Omitting v.1 as the Lectionary does misses the point that though JES is moving south, closer to where he will accomplish his Passion, here he's out in the geographical margins, 'across the Jordan'. Though Pharisees appear, he is out beyond the major sphere of influence of the Jerusalem heavies. Heavies, & hard-liners, call them what we will, are by nature antipathetic to the Gospel. Beware!
The Pharisees, apparently maliciously opportunistic, set about embroiling JES in one of the hottest topics of that society, divorce & re-marriage.

Inevitably today we'll be preaching to a congregation in which there will be divorcees, re-married or not. Empathy even more than sensitivity is the name of the game. Here but for God's grace go I. In all my inevitable pain, sense of failure, of being cheated of someone or something, all the complicated arrangements that have had to be made to meet legal & personal requirements... Those caught up in these 'arrangements' all have names & faces. Children, parents, siblings, rivals, etc., etc.

This is the only occasion that comes to mind when JES is as hard-line as this. It's one of his 'hard sayings'. Appropriately enough it's directed at what translates directly as 'hard-heartedness'. What might that mean in all our personal margins? Though JES condemns divorce as an institution - or is he really condemning the necessity for divorce? - I think he is - he doesn't damn the divorced person. The union of man & woman in marriage is a sacrament of our union with God. (Homosexual 'marriage' is another issue altogether.) The breach of a marriage, for whatever reason, is, like the fruit of that tree in the Garden of Eden, a sacrament of our separation from God as well as from each other. No-one does more than God to bridge all our separations, including this one, but we still, all of us, have to walk across that bridge. JES, God's Bridge, embraces a divorced person no less than any other. Surely they need an even bigger divine hug?!

In condemning re-marriage as adultery (I know there are many & learned treatises on the subject!) is JES doing other than protecting the integrity / persona of the person(s) divorced? Adultery is an anti- sacrament of our relationship with God, a recurring biblical metaphor of how easy it is to be unfaith- ful to the One True God. The culture of that day provided far fewer choices than we ourselves are used to in the matter of relationships. Perhaps for that very reason what JES says here stands out as marking the importance of decision making when we reach that critical point at which we choose between partners, divine & human. Whatever our decision, God will go on loving us. Forever.

The only comment I would make about the incident where JES is asked to bless the children is that it has absolutely nothing to do with infant baptism! We need to unscramble all our thinking about that.