This morning we have the privilege of witnessing the baptism of little Naomi Everman. Central to the act of baptism in any tradition are the vows that are taken before the candidate is baptized. They normally take the form two sets of promises. First, there are what we call the renunciations: the solemn forswearing of all evil, whether it originate in the world, the flesh or the devil. These are followed by the affirmations, expressing personal faith in Jesus Christ as Savior, Lord and God, and pledging to follow and obey him through the whole of life.
As it turns out, the Bible passage I want us to focus on this
morning, Matthew 5:27-37 (the verses immediately preceding today’s Gospel reading)
is all about the vows we make. The vow that Jesus focuses on is also one that
takes place at the front of the church, in fact almost exactly where Naomi was
baptized this morning and Rebecca and Eric made her vows on her behalf.
In this case, however, it is as two people stand before me
and promise that, forsaking all others, they will love, honor and cherish each
other for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health
throughout the rest of their lives. The vows of marriage are the most solemn
and sacred promises that two human beings can make to each other; and we give
recognition to that with the dramatic words (from Jesus himself), “Those whom
God has joined together let no one put asunder.” To which the whole
congregation adds its “Amen”.
Why is it that Jesus turns his attention to adultery and
divorce? Surely it is because marriage is foundational in God’s design for
humankind. Marriage is the most profound relationship that two human beings can
enter. Marriage is a sign of God’s faithfulness. Marriage is a foretaste of the
heavenly life in which we will be fully united with Christ as his bride and
spouse. So we should not be surprised to find that God’s first act after
creation was to unite a man and a woman in wedlock, and that Jesus’ first
miracle took place at a wedding.
Marriage is for sex
Traditionally the church has taught that marriage has three
purposes: to be the appropriate context for sexual union; for the procreation
of children to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord; and for
lifelong mutual love and faithfulness. Those are the purposes that are laid out
in the opening words of the marriage service in our Episcopal Book of Common
Prayer, and they haven’t varied all that much since the first English Prayer
Book was published in 1549. In recent years this perspective on marriage has
come under increasing challenge, to the point where it appears to have fallen
from being regarded as the cornerstone of society to becoming a minority
opinion. From some quarters we hear it being branded as behind the times, regressive,
even bigoted. And at this point in history the tides against it seem only to be
rising.
Bishop Tom Wright expressed the argument for a traditional
view of marriage in an op-ed article he wrote for The Times of London a few years ago:
Jewish, Christian and Muslim teachers have always insisted
that lifelong man-plus-woman marriage is the proper context for sexual
intercourse. This is not (as is frequently suggested) an arbitrary rule, dualistic
in overtone and killjoy in intention. It is a deep structural reflection of the
belief in a creator God who has entered into covenant both with his creation
and with his people (who carry forward his purposes for that creation).
Paganism ancient and modern has
always found this ethic, and this belief, ridiculous and incredible. But the
biblical witness is scarcely confined … to a few verses in St Paul. Jesus’s own
stern denunciation of sexual immorality would certainly have carried, to his
hearers, a clear implied rejection of all sexual behavior outside heterosexual
monogamy. This isn’t a matter of “private response to Scripture” but of the
uniform teaching of the whole Bible, of Jesus himself, and of the entire
Christian tradition.[1]
I was impressed by what our Jewish guest, Michael Berde,
shared two weeks ago about the kosher laws: that they were not primarily for
health, but to recognize that food is God’s gift. Restricting ourselves from
eating certain foods is a way of recognizing God’s ownership of all
creation—including our appetites. The same may be said for sex. God has created
us as sexual beings. And precisely because of that, because they are God’s
creation and gift, my sexual organs are not mine to use in whatever way I
choose. Sex is a wonderful gift, but it needs to be used in accordance with the
way in which God has purposed it.
The book of Proverbs (6:27) warns about what happens when
sex slips out of the context for which God created it when it cautions against
the temptation of adultery: “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his
clothes being burned?
Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being
scorched?” More than one person has drawn the comparison between sex and fire.
In a hearth the warm glow of a fire brings comfort to everyone in the room.
When it spreads out of the fireplace it becomes destructive. So it is that we
believe that the proper context for sex is within the bonds of faithful
marriage.
Faithfulness in marriage
Jesus was not one to shy away from controversial issues—and
in our passage this morning he moves directly from one to another, from
adultery to divorce. I know that there are those present in the congregation
this morning who have endured the pain of divorce. I want to observe at the
outset that Jesus was not forbidding divorce altogether. In our passage this
morning he allows for an exception: unchastity. Other versions of the Bible
translate this sexual immorality or promiscuity. In more recent years the
church has come to recognize other circumstances where divorce may be the only
solution: physical, emotional or other kinds of abuse, for example.
I do not believe that Jesus was talking about situations
such as these. In his day there was a certain school of thinking that allowed a
very broad interpretation for what might be involved in obtaining a certificate
of divorce. William Barclay lists a few of them: if a wife went about with her
head uncovered; if she was quarrelsome (here insert, “didn’t do what her
husband told her”); if she talked with another man in the streets; or even if
she sprinkled too much salt into her husband’s dinner.
Marriages will always have their difficulties. Husbands and
wives will inevitably encounter hurdles in their relationships. Yet I do
believe that in the great majority of cases if those obstacles are encountered with
faith, courage, humility, mutual trust (and sometimes help from family, friends
and fellow believers) the marriage can emerge stronger, deeper and healthier as
a result.
Later this year Karen’s parents will be celebrating their
seventieth wedding anniversary. Many years ago, not long before our own
marriage, I remember meeting her grandparents, who at the time had been married
for more than fifty years. Over the course of those years they had encountered numerous
challenges together. But I remember as clearly as though it were yesterday, her
grandfather saying to me on that occasion, “We are more in love now than we
have been at any time in our marriage.” What a challenge and encouragement that
was for me with our own marriage just months away!
So it is that the question I ask of brides and grooms at the
very outset of their wedding service, before anything else happens, is this:
“Will you live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love her (him),
comfort her (him), honor and keep her (him), in sickness and in health; and,
forsaking all others, be faithful to her (him) as long as you both shall live?”
For the most part, brides and grooms have no awareness of what is going to
befall them over the years. So much of it is completely unpredictable. At the
time of their wedding all they are aware of is each other, as they gaze
dreamily into each other’s glistening eyes. Yet it is that basic ingredient of
faithfulness that will carry them through both the good times and the bad, “for
better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health,” as they
will both promise.
Yet there is still more behind what Jesus is saying. For one
of God’s intentions in marriage was that it accomplish a deeper purpose: that
it not only bring fulfillment to the couple themselves, but that it be a sign
of his own faithfulness to his people. “Husbands, love your wives,” we read in
Ephesians (5:25-28), “just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for
her… In the same way, husbands should love their wives.”
Faithfulness in society
While faithfulness may be essential to marriage, its near
relative, trustworthiness, is the glue that binds together society as a whole. Societies
are built on trust. Where trust erodes, the society itself also will inevitably
crumble. Many years ago I remember a high-ranking businessman in the banking
world saying to me that he regretted that deals could no longer be sealed with
a handshake. There had been such a time at an earlier stage in his career. But
sadly that was no longer the case.
The people of Jesus’ day had an interesting way of getting
out of deals they didn’t want to keep. It was all a matter of words. As long as
you didn’t swear by God’s name directly, you could technically consider your
oath as non-binding. So you could swear by Jerusalem or by the earth or even by
heaven itself, as long as it was not in the name of God himself, and still
wiggle your way out of the deal.
But Jesus says that this is not good enough—in fact that no
oath should be necessary, that God’s people should be known as men and women of
their word, people who can be trusted, people of integrity. As we read in the
letter of James (5:12), “Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no’.”
I believe that there are at least two applications of what
Jesus is saying here. The first is that the church be a community of trust,
where people’s word can be relied upon. Secondly, we should recognize that
there is a broader application—not just to oaths, but to all that we say. And
so we need to be careful that what comes out of our mouths is truth, that we
are not the spreaders of unsubstantiated rumors, or even of substantiated ones
that might better be left unsaid. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of
your mouths,” we read in Ephesians (4:29), “but only what is helpful for building
others up as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who
hear.”
And so today, as we think of Naomi’s baptismal vows and of
our own, may it lead us to be faithful to God and faithful in all our
relationships, knowing that in him we have one who will never leave us or
forsake us, and who, though heaven and earth will surely pass away, his word
will remain.
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