Today, marriage is the subject of a lot of attention and controversy. There is a lot of disagreement about what marriage is. Nonetheless, today everyone is pro-marriage. This consensus about the importance of marriage conjoined to an ever-greater emphasis upon the ambiguity of marriage points to a remarkable irony. Everyone recognizes that marriage is essential for individuals, culture, and society. And yet, today, the precise meaning and life-long permanence of marriage is called into question. How can something so emphasized and so appreciated lack specific shape and lasting permanence?
The modern mind conceives of marriage as something that originates from human consensus. The thought process goes like this: Marriage is something that human beings do. Thus, it is something that they can undo—or redo. Marriage is something that we formulate or create—and, consequently, it is something that we can reformulate or recreate. Today’s discussions about marriage suggest that we often regard marriage in exclusively human terms.
In today’s gospel, the Pharisees attempt to discuss marriage with Jesus. They ask, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” The Gospel of Saint Mark explains that, through this question, the Pharisees “were testing Jesus.” We notice the centrality of the law in their question. They ask Jesus about marriage, but their question is framed around precepts and legal obligations. Their understanding of marriage is configured around the law.
Our Lord’s response, however, is configured around a different center. He says that “from the beginning of creation, 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.” Jesus teaches the truth about marriage. Our Lord agrees that marriage is important. But he disagrees with the sentiment that the nature of marriage originates from the law. The question of marriage is not merely a legal question. It is a theological question.
Jesus explains that God is the author of human persons and human relationships, both. God creates human persons as male or female. He is the ultimate and supreme origin of human nature and identity. No one self-creates. Human nature is a gift from God—a gift that reflects his eternal wisdom, goodness, and love. God is the author of what human persons are.
The shape of fulfilling human relationships is also something instituted by God. And he is the origin of the most intimate of all human relationships: marriage. Jesus explains: “what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” Matrimony is something that God does in and through husbands and wives. God establishes the identity of man and woman. God also establishes the nature of marital union between a man and a woman.
Our Lord’s point is both simple and profound: in order to understand the meaning of marriage we have to understand God. The sacrament of marriage only exists and is only intelligible in relation to God. God is an essential principle of marriage.
Today’s Gospel, thus, invites us to reconsider ourselves—our own identities and our own relationships—in reference to God. He is the ultimate origin of our being and our existence. Every human bond flourishes insofar as it reflects God’s wisdom and love. Consequently, no one will fully understand who they are in themselves or what marital intimacy means without God.
