Friday in the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 13, 2021

Matthew 19:3-12

Some Pharisees approached Jesus, and tested him, saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?” He said in reply, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator 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, man must not separate.” They said to him, “Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss her?” 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. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.” His disciples said to him, “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” He answered, “Not all can accept this word, but only those to whom that is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”

Non-believers can see Jesus Christ as a reformer of Judaism because he challenged and dismissed centuries of faulty interpretation of the Law as well as the more recent overlays on the Law by sects such as the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  He showed the initial purposes of the Law so that it could be fulfilled mindfully by the Jews and not merely by rote, which is what humans tend to do when we do not understand purposes or agree with the laws but are compelled to follow directions regarding them.  In his teaching, the Lord strips away the human coating that had accrued to the Law so that the design of God could be revealed.  Jesus fulfilled the in his life and by his teaching so that adherents might obey the Law’s fullness. 

“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?”  These Pharisees ask him this question because it was a question debated in the day by the various sects.  They also may have had the idea that however the Lord answered, he could be challenged publicly on it.  Jesus lays the foundation for his reply by quoting Genesis 2, 24: “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  The way this verse is written, it could be understood as God himself speaking, as when he is described earlier as creating the sun and the moon and, having done so, pronouncing it “good”.  Here, God has just created man and woman.  Going further than saying that “It is good,” he says why this is good, something that he does not do in creating the world and the animals, and he does this with respect to the dignity of the work he has done here.  The Lord Jesus emphasizes, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh.”  This reality is to be understood on a level more profound than that of the physical since this becoming “one flesh” is not merely permitting the man and woman to accompany each other as they walk down the street or even to become friends.  This “one flesh-ing” produces a unity that can be sundered only by death.  A man and the woman remain individuals inasmuch as they were created as such, but in the union of marriage they share a physical and spiritual intimacy not available to other couple who are not married.  “Therefore, what God has joined together, man must not separate.”  Jesus speaks of “to separate” in terms of the time, so that a married man and woman could divorce so that their right to marry others might be restored.  He is not speaking of either voluntary or involuntary physical separations, which may be necessary for good reasons.

“Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss her?”  The Pharisees ask a good and necessary question here.  They seem also to be actually interested in his answer because with what the Lord had said already, they could have charged him with hating the Law, as they did when they thought he was breaking the Sabbath.  “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.”  Before the time of Moses, we do not read in the Scriptures of divorce.  It does not occur in the Book of Genesis.  By the time of the Exodus, though, morality had so declined that divorce had become common.  The Mosaic Law did mot restore the original order, but it did restrain divorce with various procedures and ordinances so that it was much less likely to be done.  However, with the coming of the Lord and the new age of grace which he inaugurated, the original law of marriage is restored so that the man and woman, already united to Christ in baptism, may become an image of Christ and the Church through their union with each other.

“I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.”  The “unlawfulness” here means an incestuous marriage, such as that of Herod and Herodias, or with a person already divorced, or between two people of the same sex, or between more than two people at a time, such as in polygamy.  

The strict prohibition against divorce alarmed some of the Lord’s followers, just as had the commandment that to attain eternal life a person must eat his Body and drink his Blood.  It sounded very much to these very carnal men as though the Lord had commanded an impossibility.  But then the Lord tells them something remarkable: “Not all can accept this word, but only those to whom that is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven.”  That is, not every human being is called to marriage.  Nor is there a commandment that compels marriage on every person.  Otherwise, there would have been no long-term widows or widowers — such a state would have been illegal.  Nor could eunuchs marry.  And certain Prophets seem not to have married, such as Elijah and Elisha.  It would seem that John the Baptist was not married, either.  These lived for the Kingdom to come, dedicated heart and soul to it.  Of course, the Lord himself would have been the example above all others of renouncing marriage to a woman for the Kingdom, as he, the Groom, was already espoused to his Bride, the Church.

“Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”  The Lord closes on this subject by urging that no one should marry for the sake of marriage, but to discern whether that person’s call and place within the Kingdom means for that person to marry.  Not all are called to marriage.  Many are called instead to renounce it for the Kingdom.  These latter live as signs of those who await the Kingdom’s coming at the end of the age, just as the married life is a sign of the marriage of the true Groom and the Church, to be consummated in heaven.