Ordinary Days #15: Jesus and the Law

“Is it lawful…” (Matthew 19:3)

Jesus seemed to always get in trouble with the law; or, with lawyerly types. Here’s a complicated example (Mt 19:3-9):

Some Pharisees came to Jesus, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?" Jesus answered, "Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning '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, let no one separate." The Pharisees said to him, "Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?" Jesus responded. "It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery."

It is a lawyerly argument concerning one of Moses’ supposals: “Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something indecent about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house” (Dt 24:1). What does “something indecent” mean? The Pharisees figured it meant most anything that offended her husband, such as going outdoors with her hair down. If a Pharisee had gone through several such divorces, you had to figure he was a very righteous man since these serial wives failed to live up to his righteous standards. 

Jesus puts an end to the pretense. They had figured out a legal way to commit adultery while claiming to be righteous. Jesus does some lawyerly work himself. They called it a “command”—they were simply following God’s command. Jesus points out that it says nothing about a “command;” but rather a supposal—something Moses allowed “because you were so hard-hearted.” Then Jesus puts Moses’ supposal into the big Torah story: “From the beginning…” Jesus adds what preachers say, after the kiss, at every wedding ceremony: “Those whom God has joined together, let no one separate.” We got it from Jesus.