A word before we turn to God in prayer. In recent days, Fourth Presbyterian Church and its pastors have responded in many immediate ways to the war in Iraq, and those responses will continue in the weeks ahead. It is my hope that today’s scripture and sermon will also be helpful to us during these anxious times, because they draw us close to the core of our faith tradition, offering grounding for our unsettled souls. We come to church with at least one question in mind: What way is the way to life and to peace? we ask, and the Almighty answers, “I will show you the way.”

Guide us now, O God, through the unknown moments of this morning. Lead each one of us to the one door of all the many doors you would have us open, so that we might encounter once again the truth that will save. Give us courage to speak the word that you would have us speak. Give us ears to hear and wills to obey, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.¹

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Theologian Douglas John Hall has identified four worldly quests that are present in our culture today: the longing for meaningful community, the quest for transcendence and mystery, the search for meaning, and, finally, the search for moral authenticity.²For several Sundays, we have sought to honor that last quest by looking afresh at the moral principles of the Judeo-Christian code known as the Ten Commandments. The commandments are admonitions attributed directly to God, who not only gave the gift of freedom from bondage to the Hebrew people, but also bestowed upon them, for their happiness and well-being, the means for maintaining the gift of freedom.

It has long been the custom in the Christian church to read the Ten Commandments during the season of Lent. As Jesus makes his way to the cross, we who follow him are encouraged to engage in the spiritual discipline of reflecting on the life we now live and the new life made possible through Christ, “who gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Astonishingly, the letter to the Ephesians encourages us to become actual imitators of God, a possibility that would have been unimaginable were it not for God’s grace bestowed in the person of Jesus Christ, God’s own Son. This morning, I want to invite you to consider that the Ten Commandments are themselves gifts that flow from the bounty of God’s grace. Today we come to the final four commandments in our series:

“You shall not commit adultery,” the seventh commandment.
“You shall not steal,”
“You shall not bear false witness,”
and the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet.”

These four commandments deal with our relationships with one another, our most intimate relationships as well as our relationships in the broader society. Think of them as paths that lead to life that is flourishing, to reconciled communities, to genuine human happiness.

When I consider the fact we have four commandments to cover in the next fifteen minutes, I am reminded of the story about the day that Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the tablets and said to the children of Israel, “Here is a set of thirteen instructions from the Lord.”

The people were horrified.
“Moses, can’t you get the Almighty to whittle the list down a bit?”

“I’ll try,” Moses said. Back up the mountain he went. Time passed. Moses returned. “I have good news and bad news,” he said. “The good news is that I did get the list down to ten. The bad news is that number seven is still there.”

“You shall not commit adultery.” This admonition was never intended to cover every area of sexual ethics but specifically to address the need to preserve the sanctity of marriage. The “you” in “You shall not commit adultery” included both husbands and wives, though it must be said that there were times in the application of this commandment in the ancient cultures that a double standard prevailed. Women were forbidden from sexual relations with any other male, while husbands were instructed against relations with other married women, the point being to confine the paternity of offspring to the marriage.

The variation of interpretation in ancient times not withstanding, it would be a serious mistake to conclude that the commandment was meant only for wives. Adultery was considered a great sin for husbands, as many stories in the Hebrew scriptures attest.³The account of the sorry affair between King David and Bathsheba and the tragic consequences thereof are a sobering moral lesson in that regard. The constancy of the meaning of the commandment has never changed. If one makes a covenantal vow of sexual fidelity, then that vow is to be kept. If one engages in sexual activity with a partner to whom one is not married, that is a violation of the promises that were made and an offense not only to the partner, but also to the law of God.

Here is a reality check for us all. The very existence of the seventh commandment is an acknowledgement that people do not necessarily and in all circumstances remain naturally programmed for monogamy. Clearly there are instincts within the human creature that have minds of their own. What is also clear is that God intends for the promise of sexual fidelity to be honored by those who have entered into that covenantal agreement.

I cannot remember when I have felt more self-conscious about preaching on a subject for a sermon, but there are times when we need to stand back from God’s revelation and not decide whether we like the law or not, but look at our own behaviors and choices in light of that which is greater than ourselves and our opinions. As someone has written recently, “There are many sad circumstances of those who have thought that by calling a wrong a right, that that would make it right.” G. K. Chesterson once wrote, “If a man is walking and comes to a cliff, and keeps on walking off the cliff, he will not break the law of gravity, he will prove the law of gravity.”⁴ There are moral assumptions that underlie the universe. The assumption that fidelity is better than betrayal is one of those fundamental moral principles.

If you are a single person who has come to church today, you may have wondered if the assumption is that the only norm for human life is married life. A full, faithful, joyful, God-glorifying life can be lived in singleness, in marriage, or in partnership, but surely we could not have left out this central commandment, directed toward the most ancient and universal covenantal relationship between human beings.

There is, of course, the challenge of Jesus’ words on the subject of adultery in the Sermon on the Mount. “You have heard it said that you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that anyone who looks at another lustfully has already committed adultery” (Matthew 5:27-28). All human beings are subject to feelings of desire. While sexual feeling is a good and gracious gift of God, who wants us to enjoy life to its fullest, we should never allow those feelings to lead us to the place where we react to one another solely on the basis of that person as a sexual object.

Perhaps you feel excluded from today’s sermon because you are happily and faithfully married. Let me suggest at least an implication of the seventh commandment for all marriages. You can work seventy hours a week and do a great disservice to your partnership and family. You can close off your emotions and undermine your marriage. You can be disrespectful to your partner. You can give everything away out there in the world or at the office and bring nothing home, thereby undermining your marriage and your family.

If there is one here who has violated his or her marriage vows by infidelity, and if you are wondering if you have committed the unforgivable sin, I would simply say that the Christian faith knows nothing about an unforgivable sin.⁵ Jesus said to the woman who was caught in adultery, “Go now, and sin no more” (John 8:7). Do not be paralyzed with guilt. Go and live the transformed life made possible by the grace of God. If you are a person who has been betrayed or is having a difficult time forgiving, then let me remind you that forgiveness does not mean suspending moral judgment. It means releasing yourself and the other person from the bondage of judgment. The non-Presbyterian version of the Lord’s Prayer is helpful here: “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”

Whether forgiveness is human or divine, forgiveness is never the end of it. After grace comes responsibility. Grace first, but then the responsibility to receive the new life made possible, to accept the gift of new life in Christ. “Behold the past is finished and gone, and lo, the new has come. Friends, believe the gospel, in Jesus Christ we are forgiven.” Every Sunday we say things like that in this sanctuary. In our Presbyterian past, the Ten Commandments often were recited after the forgiveness of sins in the service of worship. We who have been released from guilt are expected to respond with “holy and joyful lives” (Brief Statement of Faith, Presbyterian Church, U.S.A).

“You shall not steal” is the eighth commandment. The positive way to think about the eighth commandment is that God has made possible a life marked by generosity. God has freed us from the kind of selfishness that makes us narcissistic and self-concerned at the expense of others. Interestingly, the commandment not to steal originally had to do with slavery. You shall not steal another person and sell that person into slavery. One recalls the story of Joseph and his brothers, for example. It is quite legitimate to extend the application of the eighth commandment to include property, for what you and I possess materially is in a profound way an extension of our very selves.⁶ That came home to me so clearly several years ago when our home was burglarized. All my jewelry, the ring my father had given me when I was ten, the necklace my mother had worn, and the silver flatware that had belonged to my mother and father were taken from our home. Our property is, not in some deeply meaningful way, an extension of ourselves.

“You shall not steal.” I do not imagine there are many house burglars or slave dealers here in the congregation this morning, so I want to challenge you to think of this commandment in a broader, more societal way today. How might those who have very few possessions, for example, how might they be included in this eighth commandment? John Calvin, our great spiritual forbearer in the Presbyterian church wrote, “Since charity is the end of the law and the rule of charity is that no one should do unto someone else what he would not want done to himself, it follows that there are not only thieves who steal property, but there are thieves who gain from other people’s losses, and who are motivated by their private advantage more so than their concern for equity [and justice].”⁷

This eighth commandment makes us ask important questions. What responsibility does a society have to ensure the rights of the least among us? It makes us ask whether profits are being fairly distributed in businesses and corporations, rather than held in the hands of a few. The recent publicity surrounding the bonuses of airline executives at a time when thousands of airline employees have lost jobs is a situation that brings to my mind this eighth commandment. As we think of what our nation will do when it comes to taxes, we have to wonder what responsibility we have to order national policies to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to sit at the table of God’s abundance. Do not be motivated by concern for private advantage without considering the equally important matter of equity.

This next week, Al and I are going to see our two-year-old granddaughter, Virginia, whom we have not seen in several months. I think about her future. I think about the future of the babies that we baptize by the dozens here at Fourth Presbyterian Church each month. Should we not be careful not to take more than our fair share of the earth’s resources for the sake of generations that will come after us? Do we not need to leave to children and grandchildren an inhabitable planet in which there is air to breathe and water to drink, a place where plants and animals can thrive as God intended? You shall not steal from future generations. To put it positively, you have the ability to be generous to those who will come after you.

The admonition not to bear false witness against one’s neighbor was addressed to the danger of being testified against falsely in the court of law. The word “neighbor” implies that the children of Israel were not the only ones included in the protection of lying; those with whom they shared the land were also included. One is not to lie at someone else’s expense, whether you like them or not, whether they are your people or not; you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. The philosopher Nietzsche claimed that lying was the basic necessity of life, but the ninth commandment makes exactly the opposite point, that truth is essential to human society. That is not to say that bending the truth is wrong in every single circumstance. There are moments when not telling the truth might be ethically necessary, though those moments are rare. Think of a black person being hidden from a lynching mob in the Southern United States in the nineteenth century. If someone knocked on the door and asked, “Is the man hiding here?” the answer ought to have been, “No, I have not seen him.” If the SS was after a Jew in Germany or in the Netherlands, the answer should have been the same—whatever it takes to protect the safety of the innocent.⁸ Playing loose with the truth has a terrible effect on society. As George Orwell put it in his novel 1984, “We get to the point when anything could be true,” and perception becomes reality. When that happens, a society is sunk. Abraham Lincoln once asked his advisors, “If you call a sheep’s tail a leg, how many legs will the sheep have?”

“Five,” one of his advisors guessed.

“No,” said President Lincoln, “calling a tail a leg will never make it so.”⁹

The truth is to be honored, in marriages, in partnerships, in government among nations, and in our own personal lives. I remember a story that ethicist Steven Carter told in his book Integrity, a story of watching with his children a television broadcast of a football game. The receiver was thrown a pass but then immediately fumbled the ball. He stood up, however, and celebrated that he had caught the pass rather than fumbling it, because he knew that none of the referees had seen him. The broadcasters commented on what a smart football player he was. “Well done,” they said, “what a heads-up play.” Carter thought about his children and wondered what they were thinking. What if that receiver had been on the team of my alma mater? Respect for the truth, living with personal integrity—these are the paths to the whole, good, and happy life God has in mind for us all.

Finally, and very briefly, we come to the commandment against covetousness. The positive way to put it is the possibility of contentment. I know of nothing that eats away at the human soul more than envy and covetousness. The promise of the tenth commandment is there is an alternative to wanting that which you do not have and being made miserable because you do not have it. The name of that alternative is contentment. “I have learned,” Paul wrote, “the secret of contentment” (Philippians 4:11). Paul knew that God had already granted him everything that was essential to living human life. It is the same for you and me. We have freedom. We have the assurance that whatever life dishes up, no matter how terrible it might be, no matter how overwhelming it might seem, God will give us the strength to endure and the wisdom to handle it. We can be sure of that, because God has already taken upon God’s own self the pain and suffering and brokenness and death in the world through Jesus Christ his Son, and our Lord.

In the most important ways, we lack for absolutely nothing in this life. Therefore, we have every reason to live life in the spirit of contentment.

Truthfulness, generosity, fidelity, contentment: these are the gifts that God would bestow upon our hearts today. These are the paths that lead to wholeness and happiness. These are the moral foundations of the universe. They always have been and always will be.

The Lord said, “I am the one who brought you out of the house of slavery, because I love you, I want you to know how to live life to its fullest measure.” Those who have ears, let them hear, and glorify God with your lives, today and always. Amen.

Notes

1. Adapted from Frederick Buechner’s From Death to Life, a Lenten devotional.
2. An Awkward Church, Theology and Worship Occasional Paper, No. 5, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
3. Patrick D. Miller, Deuteronomy (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), p. 89.
4. William Willimon, ed. Pulpit Resource.
5. Albert C. Winn, A Christian Primer (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), p. 237.
6. Ibid. Miller, p. 91.
7. Commentaries, III, p. 110-111.
8. Edward Rosstein, New York Times, 18 August 2001.
9. Ibid, Willimon.