July 27, 2003

Sermon Series on the 10 Commandments

July 27^th, 2003 The 7^th Commandment:  You Shall Not Commit Adultery

What do Kobe Bryant, President Bill Clinton, and Brittany Spears have in common?

 Kobe Bryant admitted tearfully, that he had, in fact, committed adultery.

 President Bill Clinton seemed to believe his own rationalization when he  said he had not committed adultery.

 And Brittany Spears probably has no clue, poor girl, that there even is such a thing as adultery and that pre-marital sex is, in all likelihood, one form of adultery, against your FUTURE husband or wife. 

 What they have in common is that all three are in fact guilty of breaking God’s commandment:  You shall not commit adultery.

 Such is the pathetic state of teaching on matters of sex, that there is enormous confusion, lies, rationalization, and ignorance on this commandment.  So lets start with the Biblical beginning.

 In the beginning God created human beings and God said “THAT is good.”

 And then God looked a little closer at this human being and God said, “There’s something missing here.”

 “It is NOT good for a human being to be alone!”

 So God created Eve from Adams rib, and the rest as you know is history

 “Ahhh” said Adam.  “At last this one is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.”

 And therefore says the scripture, (GENESIS 2:24) therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

 The Jewish Mishrah or commentary on Genesis says that the first wedding was actually performed by God himself, here in the Garden of Eden.

 And, says  the next verse, with a twinkle in God’s eye:   “And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.”

 You don’t have to be especially good at reading between the lines here in Genesis to know that these Bible verses show us that the special kind of physical love expressed between a husband and a wife is God’s GIFT.  And it is good!

 +++++++

Fast forward.  Sin enters the picture. 

 First, human beings broke God’s heart and then they started breaking each other’s hearts.

 First, they cheated on God, then they started cheating on each other. 

 Some of you have been there.  The note in the pocket when you’re doing the wash.  The list of telephone calls to a number you’re not familiar with.  The e-mails that shock you with an intimacy you had no idea existed.    The sudden long hours at work… or at church, my first experience as a pastor dealing with adultery in the parish was between two of our “best” leaders on the council who were just very very eager to stay after the meetings & work on these extra church projects. 

Then I as a 27 year old pastor got to confront them, ahhh, it seems that your trucks have been spotted in the church parking lot la-a-ate hours….

“Oh we were just working on a project and got caught up in talking.”  Yeah right. 

 A few months later both their young families were split up as  they moved in together.

 My high hopes, their spouses’ deep trust, their young children’s sense of safety & order,   God’s bright plans for our community - all, shattered. 

 Adultery is not just the sex, it’s the lies.  It’s not what two people do together, it’s the breaking of trust between whole families & communities.

 Some of you have been there.  And let me tell you that if you’re on the wronged side of an adultery, God feels your pain.  In fact there’s a whole book about it in the Bible, the book of Hosea, where God says to the prophet Hosea (the 3^rd chapter)  “…go love a woman who has a lover and is an adulterous…(and then you’ll understand…) that’s exactly how I the Lord love the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods.”

 God knows exactly the pain of betrayal, breaking of trust, and that awful agony that you’ve been lied to.  That’s why adultery makes it into the list of the BIG TEN commandments. , because marriage vows between husband & wife are supposed to be a beautiful reflection of God’s passionate & totally faithful love for us.  And every time a husband or a wife breaks that trust, it’s not just a wrong between husband and wife, it hurts everybody as the whole community doubts in goodness itself. 

 “We never thought Kobe Bryant was that kind of a guy.  Not him.  Well, looks like you can’t trust anybody when it comes to sex.”     What a tragic statement for people across the country to be making right now.

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But maybe your place in all of this is not as the sinned against, but as the one who committed an adultery in your past or even in your present life.

 Maybe like former President Clinton you have managed to rationalize away a certain relationship because it was a one time fling or it wasn’t really “all the way” or because either boys must be boys or girls must be girls or, like King David in the Bible, you think somehow your affair is different or Maybe like Brittany Spears, you simply have no clue, or maybe, maybe, like Kobe Bryant, (although there’s a lot to be uncovered there yet about what did or did not happen in addition to the adultery),  but maybe like Kobe Bryant, maybe like the woman in the Gospel of John, chapter 8 ,  maybe you’ve been caught, you DO know what you’ve done, and you wish you WISH it wouldn’t have happened.

 The beauty of God’s word for you –  is that it although God’s law confronts you with God’s truth:  You shall NOT commit adultery -- God doesn’t stop there. 

 To the crowds surrounding the woman in the Gospel of John to those crowds who want start  stoning her, Jesus says, “Let the one without sin throw the first stone”.  For one thing, Jesus puts the terrible sin of adultery into perspective.  Yes it’s a terrible sin but it’s a terrible sin among terrible sins. There are TEN commandments and adultery is ONE of them.

 Today those other terrible sins could include:   the terrible sin of treating elderly mothers & fathers  with contempt with the state of some of our nursing homes.  There’s the terrible sin of not helping Hispanic “strangers” in Milwaukee. There’s the brutal  sin of spending ten times as much money on fast food restaurants as we do on designating money in the offering plates to World Hunger relief..  “Let those without sin throw the first stone” says Jesus.  And one by one we walk away!

 But that’s not the end of the story.  Some people want to end it there, saying, see, we shouldn’t judge.  No, THEN Jesus turns to the woman and his last words to her are:  “Go, and sin no more.”

 The Good News of Jesus Christ is that he was sent to this world not to condemn us for our sins but to save us from our sins.    Pastor Wayne has an excellent book called “After the Affair”  & it specifically explains how it is possible to build new trust and live a pure marriage even after a case of adultery. --  it’s not easy, and it’s not always possible--- 

 Even Jesus said in the case of adultery, sometimes a divorce, is necessary.    It’s sometimes just too deep, too much to ask of fragile human beings, to truly forgive & begin anew  after a betrayal like that. 

 But sometimes it is possible , by God’s power & passion, to renew and deepen a commitment to sexual purity, even after a series of premarital relationships.

 Sometimes it is possible, by God’s power & passion,  to renew and deepen a marriage relationship even after an affair.

 Sometimes it is possible, by God’s power & passion, to begin a remarriage in a totally new spirit of grace & truth.

 Finally, in the Lutheran teaching of the commandments, we never end with just what you are not to do but what you ARE to do. was ist das?  (what does this commandment mean,) asks Martin Luther in the small catechism. And Luther answers by saying:  We should fear and love God, so that we lead a pure & decent lives in word and deed, and each of us loves and honors his or her spouse.

 In my first parish I saw this commandment fulfilled as I watched how Georgine & Tom, an older couple, loved & honored each other.  They danced at the Fireman’s Picnic, they played bridge on Friday nights, they taught the second grade Sunday school class together for years and years, and even after Georgine was diagnosed with a bad colon cancer, and even as her body was ravaged, and she lay dying in her hospice bed, Tom still called her “Gorgeous George” as he brushed the thin head of hair she had managed to keep throughout her treatments. 

 As I met with John and family members to prepare for the funeral, I asked how long they’d been married.  oh,   About 10 wonderful years, he said.

 Looking at his adult children & not always the master of diplomacy I said, “oh, so you were married before?”

 John looked at me

 “Five times, pastor.”

 WHAT??!!

 “Five times pastor. I busted each of them marriages up myself.” 

“Gorgeous George is the one the Lord used to teach me how to go & sin no more.”

 Jesus says, “let the one without sin throw the first stone.”

 May God use us, our marriage relationships and our church witness of grace to fulfill his commandment against adultery and for a wise and wonderful lifelong witness to faithfulness in love.  Amen.

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