In one of the local daily news print,
they showed a mathematical figure on divorce whereby if the issue is going to be taken
lightly the future of marriage vocation is at stake because the question on divorce is growing
at an alarming rate. It is proposed that one out of six women you meet in a matatu who has
reached a marriageable age is divorced or at least is a single women parent.
Again, in the Daily Nation, Friday, Jan 21,2000, on the section of your weekender
magazine, there is a current situation of the problem. Many of these single women in the
town of Nairobi have resorted to put on wedding rings. "They are wearing a mark of a
married person which they think can be a good camouflage." Nancy K. is one of such
women who are wearing wedding rings in belief that the symbol keeps men form bothering
her. She has a marriage ring on her second finger and an engagement ring on the third.
Many others have resorted to put on wedding rings as a good camouflage to stop men
from persuing them romantically and father with her another child. To prevent from reviving her past painful experience which is now cooling down from her previous failed marriage,
they wear these rings now a days.
Divorce is a problem at Bondeni Catholic Parish and even at the universal level of the
Church today. Parish Priests often get suprised to seeing good Catholics married in Church,
divorcing later or the husband adding another wife to his already existing marriage. My own
Parish Priest blessed a marriage of one of his Catechists, and as if it was a blessing to his
blessed marriage the husband went to an interview and by good luck he was promoted to the
post of sub-chief of the sub- location. But to the suprise of many, even though he did not
divorce the first wife which is bad he equally added another wife.
It is from this present day experience of marriage and divorce, of many single women
parents, that we have decided to write this composition trying to find out what does the Good
News of Jesus teach concerning marriage and divorce. We believe that many of the divorced
cases incidents are being experienced by our baptized sisters.
According to the whole population of Kenya, 60-70% of Kenyans are Christians of
which 50-55% are Catholics. Each Sunday at least there is a celebration of the Eucharist,
plus good homilies, and of course a bumper Sunday collection but many of those going to
these Sunday services, taking part in the choir singing during the Liturgy are our divorced
sisters.
We will, learn the teaching on marriage and divorce according to Saint Matthew
19:1-12, because chronologically it is the first Gospel which Jesus Christ our teacher
instructed us. And this will form our first chapter. In our second chapter, we will solely
dedicate it to the theological significance of Jesus' teaching in Matthew's Gospel. Our third
chapter will be comparing the relevance of Jesus' teaching in Matthew with other New
Testament writers on the same issue. This is due to the fact that the Gospel of Matthew in general is an exceptional one,
and also this gospel passage which we are going to embark on, Jesus taugh about marriage
and divorce with exceptions. For example, Jesus is said to have forbidden divorce except for
pomeia. The exception word put us to doubt if we will get a satisfactory answer if we rely on
Matthew alone. This is why we are going to seek other clarifications from other New
Testament writer like Saints Mark, Luke and Paul where Jesus taught about marriage and
divorce as well.
However, we can not stop at this level of saying to married couples look here the
bible forbids or allows divorce and we have great proofs from our findings. Therefore, in our
fourth chapter, we will dedicate to the factors we will consider in helping young people
contemplating marriage.
We hope marriage and divorce which is a pastoral problem and urgent one, marriage
and divorce which is a biblical problem since it is tarnishing the biblical image of marriage
will get some solutions:There will be a reduction of the number of divorce cases, also a
reduction in the number of single women who wear wedding to appear "social correct"2 as
one Clinical Psychologist, Emmy Gichinga would.
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Keywords
Marriage, Divorce