Thoughts for the Day

Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?’ He answered, ‘Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning “made them male and female”, and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’ They said to him, ‘Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?’ He said to them, ‘It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but at the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.’

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

The Pharisees are doing their best to catch Jesus out and involve him a huge controversy in today's reading. Divorce was fairly common at this time, depending on whether you agreed with the words of Moses (Deuteronomy 24) or not. But behind this lies other problems. Every man was expected to marry for the sake of producing children for posterity. However, only he could initiate a divorce, since women had no legal rights in society and belonged to their father or their husband. Marriages were arranged, often between children who had not met. There were two streams of thought at the time, with the Jewish Rabbi's violently opposed to each other's arguments. The split was largely between the school of Shammai (who were strict - only "unchastity" by the wife would ensure divorce) and the school of Hillel (who were lenient - eg if a wife burnt her husband's dinner she could be divorced). A bill of divorce would be written and the woman ejected from her husband's house, though she could in theory then marry again. The only thing holding back many such bills of divorce was the likelihood of having to return the woman's dowry!

So how did Jesus deal with this thorny question? Well for a start he holds that marriage is the total giving of one person to the other so that they are "one flesh". This was God's ideal, that each person would compliment the other, and their vows would be unbreakable. The Pharisees immediately jump on him for apparently arguing he knows more than Moses who was given the Law by God. But Jesus says, Moses laid down that in principle divorce is wrong, but recognising human frailty it was allowed in certain circumstances.

Marriage calls for two people to come together, in body, mind and spirit, where each thinks more of the other than themself, and where the strengths and weaknesses of each slowly compliment each other. Yes, marriages fail, but there is also a wonderful ideal to be attained when couples lovingly work towards it with God's help.

Heavenly Father,
we pray for all couples preparing to get married;
for those married couples struggling with their relationship;
for those where illness or distance have separated them;
for those who are divorced;
for those who have remarried;
and for those whose partners have died.
Strengthen and sustain all relationships,
and give them the love that cares for the other
at the expense of themself.
Amen.