Post-feast of the Transfiguration. Holy Martyrs Photius and Anicetas (284-305).
Dormition Fast.
1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Matthew 19:3-12.
Read Matthew 19:3-12
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
At the time of Jesus, there were two Rabbinic schools which had contrastingly different attitudes towards marriage. The strict school of Shammai insisted that the only excuse for divorce could be fornication, while in accordance with the school of Hillel, a man could divorce his wife on the most trivial grounds such as if she spoiled his meal, if she was going around with unbound hair, if she spoke without respect about her husband’s parents, or simply if she was too loud, so her voice could be heard in the next door house. Unfortunately, most of the Jews were in favour of the Hillel’s viewpoints and divorces were happening way too often. Therefore, the Pharisees wanted to test Jesus, and to judge him on the basis of his preference in this controversial and highly disputable matter.
Jesus’s viewpoints did not have to comply with any of the above mentioned schools. He encouraged his contemporaries to go back to the sources and to examine what was God’s original ideal of marriage as the book of Genesis described it. In the beginning, the ideal of marriage was to be found in the indestructible, flawless union of Adam and Eve. Therefore, permission of the divorce by Moses was nothing else but a concession in view of that lost ideal. The very Jewish term for marriage was Kiddushin which meant sanctification or consecration of the husband to the wife and vice versa. In accordance with the ideal of the marriage of the Genesis’ story, the husband and the wife were meant to create an unbreakable bond of mutual sacred peculiar possession in the image of an offering in the Temple that becomes God’s exclusive possession. That was the ideal to which Jesus called his followers.
“Not everyone could accept this teaching, but only those to whom it was given” (Mt. 19, 11). That means that we cannot build the ideal marriage by ourselves, if we were not granted to do so from above. The relationships in the true Christian marriage are in fact a vivid reflection of our relationships with the living God. Only by the guidance of the Holy Spirit we can establish, maintain and develop the authentic marital partnership that presupposes sacrifices, forgiveness, understanding and self-giving love. As William Barclay nicely put it in his exegesis of the Gospel according to St Matthew,: “Marriage should not narrow life; it should complete it. For both partners it must bring a new fullness, a new satisfaction, a new contentment into life. It is the union of two personalities in which the two complete each other. That does not mean that adjustments, and even sacrifices, have not to be made; but it does mean that the final relationship is fuller, more joyous, more satisfying than any life in singleness could be.”