Martin Scorsese, the film director, tells a story about a time when his young daughter came up to him with an idea for a movie. Her suggestion was that in order to make a great movie Scorsese should just “find out what people like to see and make a movie about that.” This naïve thinking is how many of us approach the will of God. “Just find out the right thing to do and do that.”
In Matthew 5:31-32, Jesus prohibits divorce in all but the most extreme circumstances. In general, most of us would agree that divorce is not ideal. However, none of us live “in general.” It is easy to look at the idea of divorce in the abstract and say, “just don't do it,” but when it comes to specific abusive, unhealthy, adulterous situations, sometimes it is hard to know exactly which of the terrible options constitutes the will of God.
Jesus' teaching on divorce, like all of Christ's teachings, was to challenge the prevailing wisdom of what righteousness looked like. How, then, can we now look at a divorced man or woman, and assume that we know where they stand?
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