On the 50th wedding anniversary of the great Henry Ford, someone asked him what his secret for marital success and happiness was. “Just the same as in the automobile industry, Ford replied, stick to one model.” Jesus taught the same 2000 years ago, as we read in today’s gospel. “Some Pharisees came [to Jesus], and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” (Mark 10:2). What is going on here? Why is it a temptation? Well, to start with, the Pharisee never had any doubts about the dissolubility of marriage. The Old Testament Law took the lawfulness of divorce and remarriage for granted and all the Pharisees accepted that. It says: If a man takes a wife, and after they are married she is unpleasing to him because of something objectionable in her, let him give her a statement in writing and send her away from his house. 2 And when she has gone away from him, she may become another man's wife. (Deuteronomy 24:1-2) The only disagreement among the various schools of the Pharisees was: What is the meaning of this “something objectionable” that a husband would find in his wife to justify divorce? The conservative school of Rabbi Shammai said it meant only a case of scandal, like adultery. The liberal school of Rabbi Hillel said it meant any case of annoyance, “even if she has burned his supper.” And the even more liberal school of Rabbi Aqiba said that the woman did not have to be guilty of anything; that the man simply no longer fancied her was enough reason for divorce. This was a trap because if Jesus took sides with one school of thought, he would antagonise himself with the others. In reply Jesus went above the law as given in Deuteronomy to the mind of God as revealed in Genesis. He went from the Mosaic law to the divine plan in creation. From the beginning of creation, he said, God ordained husband and wife to live in unity. “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Mark 10:9). Jesus’ reply underlines two important points. First point, Jesus treats the woman as a person. Earlier Jewish law treated her as property of the man to be disposed of at will. In fact, here for the first time in Hebrew literature (verse 12) we hear not just of the man divorcing the woman but also of the woman taking the initiative to divorce the man. Jesus treats the woman as a legal person equal to the man. Second point, Jesus is interested in teaching not legal statements but moral principles. They asked him whether divorce was lawful, his reply was that the mind of God is for husband and wife never to separate. The asked him about what was lawful, he told them what was best for them, what they should always strive for. For in Christ “All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up” (1 Corinthians 10:23). With this ideal in mind Jesus reinterprets the Mosaic provision that a man could divorce his wife by giving her a letter of divorce. It was not a permission to divorce. It was rather Moses making allowance for the people’s “hardness of heart.”This implies that Moses knew the divine ideal for husband and wife and still did not enforce it but rather made room for the shortcomings of his people. In fact, viewed against its cultural background, the provision to divorce with a letter was not to facilitate separation of husband and wife but to protect the unity of marriage. What form of divorce did the Hebrews practice before Moses gave them the law? It was probably the same “triple express” rule that obtained among their Semitic neighbours, whereby a woman was considered divorced if her husband pronounced a divorce formula three times in the presence of witnesses. By oral statement alone a divorce could be concluded in an instant in a fit of anger. But requiring a letter of divorce in a culture where only the temple priests could read and write meant that a divorce process could take months to conclude. This would give the couple time to sleep over it, and friends and family members to mediate and resolve the conflict. The demand for a letter of divorce saved many marriages that would have ended in a hasty divorce in the old “triple express” system. The Pharisees focussed on the law and overlooked the ideal. So do we. One of the most rigorous laws the missionaries brought to Africa was the ban on polygamy. They applied it strictly even in the case of those who were validly married before the arrival of Christianity. In Europe and America the thorn in the flesh is divorce and remarriage. Neither polygamy nor divorce and remarriage is the ideal. Should the church in our time, like Moses the lawgiver, make some room for the “hardness of heart” of the people of God today? Some people think so. After all, they argue, are we any better than the people of God of old? Let us pray for Church leaders in our time, that the Holy Spirit may guide them to present the ideals of the gospel in ways that will be seen as practical and realistic to men and women of today.