Today’s gospel reading is difficult because it has often become an oppressive passage when taken out of context.   I also find it difficult because I come to this scripture passage as a once divorced woman with an awareness of the depth of my own brokenness.  Yet, I believe it is very important that we faithfully wrestle with hard, difficult passages in scripture and not avoid them.

Today, we hear Jesus teaching about relationships, marriage and divorce.  However, in order for us to understand what this reading says about divorce, we must first understand what marriage meant in ancient culture.  Biblical scholar, Bruce Melina, tells us:

Under normal circumstances in the world of Jesus, individuals really did not get married.  Families did.  One family offered a male, the other a female.  Their wedding stood for the wedding of the larger extended families and symbolized the fusion of the honor of both families involved.  It would be undertaken with a focus on political and/or economic concerns.  Marriage was not a matter of “falling in love.”  It was very much a matter of “honoring one’s parents.”….Divorce, then, would entail the dissolution of these extended family ties.  It represented a challenge to the family of the former wife and would likely result in family feuding. (Malina & Rohrbaugh: Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, p. 240). 

 

Ancient culture also operated under an honor/shame system.  Great emphasis was placed on the honor or shame people’s actions placed upon others.  So, when divorce took place entire families were dishonored and put to shame. In spite of this, divorce was common and it was a very simple process.  Within the patriarchal culture of that time, women and children had virtually no rights and were considered property.  A man could simply write on a piece of paper, “She is not my wife and I am not her husband.”  He would then give her the paper and kick her out of the house.  A man could divorce his wife on a whim, but a woman could not initiate a divorce. 

In today’s reading we find Jesus facing a test.  The writer of Mark tells us, “Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’”  The Pharisees knew full-well what the law said about divorce and they did not need to ask Jesus.  But, they wanted to trick him.  So, Jesus responds by cleverly asking them, “What did Moses command you?”  Then, the Pharisees tell Jesus what Moses allowed.  You see, Moses never commanded, Moses allowed divorce.  Jesus goes on to say divorce was allowed because of the hardness of human hearts, because of human sinfulness and brokenness.  He then turns the conversation into another dynamic teaching moment, Jesus-style.  He answers by discussing God’s ideal for marriage, God’s ideal for relationships as expressed in Genesis.

In this teaching moment, Jesus attempts to recover an understanding of God’s intention for marriage as revealed at the beginning of creation.  Human beings were created to live in relationship.  God’s intention from the beginning is for two people to be faithful, lifelong companions in an intimate, committed relationship that should not be severed.  By saying this, Jesus changes the focus of the conversation from divorce to embracing the unity of partners as part of God’s creative design – a unity that is all gift. 

Now, after all of this discussion about divorce, the gospel immediately moves to the scene where Jesus receives the little children.  Little children, those perceived as a nuisance, as less than, as those not wanted, those perceived as the least of these – those who represented the most vulnerable in that culture – these are the ones the disciples want to send away.  But, Jesus refused to send the little children away.  Instead, Jesus received the children, he hugged them, and he blessed them.  In doing so, Jesus shows that all, all are worthy of God’s love.  And, indeed, I know that those suffering the pain and brokenness of divorce are precisely some of the “least of these” who receive the kingdom in their dependence on God’s love.

At the heart of this reading we also see something else.  We again really see the social implications of God’s inbreaking reign.  In today’s reading we again find the disruptive work of God in Jesus Christ.  Today, Jesus’ teaching overturns patriarchal marital relationships and elevates those at the bottom of the social ladder, the women and the children.  Far from simply affirming and domesticating traditional notions of marriage, Jesus’ words actually subvert his adversaries’ patriarchal assumptions about marriage.  The Pharisees question Jesus about...