Jesus & Divorce

Mark 10:1-16

Here are some thoughts that Paul Palumbo and I came up with this afternoon:

This is only a test....

Maybe it means something that this is a test for Jesus (verse 2). Is the real conversation that the Pharisees want to have about divorce, or about something else?

A man shall leave...

Paul wondered if humans beings got this wrong from the get go. That is, maybe a man is supposed to leave his family (as it says in Genesis and here), so if we give anyone "away" at weddings, it should be the groom rather than the bride. Maybe there was a word here to help us break apart patriarchy (or alleviate testosterone poisoning--Paul's words, not mine), and we missed it.

One flesh...

We agreed that this really happens, hence the great pain around the end of a marriage, no matter what the circumstances. There's a gaping hole, a lot of blood lost, and a big scar--which pop psychologists might prefer to call "baggage" but which is probably more accurately referred to as scar tissue.

Healing Jesus...

All the talk of tearing flesh from flesh made me think about what Jesus has done in relationship to disfigured people so far in the gospel:

• He cleanses a leper (1:40-45).
• He forgives the sins of a paralytic and gives him back his legs (2:1-12).
• He restores the man with the whithered hand (3:1-5).
• He feels power go forth from him when a woman with a hemorrhage touches him for healing, and
• He takes hold of a corpse's hand to raise a dead little girl to life again (5:21-43).
• He heals the Syrophoenician woman's daughter from a distance.
• He puts his fingers in a deaf man's ears and on the man's tongue to give him hearing and speech (7:31-37).
• He puts spit on the eyes of a blind man, then tries again in order to get the healing right (8:22-26).
• He takes a boy with an unclean spirit by the hand and heals him (9:14-28)

I'm struck by how "in the flesh" all of these activities are. Jesus is a body, healing other bodies. If Jesus can do all these things, surely he can also heal the flesh-from-flesh wound that divorce is.

Private teaching to the disciples...

I don't have any idea what to make of vv. 10-12. We have probably all heard sermons that tell us how "radically egalitarian" this is, since traditionally only men could be the victims of a woman's adultery, not the other way around. Ho hum. I take no comfort in an even-handed statement of all remarriage as adultery. And frankly, the New Testament witness elsewhere offers no similar blanket statements, but seems instead interested in working out exceptions to the rule (cf. the parallel text in Matthew, and Paul's thoughts on the topic in 1 Cor. 7).

Comments

[Don]

I'm a divorced missionary pastor. spent 14 yrs in ministry in Thailand. Had to leave the three boys there. Ouch.

Flesh from flesh...healing. That helps. Thanks. I am also interested in seeing the family as a social construct.."what God has put together." after the pieces were scattered

Warmly in Christ,

Rev. Dr. Donald S. Persons
Evanston, IL

[GENE]

TO BAD TOO MANY PEOPLE WANT TO IGNORE THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS JUST BECAUSE IT'S INCONVEINANT
FOR THEM, OR THEY JUST DON WANT TO DO WHAT HE SAYS. I THINK WE ARE SUPOSE TO PUT GOD FIRST IN OUR LIFE. ITS NOT ALWAYS EASY, AND SOME PEOPLE JUST MAKE IT HARD FOR THEMSELVES. LIFE ISN'T ALWAYS FAIR, DON'T FORGET THERE IS A LIFE AFTER THIS ONE.

DON'T TWIST GOD'S WORD TO FIT WHAT YOU LIKE. TRY TWISTING YOUR LIFE TO FIT GOD'S WORD. THE BIBLE IS NOT THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND. SOMETIMES WHAT WE UNDERSTAND IS HARD.

[Mark]

I am struck by the three dynamics of the text. At first, Jesus discloses that "Moses" (meaning the Torah that supposedly was give to Moses by God)actually accommodates human weakness. Then, the strict demands of fidelity and covenant seem not at all accommodating to human weakness. Then, Jesus is altogether accommodating to children, in some respects the weakest and most vulnerable to us all. Hmm....

[Rev. Tony W. Bouwmeester]

These days we do marriage all backwards. If we listen to Genesis as quoted by Jesus we find there are three steps toward marriage: Leave mother and father, cleave together, and become one.
Most couples I marry are now already living together. In that sense they may claim they have left mother and father, true in a geographical sense, most often disastrous in a psychological sense. There is usually a lot of cleaning up to do in the memories of the family of origin. Mother and Father need to let go. And often the couple needs to deal with a lot of stuff that happened in the past.
Cleaving together, an old Germanic word meaning being glued is for a good part the public ceremony where the couple make vows to each other and tell the world we belong together no one interfere.
Finally becoming one, the sexual act of loving procreation together.
If we would be honest most of us would have to admit that we have done this backwards. First becoming one, then the ceremony, with one of two of our children as ring-bearers and finally when we are in a good deal of trouble, listening to the voices of the family of origin we go for counseling, most times after the separation.
Is it any wonder marriage as we thought we knew it is in trouble?