The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him (Mark 10:2).
Among the Pharisees, there were different schools that arose from following the teachings of their rabbis. They sought how best to interpret the Torah, the Law or Teachings of Moses. Allowance for divorce was one of those debates. A stricter interpretation was found by the school of Shammai, in which he taught that the only grounds for divorce was infidelity. On the other end of the spectrum fell the school of Hillel which found that a man could divorce his wife if he felt she cooked a bad meal or with the school of Akiva, a divorce was permissible if the man found another woman more attractive.
The Pharisees that were approaching Jesus were not really looking for him to wade into the debate and get his insight. As Mark wrote, “They were testing him.” They were seeking to divide his support just as they would do in a few chapters when they asked whether it was permissible to pay the Roman tax. In both cases, they thought they had a good plan to trap Jesus and gain support against him. If he assented to paying taxes to Rome, the Jews would surely turn against him and if he said not to pay the tax, the Pharisees could turn him in to the centurions for going against Caesar. Jesus turned their question on its head when he said to pay to Caesar what belonged to Caesar and to God what belonged to God (Mark 12:14-17).
Jesus refused to take the bait with divorce as well. Instead of picking one of the Pharisaical school’s interpretations, Jesus did what he did when tempted by the devil in the desert. Jesus referred to the source, the Torah, and went back to the beginning in Genesis. God instituted marriage to be indissoluble for “what God has joined together, no human being must separate” (Mark 10:9).
Jesus also clarified that Moses allowed for the provision of divorce because of the hardness of the people’s hearts. Moses made such provisions to help to prevent a worse tragedy, such as a husband killing his wife so he could remarry.
When pressed further by his disciples afterward, Jesus did not water down his point, he instead remained on target and put both husbands and wives on the same standing. Husbands who divorce their wives and remarry as well as wives who divorce their husbands and remarry both committed adultery. Then as if on cue people bring their children to be blessed. The disciples attempt to turn them away, and Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
Jesus seeks to restore the sacredness of marriage that God set in place so that we might be free to fulfill God’s plan for us to be in relationship with him and one another. Marriage as a monogamous and indissoluble union mirrors in the physical realm what the Trinity and divine communion of Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit reveal in the heavenly realm.
God the Father gives all that he is to the Son holding nothing back. The Son returns all that he has received from the Father, holding nothing back. This infinite exchange between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit, the love shared between them. In marriage, “a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” In this union, there is the possibility of a third. The child that is conceived between the love and sacrifice shared between the husband and the wife.
This side of heaven, life and relationships are messy, they are not perfect, and unfortunately, relationships rupture. There are many reasons for this, there is much pain and suffering in those relationships that end in divorce or an annulment. Even so, Jesus will remain faithful to the Church, his bride. Just as Eve was “built” out of the rib of Adam, the Church was built out of the water and blood that flowed from the side of Jesus.
Jesus gave his life for his bride, and he will always remain faithful, and he will not lower the bar for his expectations of Marriage. Nor ought we settle for anything less. We remain faithful ourselves when we seek his help. Let us not give up on marriage, the gift of children, or each other.
Jesus’ teachings on marriage as well as the others that we have been receiving this summer are challenging. Many of us may feel that we cannot measure up, that they are too hard. When we feel this way, we are not to give up or to seek concessions. We are to trust in and seek help from Jesus.
Apart from him, we cannot fulfill what Jesus calls us to do, but with him, all things are possible. His teachings are hard, only because we are far from him. As we trust and rely on him and not ourselves alone, we come closer to his outstretched arms awaiting to embrace us. Jesus helps us to understand the truth of God’s divine laws, he gives us the grace to fulfill them, forgives us when we fall short, and encourages us to begin again.
This is why Jesus taught that we are to be like children. We must place all our trust and depend on God the Father, just as Jesus does. When we are willing to follow God’s guidance as his children and are willing to place our trust and total dependence on him, when we let go of what he reveals to us to be untrue, when we renounce the distortions of the father of lies who seeks only to divide, disrupt, and destroy us, we will inherit the kingdom of God. This is our birth rite and who we have been created to be, let us not lose it. We have been created to be in an intimate communion with God and one another. Let us not settle for anything less.
Photo: Jesus brought us together, and helped us to grow closer to him and to each other.
Spiritual Stepping Stones 