Sunday, July 19, 2009
Exodus 20:15
Senior Pastor
It’s been in
the news a lot lately: congressmen,
governors, pro football players, involved in infidelity in their
marriages. They have violated this seventh
commandment – and so many with such tragic consequences.
Sister Joan begins her chapter on this commandment
by pointing out that the problem is that so many of the characters presented in
the Bible violated this one. She names
among others Solomon and David, Jacob and Abraham. It is one of the top ten and yet, so many leaders in this
community of faith over the years ignore it.
(The Ten Commandments –
Laws of the Heart, Chapter 6, p. 74)
Then why is it included? If it is so
widely ignored, why include it?
-- Perhaps because it is so widely needed. True then and true now.
These
commandments, all of them, are part of God’s project to form these people into
a special people. These words from God,
revealed to Moses, are to be the foundation on which this people of God live
and work and function as a new community.
They are to become a community marked by a faithfulness to God and a
love for humanity; they are to be a blessing to the whole world.
Remember a couple of weeks ago we dealt with commandment
number 5: Honor your father and your
mother, but the rest of that verse says so that your days may be long in
the land that the Lord your God is giving you. That indicates that this is to be a long-term project, a long
lasting endeavor. These commandments
help us establish relationships that will last. Adulterous relationships are destructive to lasting
relationships.
Adulterous relationships are destructive to lasting
relationships in at least three ways.
One, most affairs last less than one year. Secondly, for those that do last longer and turn into marriage,
the failure rate of those marriages is very high. Thirdly, they are often devastating to the marriages, which have
been violated.
A former pastor wrote
recently about the devastating effects his own affair had on his life and those
whom he loved. “The
primary delusion of most cheaters is if they don’t get caught, no harm’s done. Setting aside their moral compasses severely
wounds them internally, though. They are in need of therapy, prayer and
restraint.
“They
must spend enormous amounts of emotional energy battling their internally
triggered guilt and shame. Rationalizing begins because of this. The mind races
frequently between scenarios that range from fantasizing an idyllic life with
your new beloved, to imagining how the fallout would play out were you to get
caught.”
He goes on to say about
himself, “I continued to serve others as a pastor, and played the roles of good
father and husband. I felt tainted and
ugly at some level all the time, though.
A time came where I could no longer look at my reflection in the
mirror.”
(7/6/09
General Board of Church and Society Faith In Action e-Newsletter)
He lost his moral compass. This commandment gives us a counterbalance to help people deal
with the surge of hormones that are fired at times when we interact with other
humans. We are, after all, still a part
of the animal kingdom and often are not nearly as rational as we are emotional
and hormonal.
God created us that way, but God has also given
us the ability to make commitments and promises and calls us to develop
our spiritual dimensions, so that we might be more than just a bundle of
impulses. We can be more than just a
self-seeking, self-serving individual.
In fact, the internal needs we are trying to meet when seeking an affair
can actually be met more effectively when we are able to develop our spiritual
dimensions.
There is a new movie out called Proposal, it stars Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. She plays a hard nosed, driven corporate
executive working her way to the top in a publishing house, using and abusing
people all around her. He is her
assistant. Because of some immigration issues
she coerces him into a fake engagement.
But, of
course, it becomes more complicated than she anticipated. She ends up meeting his family and
experiences their genuine love and care for her. She begins to see the contrast between her self-serving
behavior and their magnanimous generosity.
She begins to see her assistant as a real person, not just someone she
can order around for her benefit. She
begins to listen and learn about him, she begins to recognize how much he had
given her, plus she experiences his family really caring and supporting
her. The movie portrays beautifully her
development into a more mature and caring person as she realizes that being
connected to others who love and care for you is the true gift in life. She witnesses the nature of a truly loving
relationship.
In the
context of marriage: You shall not commit adultery is the word that
calls us to truly care about the people we say we love most. To figure out how to get our needs met with
them, not to do that without them or in ways that wound them.
It has been
written: “Those are poor indeed, who can promise nothing.” Sister Joan minces no words when she follows
that quote with this: “The promise
we make to another person to care for that person, to honor that person, to
cherish that person demands as much sacrifice as it gives joy. When all we can promise is to stay in a
relationship as long as the joy lasts, we have never been in a real
relationship at all.” (p. 83)
I share with
couples in pre-marital counseling my belief that there is a special reward that
comes with going through the ups and downs with one person. To live through the wide ranges of
experience that life brings and yet to maintain a love and a compassionate
connection with a spouse is a rare gift.
As one author put it, “It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which
sew people together through the years.” Mary and I have been married for nearly 26 years now and we have
experienced the truth of that.
To observe
this seventh commandment leads one to a deeper level of experience. To maintain a marriage in the face of pain
and struggle, betrayal and conflict takes a deep commitment. But it is just the kind of commitment that
Christianity is built upon. Jesus
remains faithful to God and his love of humanity through the pain and suffering
of his betrayal and torture and crucifixion.
It is a kind of love that goes all the way through the suffering because
it believes that there is redemption in that experience and beyond.
Jesus tries
to help us here by stopping the temptation before it becomes adultery. In the large section of Matthew in which we
receive much of his teaching he says in Chapter 5: You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit
adultery.’ But I say to you that
everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her
in his heart. (v. 27 – 28)
He goes on
to say it is better to tear your eye out than continue down a path and lose
your life, which was a possibility because in his day adultery carried the
penalty of death. So, Jesus affirms the
commandment but says, even better to be self-aware so that you do not even
start down that path.
But there is
another time Jesus confronts this commandment – this time it is recorded in the
8th chapter of the Gospel of John. (Watch video from Gospel of John.) Jesus affirms the commandment, but also
offers forgiveness in the face of the violation. In both cases Jesus affirms the commandment as important
and yet interprets it in such a way as to promote abundant life.
If you are
considering an affair, the Christian admonition is “Don’t!”
If you are
in an affair the admonition is “Get out!”
But finally,
Christian faith offers you forgiveness of sins, so the advice is “Seek
forgiveness.”
Let me close
with this bit of wisdom from the book.
Sister Joan quotes a fellow who says, “Marriage should be a duet—when
one sings, the other claps.” If there
are problems in the relationship, we should ask: “Who isn’t clapping?” (p. 85)
7. You Shall Not Commit Adultery
7/19/09
Then why is it included? …so widely _________.
These commandments help us establish relationships
that will ______.
Adulterous relationships are destructive to
lasting relationships.
“The primary delusion of most
cheaters is if they don’t
get
caught, no _________ done.
God has also given us the ability to make commitments
…and _______ us to develop our spiritual dimensions…
…contrast between her
self-serving behavior
and their magnanimous
_______________.
“The promise we make to
another person to care for that
person, to honor that
person, to cherish that person demands
as much sacrifice as it
gives joy. When all we can promise is
to stay in a relationship as
long as the joy lasts, we have never
been in a ______ relationship at all.”
“It is threads, hundreds of
tiny ______________, which sew
people together through the
years.”
Matthew
5: 27-28
John ___
In both cases Jesus
___________ the commandment…
Kid’s
Question: Does Jesus affirm this commandment?