Test Questions

When is a teaching about marriage and divorce, not about marriage and divorce?

Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them,” What did Moses command you? They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw with, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. Mark 10:2-16 NRSV

Over the years people have had a lot to say about this passage on divorce, and a lot of it has missed the point. Sometimes people spend significant time discussing the ins and outs of Jewish versus Roman divorce laws. There is a diversity of information available on this topic causing biblical scholars and historians to debate what exactly the rules around divorce were in the first century for both Jews and Romans. As interesting as those discussions are, we won’t be going there today.

Recently, some have used this passage as an argument against same sex marriage or the existence of transgender people because Jesus quotes Genesis. “God made them male and female.” and “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 problem with this interpretation is that in this text, neither the religious elites nor Jesus was thinking about or talking about same sex marriage or gender identity.¹

The main way we miss Jesus’ point is by trying to make his statement into some sort of new commandment. But Jesus is talking about healthy, life giving marriage as part of God’s intention for the world. And not unlike what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mound, what God desires and what humans can achieve are not the same thing. Recall how Jesus calls for his followers to rethink what they know about human relationships. “You have heard it said…. But I say to you”. Jesus goes on to redefine anger, and insult as kinds of murder and looking lustfully as adultery. The problem is the multiple ways we regularly fall short of God’s hopes for us. The complete cure for that comes with life in the fully realized kingdom of God. Jesus repeatedly calls us to move past the settled ways we live and enter into a way of living that is consistent with God’s kingdom. We move and live imperfectly into this new way of living. Jesus is doing a similar thing here concerning marriage. God’s ideal exists. And then there is the very less than ideal human reality in which we live.

But there is something else going on here, that we don’t often talk about. Why is this a test? And what are the stakes involved in this test?

The religious elites come to test Jesus. This happens several times in the gospels². People come with a “gotcha” question hoping to get Jesus in trouble with some authorities, preferably official Roman authorities. In another text, they ask about paying taxes to the empire. Often when asked one of these test questions, Jesus turns it back on the ones asking, with “What do you think?” Many times they don’t answer.

In this passage, the religious elites ask, Jesus turns the question back to them, and they have the answer. They don’t waffle or dance around, they plainly state what Moses taught. Now we are to wonder, why are they asking the question? Asking a question that you know the answer to suggests you have another agenda.

Jesus’ answer moves the question from legalities to God’s intentions for humankind in the kingdom of God. Interestingly, the disciples ask Jesus about this again when they are “in the house”, meaning they are asking privately. Why would they do that? What couldn’t have been said publicly? Was there something dangerous about answering this question?

Here we need to remember a little history because this isn’t simply a religious question- it’s a politically charged question. Remember the intent of these tests is to get Jesus in trouble with someone- the authorities or to cause the crowds to stop listening to him and following him. We need to recall the story in Mark 6 of John the Baptist. Herod Antipas had divorced his wife and married his brother’s wife Herodias. Things are somewhat unclear but it appears Herodias divorced her husband Philip (the son of Herod the Great). This may be why Jesus private response includes both men and women divorcing spouses. John the Baptist told Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” ³ (Mark 6:18) Herod, unsurprisingly doesn’t like this. John the Baptist is imprisoned and ultimately beheaded.

Given all this, the religious elites’ questions about marriage and divorce could be about more than simply what’s legal. There are dangerous political implications depending on how one answers the question. Which may explain why the disciples asked about it in private.

Biblical scholar NT Wright has this to say:

“A Christian in Mark’s day, and Mark’s church, saying that divorce was forbidden would not have needed to keep this teaching secret. The matter might well have been controversial, but nothing in the context of the early church suggests that it would have been an issue to be discussed only behind closed doors. But if someone in the Jordan valley, in the reign of Herod Antipas, were to proclaim in public that people who divorced and remarried were adulterers, then they were asking for trouble. The last prophet who said things like that had not lived long afterwards. Better to leave the crowds to puzzle over a cryptic saying (‘What god has joined, humans should not divide’), and explain things to the disciples in private”⁴

Questions about marriage and divorce require our serious thought and discussion. At the same time, this passage in Mark has multiple dimensions. This is not an attempt to have Jesus definitively declare what the rules are for marriage and divorce. This is an attempt to have Herod as upset with Jesus as he was with John the Baptist. This is another ‘gotcha’ question and we know that because Mark tells us this was a test- “to test him they asked”.

This text is a prime example of why we need to be careful when we look for “lessons” and “applications” and “rules” in scripture. Reading to find “the answer” to our questions can cause us to miss what else is present in the text. There are lessons and applications and rules to be found in scripture. But they may not be what we think they are. Perhaps this text is a lesson in how to avoid political and legal traps. Perhaps this is a lesson in how to choose your battles. Perhaps Jesus wanted to remind us all that the world we live in is accommodated to the realities of finite and limited humans and that life in the kingdom of God will be so much more. Perhaps there is more than one lesson to be learned. We need to read carefully. Fortunately the gospel authors leave us clues. We also need to have some historical and cultural knowledge. This can feel daunting, I know. That’s why we read scripture in community, with our fellow Christians and with Biblical scholars.

This week’s passage concludes with a scene shift. We are not in the house with just Jesus and the disciples. Jesus is back out in public. Do the last verses of this week’s text sound familiar? “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.” It was just in the previous chapter, chapter 9 that Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”(Mark 9:36-37)

In Mark 9 this statement is just after the apostles were arguing about who would be the greatest. And in chapter 10 the invitation to children comes after a tense and dangerous discussion. It’s almost as if, we are being reassured that life in the kingdom of God is not performative. It is not about being great or living perfectly or having all the answers. It is not about battling the authorities everytime you are invited to.

What does it mean to receive the kingdom as a child? Children then and now can only receive. They are without power. Or riches. Or answers. Children are who they are. They are themselves without the posturing and ego and pride of adults. Children come to the kingdom with trust and curiosity and vulnerability. And that is how we are to come as well. We begin living in the kingdom of God now and in the days to come with the trusty and curiosity and vulnerability of children.

1. How we interpret these Genesis texts is a topic for another day. But neither of them is an irrefutable case for cisgender people or heterosexual marriage. ↩︎
2. For example see. Matt 16:1-4; 19:3-12; 22:15-22. Mark 8:11-13, 10:2-12,12:13-17. Luke 11:16-23. John 8:1-11. These are verses with “test” in them, some of them describe the same event. Other questions that were asked may also have been “tests”. ↩︎
3. see Leviticus 18:16 and 20;21 for the prohibition about marrying a brother’s wife while the brother is alive. ↩︎
4. N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, (Fortress Press: 1996) Pages 397-398. See also
   “The Gospel of Mark, Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections” Pheme Perkins in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Volume VIII (Abingdon Press: 1994) pages 597-598; 642-646. ↩︎