Jesus is no stranger to opposing camps trying to find out where his loyalties really lie. The scribes and Pharisees lie in wait constantly for Jesus’ teaching to get him on the wrong side of someone. That’s what’s happening in today’s difficult Gospel reading. Before we snatch up Jesus’ words to support our views of marriage or to condemn those whose marriages have failed, let’s take a look at what’s happening in this passage.
In Jesus’ day, Jewish scholars were at odds over divorce. Yes, the Law that God gave to God’s people in Deuteronomy was clear: a man could definitely divorce his wife. (It was always the men, by the way, who could do the divorcing in the patriarchal first-century world.) Even with such a clear law, there were, of course, details to argue about. The issue for the rabbis was remarriage, as well as what would constitute grounds for divorce. Could a woman be turned out because she burned the pita bread? Or did she have to do something worse, like get caught in adultery? The Pharisees want to know if Jesus is going to uphold this Law, and which side he will take. What interpretation will he bring to scripture? Or will he dismiss the whole problem and thereby prove himself to be the heretic that they believe he is? What’s interesting for us is that Jesus doesn’t play the debating game with them at all. Jesus refuses to join sides in the rabbis’ debate. Instead, he pushes the question to the extreme
Modern rhetorical scholars call Jesus’ technique “over-acceptance.” Actors involved in improvisation do it all the time. Some of you might remember Jonathan Winters or Robin Williams using this technique, pushing comedy to the extreme. They left their fellow actors standing with mouths agape, forced to reconsider their next lines. Today, as we approach the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, I immediately thought of another example: the story of St. Francis and his father. A bishop had ordered young Francis to repay his father some money that he had taken from the family business. Francis needed the money to obey the revelation that he had received to rebuild the church. St. Francis did more than give back the money. When asked to repay his father, Francis stripped off all of his clothes and dumped them at his father’s feet, standing naked before the town. Francis had “over-accepted” the bishop’s demand, giving much more than was asked of him! Over-accepting is a way to make a point that goes beyond what a simple reply can do. Jesus uses this technique to stay ahead of his enemies. But he also uses it to shake us out of our complacency, to prevent us from settling into easy rule-bound ways of thinking.
Theologian Sam Wells argues that our whole Gospel is a story of God’s over-acceptance. “In the annunciation and the nativity,” he writes, “God over-accepts human life. He doesn’t reject his people, nor does he simply accept them: Instead, he comes among them as a Jew... [And then] in the resurrection, God shows that even the worst offer, the execution of the Son of God, can be over-accepted - even death and all its grim causes can become part of the story [of new, everlasting life]."[1]
So what does this mean for us, for us who seek to follow an over-accepting Lord? How do we follow Jesus’ lead through our own divided land? Certainly, concerning divorce, Jesus knows, as do any of us who have been through it, that the ties of marriage can’t be broken without deep pain. We know that what God has joined together comes apart only in broken pieces, with the tattered bonds trailing behind us like sad rags wherever we go. Jesus doesn’t flinch from this difficult reality. But his strong words are not meant to establish new laws in our divorce courts, either. They are not aimed directly at the joy that might be found in a happy second marriage. They are meant to break through the limiting arguments of the religious scholars of his day. They are meant to take us off of our ideological high horses. They are meant to point to our common dependence on God’s grace.
New Testament scholar Kathy Grieb wonders if Mark doesn’t purposefully include the story of Jesus taking the child in his arms with the debate about divorce. She believes that Mark wants to show us that the reign of God is open to all who receive it in the way that only a little child can receive it: “as sheer gift to those with no power, no rights, no demands, no status, and no sense of their own achievement.”[2] The over-accepting God who became a little child holds all of us sinners in a loving embrace.
Perhaps what we need to hear amid the din of political posturing—are words of mercy. Mercy for me, for you, for those that we condemn, as well as for those that we love. Any stand that we take on the questions of our day must be grounded in and focused on the never-failing compassion and mercy of our loving God--mercy that is, in the poetry of TS Eliot, “A condition of complete simplicity/(Costing not less than everything).”[3] The divine mercy of over-acceptance is greater than any solution that we can imagine for ourselves.
[1] Sam Wells, quoted in Jill Dufield, http://pres-outlook.org/2015/10/27th-sunday-in-ordinary-time-october-4-2015/
[2] Kathy Grieb, “Blogging toward Sunday.” http://theolog.org/2009/09/blogging-toward-sunday-is-it-lawful.html.
[3] T.S. Elliot, from “Little Giddings.”
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