Grace and Space

Mk 10:2-16 [or 10:2-12]
The question about marriage and divorce in Mark’s Gospel takes place after Jesus leaves Capernaum and goes to the district of Judea across the Jordan. Geographically, Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, where he will face his enemies for the last time. 
In this section, he is confronted by the Pharisees, who represent Jesus’ opposition in Mark’s Gospel. The question which they pose to him deals with divorce alone: “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” (v 2). This is a religious, legal question. It is a test, as Mark indicates.
The legal answer is found in Deuteronomy (24:1), which permitted divorce. Instead of answering the legal question himself, Jesus asks the legal experts to give the answer. Their reply, that Moses permitted a bill of divorce to be written (cf v 4), is quite correct.
But Jesus moves the question beyond the legal sphere to the divine sphere, that is, to the intention of God in instituting marriage: Moses wrote the commandment for the people because of the hardness of their hearts. To accuse people of being “hard of heart” is to accuse them of one of the greatest sins. This means that they are not teachable and that they fail to obey the higher law of God contained in the very Torah which they quote. Because of their failure to keep the higher law, Moses dispensed them from it and gave them permission to divorce.
The greater law, the intent of the Creator, is permanence. God did not initiate divorce; God initiated marriage. “God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother [and be joined to his wife], and the two shall become one flesh” (vv 6-8). Jesus’ declaration, “What God has joined together, no human being must separate” (v 9), reinstates the permanence of marriage for the Marcan community.
After this pronouncement, the scene changes. Jesus and his disciples move “in the house” (v 10), which indicates that Mark is updating Jesus’ teaching and applying it to the members of his community.
The question is no longer divorce; now the question is one of sin. First, on the part of the man: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her” (v 11). Then Mark applies this teaching to Gentile Christian women, who were living under Greco-Roman law, which permitted a woman to divorce her husband. Jesus states, “And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (v 12). Men and women are equal in human dignity. Divorce shames both of them.