Yet another test! Jesus must have scanned every group of people who came to hear him, wondering who it was that would try to trap him this time. If he saw Pharisees there, he would speak his message, ever conscious that that any moment the trap would be set. Not seeing Pharisees present would be worse. Now he would speak, watching faces, trying to spot the person primed to pounce.

We have all watched politicians being thrown off course by hecklers. Usually they are ‘escorted’ from the premises by nice security people, and if they happen to fall against a metal post or a closed door on their way out … well, accidents happen! Jesus, thankfully, did not expect his apostles to use such stringent measures, though they did see themselves in some ways as responsible for crowd control. In today’s longer version of the Gospel, we see them ‘rebuke’ (maybe even ‘escort’ them away!) parents who were bringing children to Jesus to be blessed, and on another occasion they tell a blind man to ‘sit back down and shut up’ because he was interrupting Jesus. And goodness! When the authorities came to arrest Jesus, Peter and the others drew swords and were ready to take on all comers.

This almost constant testing of Jesus must have been upsetting, annoying and a source of tension for him. The Pharisees were scholars of the Law of Moses, the daily prayers and rituals every Jewish person lived by. They knew the Law of Moses inside out and surely felt they could entwine Jesus in legal intricacies without much effort. After all, Jesus was just the son of a carpenter from a backwater village in Galilee, with no education other than the basic religious education all boys received between the ages of six or seven and ten or eleven.

And yet, time and time again, Jesus deflected their questions, usually silencing them by asking one of his own. It must have frustrated them endlessly that he somehow managed to avoid entering their narrow, binary world of right and wrong, good or evil.

Questioning Jesus on marriage and divorce must have felt like an easy way to trap him. Today, as in Jesus’ day, marriage, divorce, remarriage, etc. are/were very emotive topics, with people taking sides and defending them vehemently in heated arguments and debates.

The Law of Moses did allow divorce (only for a man, but that’s another debate!). Just like today the problems arose when trying to define the circumstances where a man might be allowed to divorce his wife. The Law said that a man could divorce his wife for ‘indecency’. But what exactly is ‘indecency’?  Adultery is obvious, but what else might be classed ‘indecency’? Having a affair? Neglecting children or husband? Abandoning the family altogether? Sexual immorality other than adultery? Stealing or over-spending? Burning his dinner (I don’t jest!) and so on…and on…and on. There was no real agreement on this, each faction holding their own view and allowing no other.

The question they asked Jesus was a clever one forcing him, they thought, to list his reasons for allowing divorce, thereby angering everyone with a different view. No matter how he answered, they thought, he would alienate many others.

If Jesus had allowed himself to enter into their extremely narrow “this-is-allowed-and-this-isn’t” world view he would surely have been trapped, sinking into a smaller and smaller, ever more petty war of words. What Jesus did was, I think, brilliant. Firstly, he reminded them of their narrow-mindedness and intransigence, refusing to enter it himself. Then, beautifully, he held out to them the original intention of God for marriage, and quoted for them from the Book of Genesis, a vision of marriage that is truly beautiful and affirming.

“Can’t you see….” Jesus tells these Pharisees, “…how narrow and closed your minds are? The God you present to people is a God of exceptions; a God of trivial, unimportant details; a God who is as mean-minded as you are, niggling over words and phrases. The God who created us in his own image, is a God of infinite love and compassion. Marriage, God intended, is to be a visible embodiment of that Love; where two people come together out of love, become one new entity because of love, and have the possibility of bringing about new life to continue the wonder of love.”

Instead of allowing himself to be drawn into a closed, vindictive argument about reasons for divorce he showed them the wonder and beauty of a God who wants nothing other than that we love one another.

This is the God we, too, are called to make known to our world. When we are assailed by debates and arguments which try to force us to take sides, telling us that not to do so is weakness, it would be good to think of Jesus standing in front of those who came with negative agendas, seeking to undermine and destroy him.

It must have been extraordinarily difficult for Jesus to say “Love your enemies. Do good to those who persecute you”, and preach about a Kingdom of love, acceptance and compassion when he knew that even as he spoke some of his listeners were plotting against him. By focusing on the God he had come to know in prayer and reflection, Jesus was able to rise above the fundamentalism of those who saw life only in black and white, and he opened to his hearers a world of breathtaking colour and endless possibilities. Faced with a question about reasons why divorce might be allowed, Jesus could say, “this is not what God intended or wanted. From the beginning of creation in intended marriage to be an expression of love and life and beauty. And even though this is not always possible or achievable, it is still our focus and it is that to which we witness.”

Our focus must be on a God who is Love; on Jesus, risen from the dead; and on the Holy Spirit who lives within each of us. We must refuse to accept the word of those who say there is only right and wrong, good and evil in our world. We must not allow ourselves to accept that there are only ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’ and that enemies must be destroyed. That is the world of strike and counterstrike; a world where there is only victory or defeat, and where peace is no more than an empty ideal.

Our world must be a world of colour and possibilities. We preach acceptance of difference and tolerance of those who challenge us. We preach that between black and white there is grey (at least fifty shades of it!). We preach a humanity created in God’s image and likeness, where forgiveness is always possible, where ‘enemy’ can become ‘friend’, where hate can be transformed into love.

More difficult is that we are called not just to preach this message of hope, but to witness to it. We are called to sow and plant it in our own hearts, in our families and in our communities. It is the Prayer of St. Francis come to life: “where there is hatred let me sow love; here there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.”

Think about it: Doesn’t our world seems to be presently governed by the words ‘hatred, injury, doubt, despair, darkness, sadness?’ Our news bulletins, our social media, our politics, our societies, even the very fabric of our planet seem governed by their negativity and hopelessness. When I look into my own heart, I am forced to admit that some – maybe all – of them are present to an extent that shames me.

While I must admit this to myself, I must never allow myself to accept it as inevitable or intended by God. The other side of the words: Love, pardon, faith, hope, light, and joy are just as real and just as possible. Within us; within our families; within our politics; within our societies; for our planet these also live and can be seen. Our call is to witness to them by the way we think, speak and act.

The narrow black and white world sees only two possibilities for everything: Love or hate; darkness or light, hope ordespair, injury or pardon, sadness or joy. We are told we must categorise people and groups and countries as one or the other. While it is easy to do this, and maybe it is even expected of us, it is a false world view that we must reject.

The truth is that within me, within my family, within my community, within society, within our planet there is love andhate; injury and pardon; doubt and faith; despair and hope; darkness and light; sadness and joy. This is the reality of our lives. Sometimes we see them at war within us. Sometimes we see them as a tension lurking in the background. Sometimes we see them as a fine Viennese waltz, dancing together within us.

All of them exist side by side deep within us. Accepting this as true is the first step towards a life of colour and possibility. The second and most important step is accepting that they also exist side by side in all of us. In Iran and Israel, in Republicans and Democrats, in Tories and Labour, in believer and nonbeliever, in billionaire and pauper all of these things coexist side by side and all of them are possible and can be chosen.

As Christians our call is to move more and more towards love, pardon, faith, hope, light, and joy, and to move more and more away from hatred, injury, doubt, despair, darkness and sadness. It is not either/or; it is not one and not the other. As we live, we move, sometimes slowly, sometimes very fast between love and hate, joy and sorrow, injury and pardon, etc.

I wonder what would happen if everyone living in Iran and everyone living in Israel woke up this morning accepting as true that there is love living and possible in every Iranian person and every Israeli person. You see, if there is only ‘friend’ or ‘enemy’ then there can never be common ground. It is in acknowledging that there is love and hate, injury and forgiveness, hope and despair within all of us that we find common ground on which to build.

Listening to the Gospel Sunday after Sunday we can imagine that coming from a culture very far from us, and from an era long gone, it has little to say to us that is relevant to our times. This week’s Gospel, I think, shows us how untrue that is.

The God Jesus had come to know was a personal, loving, close and gentle God. The Kingdom he revealed to us was a Kingdom of peace, tolerance and compassion. Everything he said and did bore witness to that God.

When faced with negativity and narrow-mindedness he spoke of openness and hope. We too are called to witness to hope in our world. Just as Jesus was surrounded by people seeking to subvert his message, so too we are surrounded by people and situations which test and challenge us. We are called to be a people of hope and joy, people of the Resurrection of Jesus.

The wonder of our lives is that the Resurrection means that Jesus lives within us. He is with us when times are tough and when hope and joy seem distant. Jesus trusted in the God he had come to know in prayer and in experience. Truly, we can trust in the same God.

Many thanks,

Brian.

If you have any comments, questions or thoughts on this scripture reflection, please feel welcome to email me at b.maher@oblates.ie

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