Friday in the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 12, 2022

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.”

The period after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 B.C., during which the Jews were exiled in a foreign land led to deeper reflection on the Mosaic Law.  This led to groups of scholars arising after the return to Judea seventy years later who interpreted the Law and explained it to the people.  One of these groups was the Pharisees.  Their examination of the Law as well as the Prophets caused them to ponder certain teachings.  These teachings included that on divorce.  The Prophets before the Exile had often spoken of the relationship between God and his people as one of marriage, and that as often as the people acted in such a way as to deserve for God to “divorce” them, he took them back.  They began to see marriage between a man and woman not as merely a private affair but a sign of the covenant between God and his people.  As such, the question arose whether a husband and wife should be permitted to divorce even though they were allowed to by the Law.  God raised up the Prophet Malachi at this time, and he continued to teach the covenant of God and his people as a sacred marriage.  He went even further, God speaking through him: “For I hate divorce, says the Lord the God of Israel, and covering one’s garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless” (Malachi 2, 16).  One would think that these words would have settled the matter regarding divorce, but they did not.  The question remained as to why would Moses allow a practice that God did not will.

The Pharisees wanted to know how the Lord Jesus stood on the unresolved matter.  “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?”  His answer might contain insight for them, but by compelling him to take a stand on the question, they could turn the crowd against him, no matter what he said.  The way they phrase their question is an interesting one, for they add “for any cause whatever”, as though they meant to cause him to speak of specifics that they could question further.  Eventually, their sophistry would trap him or trip him up, they expected.  “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.”  The Lord leaps over the Law entirely and goes back to the beginning, quoting from one of the earliest passages in the Scriptures.  Putting his quote of Scripture as a question, he throws the Pharisees on the defensive and destroys their whole strategy.  “Therefore, what God has joined together, man must not separate.”  It is not a matter of “cannot” but of “must not”:  it cannot be done and it must not be attempted.

The Pharisees spoke meekly after that, shaken by the Lord’s logic and by his forthrightness.  This was not how they spoke, hemming and hawing.  “Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss her?”  This is not so much a challenge as a plea to understand.  And it is the problem that for them prevented a clear teaching.  “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.”  Since the Law was from God, Jesus implies that Moses, on his own, modified it to permit divorce.  As the Old Law was a sign of the New Law, it could be so modified, whereas the New Law, which is perfect and revealed by the Son of God, is perfect and no one dare modify it.  As a result, “I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.”  The Lord adds the phrase here translated as “unless the marriage is unlawful” to make it clear that the ban remained on incestuous unions or unions that otherwise were considered shameful.  These were not marriages but travesties of marriage.

“If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”  The objection here is that a person should not marry unless there is a way out of the marriage.  Such an attitude, of course, weakens the marriage before it is entered into.  But the Lord offers a surprising answer: not everyone is called to the married state: “Not all can accept this word, but only those to whom that is granted.”  Though some men and women lived celibately in Israel at that time, notably, Jesus himself, his Mother, and John the Baptist, and some of the Prophets, such as Jeremiah, had lived as celibates, the idea that many people might live in this way must have come as a startling revelation.  The Lord then explains: “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, there were already many people living unmarried lives for various reasons.  Living this way for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven made more sense to the popular imagination, looked at that way.  

The Lord teaches here that just as marriage between a man and a woman signify the covenant between God and his people — the New Covenant made in the Blood of Christ — so celibacy signifies the vigil the bride kept until the groom arrived at her father’s house to take her back to his house: the vigil kept by the Church until her Groom comes to tasked her to heaven.

The Lord concludes his teaching with, “Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”  The Lord adapts a Hebrew idiom to state that everyone must accept what he has taught.