Sermon 53 - Adultery
Matthew 5:32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Okay, this sermon is going to be wrong, in oh, *so* many ways. First of all, I am going to talk about sex. I am not just going to talk about the fact that there are two genders, in our species: I am going to talk about sexual activity: making love. You would rather that I not talk about sex. In fact, about the only thing that you dislike *more* than me talking about sex, would be me talking about death. So, consider yourself lucky that I'm only talking about sex.
Because I *could* talk about death.
I am an adulterer. Matthew chapter five, verse thirty-two says that I am an adulterer. Now, I have only made love to one woman in the entire world. I have only made to love to one woman in my entire life. And I married her. So how is it that I committed adultery?
Well, Gloria was married before *we*, she and I, got married. She was married to someone else. I mean, come on: she had kids! So she was married before. And, to make things worse, her husband was actually still alive when we got married.
Now, she was legally divorced from her first husband. As a matter of fact, my little brother is always eager to justify me, with the fact that it was a "Pauline divorce." Paul laid out a situation under which marrying a divorced woman was not a sin. He said that if her first husband, committed adultery first, then she was justified in getting a divorce. That was the case with Gloria's divorce.
But, as smart as Paul was, and as logically as he made his arguments, and as great as I think he was, and as terrific as it is that we have a whole bunch of letters from him, clarifying a lot of situations, I think Jesus is even better. And Jesus just said that if you married a divorced woman, you committed adultery.
So, I am an adulterer.
Now, you may think that I'm being a little hard on myself. But no, I don't think that I am. I could try and justify myself. I could say that I intended to stick with Gloria until she died. And, in fact, I did so! I could say that Gloria was lonely, and had a hard time of it, and that, by marrying her, I was, in fact, expressing love, because I made her life better. And Gloria herself made that case!
But the fact is, Gloria was divorced. And so, simply by marrying her, I committed adultery. And as many arguments as I can make saying that I made Gloria's life better by marrying her (and that is not necessarily, by any means, an absolutely unalloyed gift) my motives in marrying her we're not all together pure. I didn't want to marry Gloria, and make her life better, and never, physically, touch her. (To be honest, I don't think Gloria would have liked that either.) I wanted to make love to Gloria. I also knew that marrying Gloria would make *my* life better. I didn't realize how *much* better it would make my life. I had no idea that only by marrying Gloria would I be able to publish books. I had no idea that it would be Gloria, encouraging me, that would get me into the situation where I got to teach all around the world (and I love teaching). I didn't know any of that. But I knew that marrying Gloria would make my life better. And so, my rationale for marrying Gloria was not completely disinterested, and was not entirely un-self-serving. In other words it wasn't completely pure. It wasn't completely perfect.
And the point is, that is the standard. That is the standard for living a good life. That is the standard for being a good person. Being perfect. That is what we need to aspire to. That is what justifies us to God. Being perfect. And it's impossible to be perfect. At least for us.
That is the target. That is the standard. Being perfect. And, as much as Paul, or my little brother, or any of you, or anyone, may want to argue otherwise, I am not perfect. (Well, I am quite sure that there are quite a number of you who are quite willing to attest to the fact that I am not perfect. Thank you for supporting my argument.)
So, specifically, I am an adulterer. I married a woman, who was divorced, and I did it from not completely pure motives. God did not say to me, as he said to Hosea, go and marry a prostitute. And, in any case, Gloria was not a prostitute. Far from it. But the point is, God didn't tell me to marry Gloria. God did not direct me, and say that, he was going to give me a one-off permit, to break the law, just this once. No, I decided to marry Gloria, all on my own. And it wasn't a perfect decision. So I'm not perfect.
Now there are plenty of other ways that I could prove that I'm not perfect. But, in this case, the only other party to the transaction is dead, and can't be harmed by my saying it. And, in addition, if you want to go to the trouble, you can look it up and prove what I am saying. Gloria had a husband before me, and she divorced him, and he was still alive when I married Gloria. So I am an adulterer. I have sinned.
But, we are *all* sinners. I think that that is the point of this verse, and most of the Sermon on the Mount, come to that. We don't have to be rabidly promiscuous to be sinners. We just have to be less than perfect. Not only are we all sinners, there is *nothing* that we can do that is possibly good enough to make up for our sin. No possible way we can make it right. There is no way we can pay off our debt of sin.
So, God did it for us.
And all *we* have to do, is accept it.
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