Some Pharisees approached Jesus, and tested him, saying,
"Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?"
Is there ever any cause so severe that divorce is a valid option? The Pharisees certainly believed that there were such causes, though they disagreed on the severity required in order to be sufficient grounds to justify divorce. But it seemed that Jesus may have acquired a reputation for being much more rigorous about marriage than any Pharisaical school of thought. This should not surprise us since he was the one who taught, "I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (see Matthew 5:28) during the Sermon on the Mount.
"Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?"
Is there ever any cause so severe that divorce is a valid option? The Pharisees certainly believed that there were such causes, though they disagreed on the severity required in order to be sufficient grounds to justify divorce. But it seemed that Jesus may have acquired a reputation for being much more rigorous about marriage than any Pharisaical school of thought. This should not surprise us since he was the one who taught, "I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (see Matthew 5:28) during the Sermon on the Mount.
The Pharisees knew that Jesus wasn't afraid to speak his mind and wanted to provoke him to say something that contradicted the fact that, to their mind, Moses had permitted divorce when he commanded, "that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss her". But Jesus was on to their game. Rather than referring immediately to Moses, he reached further back, to God's original intention for marriage, to the Garden of Eden. He saw there a blueprint for a relationship that was intended to be a union that could not be broken. Only such a union could serve as an image of the love of the Triune God, or the love of Christ for the Church. Such love was not sometimes yes, and sometimes no, but always and unwavering.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?
From the fact that the union of marriages is something that was brought about by God, that God himself was in fact the one who joined couples together in each individual case, it follows that such a union could not be broken by the decision of man. What, then, of Moses? Was God being inconsistent when Moses seemed to authorize divorce? Didn't it make the most sense to do what the Pharisees did and project back from the apparent permission and interpret that which came before as well as that which came after in light of it?
He said to them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts
Moses allowed you to divorce your wives,
but from the beginning it was not so.
Jesus taught that Moses was not exactly giving permission for divorce, so much as it was that he was regulating it. It was an unfortunate and, for the time more or less unavoidable practice, that was happening anyway. It wasn't a best case scenario from which God's purpose for marriage could be discerned. It was the best attempt of Moses to mitigate the disaster that the fall had been to marital fidelity. It can be difficult for us to see behind the consequences of the fall, to the time when God looked upon all things and saw that they were very good, and discover his purpose in ordering things as he did. Only the eyes of Jesus was sufficiently clear and courageous to boldly speak that original intention into a world clinging to any license to sin that it could find. Not only the Pharisees, but even his own disciples, found this to be so drastic as to be apparently untenable, practically speaking.
His disciples said to him,
"If that is the case of a man with his wife,
it is better not to marry."
Jesus did not walk it back, even for his disciples. Rather he let them know that this word could not be accepted by everyone intellectually, and was not something that would necessarily make sense in the abstract. If they looked at the possibilities of various difficulties they might face in marriage it would seem impossible, because, humanly speaking, it was impossible. But those who were called to marriage would receive grace that made what was impossible for others possible in their case. It was grace for a specific call. Those who were thus called would be the ones to whom it was granted to accept it, not intellectually perhaps, but in the concrete reality of their relationships together.
Because Jesus referred to a grace specific to the call to marriage, and explained that it was not for everyone, he went on to speak of a different vocation with different graces attached to it, specifically those who "have renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven". This is a vocation we see reflected in the tradition of celibacy for priests in the Roman Catholic tradition. Like Jesus himself, the Church calls out to those who might be called: "Whoever can accept this ought to accept it".
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?
From the fact that the union of marriages is something that was brought about by God, that God himself was in fact the one who joined couples together in each individual case, it follows that such a union could not be broken by the decision of man. What, then, of Moses? Was God being inconsistent when Moses seemed to authorize divorce? Didn't it make the most sense to do what the Pharisees did and project back from the apparent permission and interpret that which came before as well as that which came after in light of it?
He said to them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts
Moses allowed you to divorce your wives,
but from the beginning it was not so.
Jesus taught that Moses was not exactly giving permission for divorce, so much as it was that he was regulating it. It was an unfortunate and, for the time more or less unavoidable practice, that was happening anyway. It wasn't a best case scenario from which God's purpose for marriage could be discerned. It was the best attempt of Moses to mitigate the disaster that the fall had been to marital fidelity. It can be difficult for us to see behind the consequences of the fall, to the time when God looked upon all things and saw that they were very good, and discover his purpose in ordering things as he did. Only the eyes of Jesus was sufficiently clear and courageous to boldly speak that original intention into a world clinging to any license to sin that it could find. Not only the Pharisees, but even his own disciples, found this to be so drastic as to be apparently untenable, practically speaking.
His disciples said to him,
"If that is the case of a man with his wife,
it is better not to marry."
Jesus did not walk it back, even for his disciples. Rather he let them know that this word could not be accepted by everyone intellectually, and was not something that would necessarily make sense in the abstract. If they looked at the possibilities of various difficulties they might face in marriage it would seem impossible, because, humanly speaking, it was impossible. But those who were called to marriage would receive grace that made what was impossible for others possible in their case. It was grace for a specific call. Those who were thus called would be the ones to whom it was granted to accept it, not intellectually perhaps, but in the concrete reality of their relationships together.
Because Jesus referred to a grace specific to the call to marriage, and explained that it was not for everyone, he went on to speak of a different vocation with different graces attached to it, specifically those who "have renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven". This is a vocation we see reflected in the tradition of celibacy for priests in the Roman Catholic tradition. Like Jesus himself, the Church calls out to those who might be called: "Whoever can accept this ought to accept it".
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