[Peace-discuss] RE: Jesus on sexual immorality and divorce

[Karen Medina]

Phil Stinard wrote:
> Getting up, He went from there to the region of Judea and beyond the 
> Jordan; crowds gathered around Him again, and, according to His custom, 
> He once more began to teach them. Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, 
> testing Him, and began to question Him whether it was lawful for a man 
> to divorce a wife. And He answered and said to them, "What did Moses 
> command you?" They said, "Moses permitted a man TO WRITE A CERTIFICATE 
> OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY." But Jesus said to them, "Because of your 
> hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning 
> of creation, God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE. FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL 
> LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH; so they 
> are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined 
> together, let no man separate." In the house the disciples began 
> questioning Him about this again. And He said to them, "Whoever divorces 
> his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if 
> she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is 
> committing adultery."

Phil, be careful reading the words individually. Between each word and 
each line, read in love.

My interpretation: Marriage is indeed the manifestation of two becoming 
one and it also something more than two. Marriage is a third being, 
stronger than the individuals alone. It is a way for two people to 
become more than they can be alone.

The coolest thing about marriage and adoption is that they are a way for 
  people to become related to each other by choice. We cannot choose who 
our relatives are. But yet we can, through adoption and through 
marriage, invite someone else to become a member of our family. Marriage 
is love lived out.

When an invitation is made and accepted for one person to join you as a 
member of your family, and more importantly, as a new part of yourself, 
that joining will never go back to being unrelated individuals.

Leaving the Bible, unfortunately there sometimes comes a time when the 
most loving thing a person can do is to detach oneself from another 
person: for instance when one is enabling the other to be overly 
dependent or one of the members is violent and cannot escape the 
well-worn patterns. Separation is the most painful experience I have 
ever experienced -- it feels like something is dying, the third living 
being which the marriage brought into existence dies. The two people 
become less than 3; the two people become less than the two they were. 
But sometimes this is the most loving thing someone can do. Hatred for 
one's self or one's spouse is not loving them. Sometimes, in rare 
occasions, love is best lived out by letting go.

Love. Love is the set of glasses that we should be viewing the world 
through.

-karen medina