A Sermon based Upon Exodus 20:14; Matthew 5:27-32
By Rev. Charles J. Tomlin, D.Min.
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
12th Sunday After Pentecost, August, 7th
2016
A mother was preparing her six-year-old
daughter for her RELIGIOUS EDUCATION classes.
She asked her daughter, “Do you KNOW THE TEN COMMANDMENTS?”
“Hmmmm,”
she said, “No, I don’t think I do. What
are they?”
The
mother explained to her that they are the God’s RULES for us to live by. The little girl then asked, “What are the
Ten Commandments? Can you tell me what
they are?”
“Arggghhh! Thought the mother to herself. “I hope I can remember them.” She STARTED RECITING them, beginning with the
first commandment. When the mother came
to the seventh commandment, Thou shalt not commit adultery, the little girl
stopped her with a question: “What does THAT ONE MEAN, Mom?”
The
mother bit her lip, started to stutter something and then the little girl blurted
out, “Oh wait, I know! It means that
you don’t cut down an adult tree.”1
BREAKING
VOWS
DO YOU KNOW WHAT the seventh commandment
MEANS? After the Monica Lewinsky scandal
in Washington, a lot of PARENTS WERE SCRAMBLING to define difficult words like
“adultery” to their children. For me,
the MOST GRAPHIC WORD for adultery is the German word, ehebrechen. Ehebrechen means
literally “to break a marriage”. When a
person commits adultery, they don’t just pollute their marriage, they BREAK THE
VOWS OF A most SACRED COVENANT.
The Jewish people, to whom this
commandment was first given by Moses, once took this commandment so seriously
that “marriage-breakers” where to be PUNISHED BY DEATH. The law said, “If a man commits adultery with the wife of a neighbor, both the
adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.” (Leviticus 20:10). At
least you we DON’T HAVE TO GUESS HOW GOD views adultery. In the Old Testament, when the prophets
where inspired to find imagery to illustrate Israel’s own sin of COVENANT
BREAKING, the most powerful was adultery.
In this way, the Hebrew understanding takes Adultery TO THE SPIRITUAL
LEVEL. This is also what Jesus does in
the SERMON ON THE MOUNT.
Some make the mistake of THINKING that
when you get to the New Testament God lightens up because we move from Law to
Grace. But to the contrary, while in
the OT it is required of God’s people to bring a TITHE into the storehouse, in
the NT it is required that WE SELL ALL, give it all to the poor and follow
Jesus. Does that sound easier? In the OT it says that we must NOT KILL, but
in the NT we are threatened with hell-fire even if we get ANGRY with our
brother. In the OT it’s EYE FOR EYE and
tooth for tooth, but it the NT we are required to turn the other cheek when
threatened and even to LOVE OUR ENEMY.
In the OT we are NOT TO BEAR ANY FALSE witness against our neighbor, but
in the NT it says that we will be judged even for our IDLE, CARELESS WORDS. Where did anyone get the idea that New Testament
grace lightens up on us? This deeper
understanding of breaking God’s moral laws is also reflected in the seventh
commandment. Under Old Testament Law it
says adultery shall not be committed with our neighbor’s spouse. But in the New Testament, Jesus takes the
meaning of adultery a step further: “You’ve
heard it said ‘You shall not commit adultery’. But I
say to you EVERYONE THAT LOOKS at a woman with lust has already committed
adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28).
When you read that, knowing that the law required death for adulterers,
you wonder WHAT JESUS IS DOING. Is he
trying to GET everyone KILLED? As
strange as this may sound, Jesus is still TRYING TO SAVE US, rather than get us
killed. Do you remember the CONTROVERSIAL INTERVIEW
that then-presidential-candidate and Baptist Sunday School teacher Jimmy Carter
had with Playboy magazine back in the mid ‘70's. It came out in the media that the interviewer
had asked if Carter might be a “rigid, unbending” president because of his
strong religious convictions. CARTER
ANSWERED, “We were taught not to judge
other people. I wouldn’t condemn someone who looks on a woman with
lust...I’VE LOOKED ON A LOT OF WOMEN WITH LUST.
I’ve committed adultery in my heartmany times.”2
The MEDIA AND THE CHURCH WERE BOTH
SHOCKED by Carter’s frank honesty. They were not shocked that Jimmy Carter had
COMMITTED ADULTERY with his eyes or heart, but we were SHOCKED THAT HE ADMITTED
it. But CONFRONTING OUR INNER THOUGHT LIFE is
exactly what Jesus wants us to do. Jesus
broadens the law because he knows that ADULTERY BEGINS WITH OUR THOUGHTS, NOT
JUST WITH OUR ACTIONS. LONG BEFORE someone
engages in an adulterous affair with another person, marriages are broken. As someone put it, Adultery is not what
breaks the marriage, but Adultery is the outward proof that the marriage was
already broken in the heart.
MAKING
CHOICES
Since it is within our hearts that marriages
are broken, it is also in within our hearts that marriages can be saved. This is what Jesus is really getting at. He wants us to discover HOW WE CAN KEEP
ADULTERY FROM HAPPENING in the first place.
He wants to turn “thou shalt not
commit adultery” INTO “I WON’T COMMIT
ADULTERY”
When Jesus uses these very GRAPHIC
IMAGES of tearing out an eye or cutting off a hand (Matt. 5: 29ff.), he does
not mean for us to take him SO LITERAL that we do this. YOU DON’T CHANGE YOUR HEART BY LOSING AN
EYE, OR A HAND. What Jesus is after here is salvation, not mutilation. He’s talking FIGURATIVELY ABOUT doing radical
SURGERY ON OUR HEARTS. Only by
determining where our hearts are, will we be able to KEEP OURSELVES FROM LOSING
EVERYTHING we have promised. Jesus TAKES
A VISIBLE STANCE on adultery, just as he does divorce, because he believes in
marriage, and he believes in us. He
believes that WE CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT OUR OWN CHOICES and our misguided
desires. He believes that we can KEEP
FROM THROWING OURSELVES INTO ALL THE PAIN that goes hand-in-hand with making
the kind of choices that destroy families, hurt children, and ruin lives.
So,
HOW CAN WE KEEP OUR HEARTS PURE from adulterous thoughts and wrong choices,
especially IN A WORLD where most EVERYTHING WORKS AGAINST US; where adulterous relationships fill the media
airways, where fooling around has become
big business, where sex sells and adultery has less negative social stigma, and
most of all, where this seventh commandment has become an endangered
species? HOW CAN WE SPARE OURSELVES
from throwing our marriages and families away on the trash heap of adultery?
Let’s recognize that JESUS’ HIGHER LOGIC
ON ADULTERY SUGGESTS to us that we are saved by making the right choices long
before we make the wrong ones. CHOICE
IS IMPLIED throughout Jesus’ very graphic images of looking, tearing out the
eye, or cutting of a hand. How we
make our CHOICES IN LIFE ARE IMPORTANT because adultery doesn’t begin with
making a single bad decision. You have
to cut off the wrong choice at its source—wayward, unbridled, uncontrolled,
desires. For you see, it’s seldom one
wrong choice, but it is ONE WRONG CHOICE AFTER THE OTHER that turns into full-fledged
adultery. People don’t just snap their
fingers and end up in the wrong place with the wrong person. Most of us have the power to make a different
choice. That what Jesus means when he
says that it’s not just the seeing, but it is the LOOKING “WITH LUST” that ends in adultery.
When I came home from the mission field,
I called some friends and received the SHOCK OF MY LIFE. A friend from my childhood told me she was
leaving her husband of 10 plus years, who was the Father of their two children. As best I can tell WHAT HAPPEN WAS TWO
FOLD. She felt that her husband was not
meeting her emotional needs, which may have or may not have been true. But she also chose to BELIEVE, that either
that her HUSBAND COULD NOT CHANGE, or would not change, or that her own desires
could not be changed. What she chose to
do was to decide to meet those NEEDS at WORK.
With this kind of belief in her mind, she gave in to her feelings and made
a choice. She starting building a
RELATIONSHIP WITH HER BOSS and her marriage ended up broken in adultery.
This is exactly what Jesus knew. ADULTERY IS BIRTHED OUT OF WRONGLY DIRECTED
NEEDS AND DESIRES. We all have needs,
desires and longings, emotional, physically and spiritual. Our desires and needs are not bad. God created us as DEPENDENT CREATURES who
need and desire to be with each other.
We are to help each other meet those needs. But “how” those needs should or can be met is
something that goes beyond a choice we make in one moment.
WHAT IS it the choice that we should be
looking for? All of us humans are tied
back to Eden— that wonderful, primordial paradise. Remember when GOD CREATED MAN AND WOMAN how
ADAM’S RESPONSED at seeing the woman: “This
at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh....” Something like this basic to us as human
creatures. We like Adam are LOOKING FOR
OUR MISSING RIB, our other-half, our soul mate.
Marriage is, supposed to be the COMPLETION OF THE SELF. We all are created incomplete with a longing
for that significant other. Deep down,
WE ARE ALL LOOKING FOR EDEN and the INTIMACY that completes us so that we can
be, as Genesis says, “naked, but unashamed” (Gen. 2.25). They were one with each other without anything
to hide.
Because we all need ‘intimacy’ (IN_TO_ME_SEE) and will be incomplete without it, unless we find it either in God or a
significant other, to prevent adultery
we must WORK ON OUR MARRIAGES and make sure that we are working TO SEE and to meet
EACH OTHER’S NEEDS. Of course, sometimes our needs become
unrealistic, and that too must be dealt with in a SPIRIT OF OPENNESS and
honesty. But unless we are achieving the
great human need for ‘intimacy’ and ‘oneness’ then watch out, some form of adultery can and probably will
happen.
SEEING
REAL
Besides making the right choices in
fulfilling our human needs and desires, Jesus’ word about divorce helps us to
SEE THE BIGGER PICTURE OF THE PAIN which adultery causes. It’s not only tearing out an eye or cutting
off a hand, but this pain that goes along with adultery is more like HAVING
YOUR BODY THROWN INTO HELL. Everyone
who COMMITS ADULTERY WILL HURT SOMEONE deeply, but in the end, the one they
will eventually hurt the MOST IS THEMSELVES.
The one who has been hurt can heal, but the one who hurts others rots
from the inside out. By wounding others
they show us how THEIR OWN WOUND STILL BLEEDS.
WHAT
IS MORE PAINFUL than to wake up one day and realize that everything you’ve been
after, you have BEEN UNABLE TO GET?
That’s what an adulterer will one-day discover or deny. People who BREAK MARRIAGES ARE AFTER LOVE,
but they are UNABLE TO FIND WHAT THEY ARE AFTER. Do you know WHY? It’s
simple. You have to GIVE LOVE IN ORDER
TO RECEIVE LOVE. This is exactly what
the adulterer is unable to do, no matter how many relationships they have— they
are unable to give and receive true intimacy and love.
But THANK GOD, that this PURPOSE OF THIS
TEXT IS NOT TO THROW PEOPLE INTO HELL, but to keep us from it. This text points at worst to a few scars, but
it does not intend for anyone to end up in the ‘fire’ and pain of a living or
dying Hell. These images remind us that
ADULTERY ALWAYS CAUSES SCARS. It leaves
scars that will never disappear or go away.
But these scars can heal. You can
have scars and still recover. Things may
never be as they once were, but they can be healthy again. IF YOU’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS kind of PAIN
AND HURT, remember— even lost limbs can
heal. But tragically, this kind of HELL
DOES NOT HEAL for the adulterer who does not repent or change their adulterous
ways.
GETTING
CAUGHT
As I conclude, I find myself WANTING TO
SPEAK TO TWO DIFFERENT KINDS OF PEOPLE who’ve BEEN AFFECTED by adultery: THOSE
WHO’VE COMMITTED ADULTERY, and those who’ve BEEN HURT BY ADULTERY. The way for help and healing is the same for
both. It begins with the word: “Heart.”
I called my friend who was hurt when his
wife committed adultery, divorced him and then married someone else. I ASKED HOW HE WAS DOING. He said, “It still hurts, but the pain is not as sensitive. I will never be the same, but, with God’s
help, I’m going on.” So if you’re
in this kind of pain today, DON’T LOSE HOPE, God is with you and your PAIN WILL
BE HEALED. Keep your faith centered in
God. He will help and heal you.
Now, ADDRESSING THE MARRIAGE-BREAKER— or
the would be marriage breaker— is much
more difficult. Jesus gives us A SCARY
THOUGHT: the marriage breaker throws themselves into hell of their own
making. WHAT
THE MARRIAGE BREAKER NEEDS, HOWEVER, IS
TO BE CAUGHT IN THE ACT, just like that women in John’s gospel. Remember that story? The people of the Law caught her in the very
act of adultery and everyone knew that she deserved to be stoned. That’s WHAT SHE DESERVED. BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT SHE GOT. Jesus told her to “go and sin no more.”
Normally, we take this to mean that
JESUS LET THE ADULTERER OFF THE HOOK.
But I don’t think so. I think the
adulterer was PUT BACK ON THE HOOK, but in a different way. Now
that Jesus has announced God’s forgiveness, SALVATION was PUT back into the
Adulterer’s OWN HANDS. WILL
SHE/HE KEEP ON SINNING, or will they
RECOGNIZE their need to give and receive genuine love, receive God’s grace and
then gain the strength to turn their life around? It is left open. We cannot know what happened next. WE ONLY
KNOW WHAT GOD OFFERS.
How good it is that MOST OF US DON’T
HAVE TO LIVE from one desire to the next or from one relationship to the
next? Thank God, we DON’T HAVE TO WONDER
WHETHER OR NOT WE WILL BE SAVED from our own destructive behavior. We KNOW THAT WE ARE SAVED, and we ARE BEING
SAVED, and WILL BE SAVED, because we LIVE THE PROMISES WE MAKE: “For better, for worse, for richer, for
poorer, in sickness and in health, til death do us part.” BY KEEPING AND LIVING INTO THESE PROMISES, THEY
END UP KEEPING US. I believe this positive outcome is what God
had in mind, when he said, “Thou Shalt
Not…”. Amen.
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