Moses has been gone up in the clouds on Sinai for days and the elders are getting nervous. Finally he appears, carrying two large hunks of rock, with what appears to be writing on them. The elders are nervous, understandably, given what’s been happening - the golden calf, and so on. Moses approaches and says, “I’ve got good news and bad news.” “Yes, Moses, yes - just tell us.” “The good news is, I got him down to 10. The bad news is, adultery’s still one of ‘em.”
I’ve got good news and bad news, too.
The good news is, adultery’s still one of ‘em.
The bad news is, who cares?
We’ve read and heard and watched the most appalling things in the news in the last few decades, things about our national leaders that we would really rather not know and that we especially would rather our children did not know. The one piece of good news is that sexual harassment is at last being taken seriously.
More than 15 members of the U.S. Congress have had to resign in the last decade over sexual misconduct, alleged or actual. Boy Scout leaders are under investigation, and the Baptists have joined the Catholics in the church sex scandal lineup. And more than one of our presidents are about as far from being a model of moral rectitude as anyone could invent.
Back in the days of Presidents Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and of course even earlier, sexual misconduct, from long-term romantic liaisons to quickies in the office, was politely ignored. As the 70’s and 80’s rolled on, though, aspiring journalists were quick to jump on misbehavior – anybody remember Wilbur Mills and Fannie Foxx? What about Gary Hart and The Monkey Business? And then, of course, Bill Clinton. And then Donald Trump – who didn’t misbehave in office, but has a pretty lurid past. Anybody remember Barney Frank, or Al Franken? Even women are not immune; California congresswoman Katie Hill recently had to step down. Critics line up pretty predictably on the basis of political preference, with many either excusing the behavior of their guy – or gal - or ignoring it completely.
The Clinton scandal is probably the most noteworthy, so I’m going to stick to the 90’s, because it’s in the past and emotions have cooled a bit. What was the buzz back then?
Nobody’s perfect. Everybody does it. What’s the big deal?
Even Saint Carter lusted in his heart, said one writer.
That one really brought me up short. Did the editorial I read really think that Jimmy Carter’s confession to a less than perfectly pure thought life provided cover for our former president’s - er - difficulty?
I kept reading things, hoping to figure out what was going on, hoping to get some clue as to why there didn’t seem to be any outrage out there. I kept wondering if I’ve gotten out of bed on the wrong side of history. And I kept wondering why women remained Clinton’s strongest supporters. You’d think women would know, if anyone does, how destructive adultery is.
At one time during the height of the scandal, the New York Observer sponsored a gathering of educated, successful, professional Manhattan women to discuss the situation. And all of the women, without exception, were titillated, rather than disgusted. I cannot even quote some of the comments, not in a family setting. I’d have trouble quoting some of them in private. These women were discussing the President’s virility in terms that would have disgraced a men’s locker room.
What has happened to us?
One of the many Presbytery meetings that voted on ordination was very eye-opening to me. At that time, about 25 years ago, the West Jersey Presbytery elected - by a margin of 1 vote - to retain language in the constitution requiring fidelity in marriage and chastity in singleness. I was pleased, and relieved. We’d been discussing the issue of sexuality in the church, sexuality in the culture, for years, and I thought I was beyond being surprised by anything anyone might say. But I was wrong.
A lot of the discussion over the proposed amendment had to do with theological minutiae like whether we should be “instructed” by our confessions or “live in conformity” to them. We spent a good chunk of time on Christology, which is of course always worth discussing, but is not the key issue in this debate. In my naive desire to be helpful, I thought that we should recognize right up front that the central issue before us was chastity in singleness. I wanted us to be clear about what we were debating so that we could actually be the church, that is, provide moral guidance on the cultural issues that face and often divide us. I hoped for honest discussion, and clear theology.
I have since come to the conclusion that many people do not want to be clear about their theology. Two of the proponents of relaxing the ordination standards actually said they thought “chastity in singleness” wasn’t a clear standard. One woman said she had to look it up, and then ignored the primary definition - “not engaging in unlawful sexual activity” - in order to sell the idea that it was too confusing. Another refused to duck the issue and simply said flat out that he was for the ordination of homosexuals. I appreciated his honesty. We can talk. But the other two, who said they didn’t even know what chastity meant - how can we communicate? I tried to press the issue, and the speaker waffled again, this time not by saying he didn’t know what chastity was, which I think everyone there understood by this time to be a tactic of obfuscation - or winning by confusion. This time he said that he didn’t think the church ought to make un-chaste people feel bad.
Oh my.
If that’s where we are in the church, we’re worse off even than I thought we were. And so this sermon on adultery has to start a whole lot farther back at the beginning. Because, you see, you can’t possibly talk about why adultery is wrong, and about the harm it does, without understanding what marriage is, and what sex is. So, folks, we’re are starting with the Biblical equivalent of the birds and the bees. That is to say, with the book of Genesis.“Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
This is a mystery, as Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians. It is a mystery that is likened to two other mysteries, the mystery of Christ’s union with the church, and the mystery of the union of the three persons within the trinity.
It is a mystery, and it is a sacrament. Or almost a sacrament. Let me explain.
A sacrament is a physical manifestation of a spiritual reality. In baptism, the real water represents - is a sign of - the real washing from sin that takes place when we receive Christ and his spirit. In the Lord’s Supper, the bread and wine represent - are signs of - the real nourishment that our spirits receive from trusting in and resting on the Lord.
The union of a man and a woman in marriage, the gift of their bodies to one another in sexual activity, comes as close as human beings can get to the kind of union that exists between the three persons of the Trinity. This gift of intimate, open, committed relationship was designed for us by our Creator so that neither man nor woman would be alone, as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are never alone except for that dark hour on the cross. It is not a gift to be taken lightly. And the physical act is only the tip of the iceberg. At its most basic level, sex is a biological bribe to keep a couple together until the offspring are grown. But God has infused it with grace, so that in marital sex humans actively partake of and participate in the love of God. Separating sexual activity from the whole spectrum of mutual obligation and allegiance which constitutes marriage is well below licking the icing off a piece of cake and throwing the rest in the trash. It’s a waste, it’s unhealthy, and it’s an insult to the cook.
But, many people say, things are different now. A lot of arguments have been made for revising the church’s traditional teachings on sexuality and marriage.
It is usually pointed out that advances in society, technology and psychology have rendered obsolete the old, simplistic black-and-white morality which insisted on either exclusive, permanent commitment between a man and woman or abstention. In the modern world, the progressives say, the long wait between puberty and marriage renders a demand for premarital abstention at least absurd, in most cases impossible, and in any event unhealthy. Many advocates for liberalization of the church's teaching point to the church's long equation of celibacy with holiness, and an identification of sin (especially original sin) with sexual activity. H. L. Mencken's old adage that “a Puritan is someone who is afraid that someone somewhere might be having fun” is often quoted. Which actually isn’t at all true, the Puritans were a whole lot lustier than most people give ‘em credit for being. It’s the Victorians who were the villains, not the Pilgrim fathers. But we didn’t stop at just removing the stigma from sexual activity, we’ve actually managed to make unrestricted sexuality compulsory.
Michael Foucault, in The History of Sexuality, asserts that “Sexuality is a word that now serves a purpose like the word soul did in the Middle Ages. In that period, people believed that one’s soul united the various aspects of human identity and gave significance to that identity. Today, the word sexuality serves a similar function... Sexuality, self and identity are so closely linked by present usage that at times they virtually merge into one another. ...It is easy to understand why more and more people believe that to deny a sexual relation to oneself or another simply on the basis of marital status ... is to deny the self in a destructive and morally insupportable way."
The point of most if not all social relations - not just sexual ones - has become the pursuit of private life plans. This pursuit is limited only by the principles of “no harm” and “no coercion.”
Some insist that fidelity is necessary, but not permanence. Others argue that permanence is necessary, but not necessarily fidelity. All demand something called “commitment,” but allow each individual to define what that means in terms of their own self-fulfillment.
Basically, all of these arguments boil down to Polonius’ position on the world: remember Polonius, in Hamlet? The self-serving politician whose only allegiance is his own advancement? “To thine own self be true, and thou canst not then be false to any man.” It’s a nice philosophy, but it ain’t Biblical.
The problem is, that we live today according to a moral code that begins with the self, not with God. And a moral code which begins with the self cannot ever progress beyond the self, and a moral code which begins without God will end without God.
Where Polonius says, “to thine own self be true,” Jesus says, “He who finds his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will find it.” It is to Jesus Christ that we are to be true, not to our own transient appetites.
A moral code which begins with God has room for the other, the second person within the circle. A moral code which begins with God has strength enough to hold up that sacramental relationship that we began with, the intimate union of body and soul that is God’s gift for us in our human aloneness. It is to this goal that Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “…you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” [1 Cor 6:20] Of course that means taking the long view, deferring gratification to make room for something more valuable in the future. But that is what ALL of God’s rules are for. And what no secularist is ready to admit is that, according to surveys going back decades, married couples of faith have the best sex lives.
The system of sexual morality which begins with God - and obeys God - and points toward God - is the only one strong enough to sustain an entire society. This code operates on three levels, in three dimensions. First it binds the individual, then the couple, and finally the entire society. And each dimension reflects something of the nature of our Creator. There is, believe it or not, someone besides the obvious participants who has an interest in what goes on between consenting adults.
How does our understanding of the nature of the God who made us, who gave both this gift of sexuality and the commandment not to misuse it, impact our understanding of human sexual nature and relationships? I believe that the key word is integrity.
Integrity, as I hear it used most often, refers to honesty. A person of integrity keeps his or her word. But it may surprise you to know that this is Webster’s third definition. The primary definition, however, is “the quality or state of being complete; wholeness; entireness; unbroken state.”
It is almost axiomatic today that a person who is not sexually active is living an incomplete, unfulfilled life. So for me to propose that abstention from sexual activity is a matter of integrity - wholeness, completeness, or unbrokenness - must seem like an absurdity. But it is not.
A person whose word is good, whose word binds him or her to action, is a person of integrity. This is a person who is the same on the inside and on the out, a person who does not change with the winds of circumstance, a person who follows through on promises, who can be counted on. This is particularly clearly seen in the Old Testament, in Hebrew, in describing God. In Hebrew the word DABAR means “word” and “thing” and “event” – all at the same time. What God speaks, IS. And God is the ultimate personification of integrity.
Now, just as a person loses integrity when words fail to match deeds, so also does a person lose integrity when body and soul act independently of one another. What I mean is, that the actions of the body MUST BE reflective of the condition of the soul in order for wholeness to be possible. So when the body engages in the most intimate of all possible activities without a corresponding involvement of the soul, the first step is taken towards the disintegration of the personality.
Some of the articles about the presidential scandals referred to President Clinton’s ability to “compartmentalize.” I submit to you that this ability to compartmentalize, hailed as an asset, is, in fact, prima facie evidence of moral decay. And that tendency to separate, not to let the right hand know what the left is doing, to say that one thing has nothing to do with another, to deny connectedness and consequence, is the key characteristic of fallen humanity that led to the giving of the commandment.
Let me say that again.
When we compartmentalize, when we deny that our behavior in one area of life has any impact on another area of our life, we are showing a lack of integrity. When we remove sexuality from its proper context at the heart of a life-long commitment, we are showing a lack of integrity. When we pretend that our thoughts are somehow separate from our behavior and our relationships we are showing a lack of integrity. When we see ourselves or anyone else in terms of their bodies only, we are denying and damaging both our own integrity and theirs. In God, all things hold together, all things are connected. To deny connectedness is to deny God.
Scripture teaches us that engaging in any sexual relationship implies a commitment. Paul teaches that if you lie with a prostitute the two of you become “one flesh.” Proverbs teaches that casual sexual activity leads to the soul’s destruction, because it is the practice of consciously separating your body from your soul. When you contemplate a man or a woman in terms of their sexual potential, you are trying to separate their bodies from their souls, licking off the frosting and throwing the rest away.
Marriage is about wholeness: a whole self, speaking a whole word, for a whole life. The promise that makes a marriage starts from within, from your own integrity, from your own ability to speak with one voice in all your parts. The promise that makes a marriage is made in word and deed, in body and soul. The promise that makes a marriage is the promise that reflects and is rooted in and grows toward the wholeness and unchangeableness of God.
The Church used to teach that marriage is a school for charity – that is agape: unselfish, Christ-like love. This kind of love requires a lifetime promise and grows to maturity over a lifetime, often with difficulty, and painful growth, and sharp edges and wounds and silences, but also with courage and honesty and a stubborn loyalty that is willing to see beyond the other person’s flaws to the promises of God.
The promise that makes a marriage begins on the inside, grows in interaction with the other, but is fulfilled by God alone. God’s is the gift, God’s is the promise, and God’s is the completion. It is God’s promise, God’s word, that marriage keeps. Don’t break it.
