The Seventh Commandment: "You shall not commit adultery." (Exodus 20:14)
Martin Luther once observed that in the commandment against killing, the focus last Sunday, we are taught how to live with the neighbor next door, whereas in this Seventh Commandment we are taught how to live with the neighbor next to us in bed.
Now, one parishioner commented to me this past week, "I'm sorry to have to miss your sermon this coming Sunday, but the meaning of the Seventh Commandment would seem to be pretty clear-cut."
Well, yes—and no! For as we have come to see over the past Sundays in this sermon series, Christian thinkers have explored within each of these Ten Commandments meanings that extend far beyond the one stated by the surface level of the words.
So, on the one hand: Yes! This commandment is quite clear-cut—because God is directing those of us who are living in lifelong committed partnerships not to have sexual relations with any other person, as is made evident in the story I just read about Jesus and the woman who'd been caught in the very act of adultery. (John 8:2-11) Jesus first intervenes to spare the woman's life, and then commands her to "go, and sin no more." (KJV)
So on the one hand: Yes! This commandment is quite clear-cut. But on the other hand: No! This commandment is more complex than that—because for us Christians there's much more involved in following this teaching than what's immediately obvious, as Jesus makes clear in the verses I went on to read from the Sermon on the Mount. (Matthew 5:27-28) For there Jesus expands on what this commandment is prohibiting. It's not just the overt behavior of adultery that's being prohibited, but also the very disposition within us that underlies such behavior—the lust within us that gives rise to the kind of leers that veritably "undress" another person in order to feed the fires of our fantasized desires.
Perhaps, like me, you're old enough to remember the infamous episode of the interview with Jimmy Carter that was published in the November, 1976 issue of Playboy magazine—not that I ever read the magazine itself, mind you! Well, that interview almost cost Carter the presidential election. And still today Playboy trumpets that interview as one of its most sensational ever. In it, Carter said this: "I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do—and I have done it—and God forgives me for it."
Yes, according to Jesus, this Seventh Commandment also prohibits something that seems quite deeply entrenched in our human heart and psyche—namely, the lust that gives rise to the leer that undresses, a phenomenon that Playboy itself seems dedicated to fostering.
Well, many influential Christian theologians, taking their cue from Jesus's own expansion of the moral trajectory of this Seventh Commandment, have continued that process of expansion. They have argued that this ordinance, in the first instance, prohibits us from an even broader set of negative behaviors and dispositions and, in the second instance, prompts us, by way of contrast, to cultivate an opposing set of positive behaviors and dispositions.
For instance, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, and John Calvin all expanded what's being prohibited by this commandment to include sexual relations between persons not married to anyone. Yes, quite unlike the HBO series Sex and the City and a myriad other landmarks of our modern American culture that treat human sexuality as a toy, as something to be used by us as a mere plaything, these pesky theologians argue that human sexuality is a gift from God that's sacred and that's meant to be reserved for nurturing two persons' life-together into the bonds of an everlasting unity. Quite a difference isn't it: sex as a sacred gift from God for binding two people together forever versus sex as a toy, a plaything! And I, for one, believe it's the theologians who've gotten this right!
And theologians have also argued that this Seventh Commandment points us as well toward a set of behaviors and dispositions that we're supposed to be cultivating positively. Thus, they have seen this Seventh Commandment as a gracious invitation extended by our Creator to us ordinary folk—a gracious invitation to become rather extraordinary saints by coming to be known for fidelity and lifelong commitment in our relationships.
Ah, fidelity in our relationships. Now there's a positive meaning for this commandment that we need ever so much to hear and take to heart.
For the popular culture of modern America certainly seems to be throwing all of its weight solidly against the old-time value we call fidelity and lifelong commitment—offering us instead as our staple the escapades of the women and men of Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy, the infidelities of characters like Chris Wilton in Woody Allen's latest movie Match Point, the sexual gymnastics of sports idols too numerous to name, and the suggestion in Gail Sheehy's just-published book, Sex and the Seasoned Woman, that her ideal "Passionate" middle-age woman ought not to hesitate to trade in her tired old hubby for the prospective highs of a new romance. (New York: Random House, 2006)
But let me now cite for you a different kind of example from the popular culture of modern America, one that seems to stand in stark contrast to Desperate Housewives, Chris Wilton, and Gail Sheehy—an example that in a profoundly new-fashioned way seems to weigh in (shall we say, rather counterculturally?) quite on the side of that old-time value we call fidelity and lifelong commitment. And let me thank Cheryl Pyrch for pointing me to this example.
Just last year, in September, 2005, the American author Dan Savage published a book that's entitled The Commitment. Its full title is The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family. (New York: Dutton, 2005).
Now, Dan is a gay man who's living in a committed relationship, "'till death do us part," with Terry Miller, and Dan has this to say about the institution of marriage, which he not only espouses but which he also traveled all the way from Chicago to Vancouver, Canada, in order to actualize for himself and Terry. (See pp. 257-291, in particular the second paragraph on p. 264, the last paragraph on p. 275, and the second and third full paragraphs on p. 277.) Dan writes: "As a child, I hadn't learned to regard marriage as a perishable, like milk left out on the counter.... Until I was ten years old, I didn't even know what divorce was. In my mind, my grandparents could no more stop being husband and wife than I could stop being my sister's brother or my mother's son." (Ibid., p. 103) And at Dan and Terry's own wedding reception, Dan gave to each of their guests fortune cookies, in some of which he had placed this message, which Dan identifies as his favorite. It's a quote from, of all people, Dr. James C. Dobson—you know, the "family values" guy—and Dobson's remarkably neutral quote reads thus: "Don't marry the person you think you can live with; marry only the individual you think you can't live without." (Ibid., p. 288)
So, Dan Savage and Terry Miller—testimony to the old-fashioned value of fidelity and lifelong commitment within the context of quite a new-fashioned marriage.
But let me now, in closing, return from what is being reflected in our popular culture to what is being said by those pesky people who want us to think deeply—the theologians. These, you see, insist on affirming that in faithful, lifelong committed relationships—those in which the partners say, and really mean, "'til death do us part"—we have the opportunity to mirror something that is divine. We have the opportunity to mirror in our own relationships that same quality of faithfulness with which, throughout our lives, God relates to us. You see, in the sacrament of baptism, each of us is sealed in a covenant with God, rather like a marriage covenant. Now, the reason we are baptized only once in life, not many times, because, no matter how much we may slip and slide within that relationship, God's commitment and fidelity to us, sworn and sealed in that sacrament of baptism, is eternal. And God has created us, too, for fidelity.
So, this seventh commandment is about chastity, and faithfulness, and the overcoming of lust. Yet the truth of the matter is that these qualities in our relationships are too difficult for us to accomplish all on our own. You see, the rest of society is just too heavily invested in tempting us away from these. So to come anywhere near succeeding at them, we need first of all the countercultural support of a loving community of faith, of a community that continually offers us a vital witness to the value and worth of chastity, and faithfulness, and the overcoming of lust.
And to come anywhere near succeeding at these, we need as well, indeed most of all, the help of God. So let me offer you a suggestion. When you're feeling overwhelmed by temptation, try the technique of a breath prayer, of a repeated prayer offered in part as you inhale and in part as you exhale. So when you find yourself being sorely tempted, try praying as you inhale, "O God, I'm feeling so tempted," and as you exhale, "Yet, o God, help me to remain chaste and faithful and to overcome lust."
So, as we can now see, "you shall not commit adultery" is one of those commandments that have very wide implications indeed, for through this commandment God is summoning us to practice in our relationships nothing less than qualities that mirror God's own.
Thanks be to God for this community of faith, in which we can experience both God's fidelity and others' fidelity, so that we may learn from these experiences the meaning and value of overcoming lust and of living in chastity and faithfulness—'til death do us part.
Let us pray:
O God, we rejoice that You are ever faithful to us. Make us, we pray, ever faithful to You and to those persons with whom we live in covenant. Amen.