Lenten Series
Bible, Birds and Bees: Sex, Adultery and Divorce 

Ed
Grace to you and peace from God our Father,  

John
And from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  

Both
Amen.  

John
For those in grades 5-9 who are taking notes on today’s sermon, the title of the sermon is BIBLE, BIRDS AND BEES.  The text for the sermon is Matthew 5:27-32.  

Ed
We find in the passage for today in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has taken his disciples and gone halfway up the mountain, halfway up on sprawling large hills above the Sea of Galilee. As Moses went up onto the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments, the moral law for the Jews in the Old Testament, so Jesus went up his mountain and gave his disciples the new moral guidelines, the new moral codes for Christians. That is, the moral laws given for the Jews in the Old Testament for sex, marriage and divorce were no longer adequate for New Testament Christians. Jesus gave his disciples, a new moral guideline for a fundamental issue of life: sex and marriage.

John
Today, what are the issues today regarding sex and marriage? For generations in the church, we couldn’t talk about sex but now we can. What are the issues about sex and marriage that people in our society are facing? What are the changes that we are seeing in our society from forty years ago? A generation is forty years. What are some changes in sexual and marital behaviors from forty years ago? 

Ed
One change from forty years ago is the number of reported cases of sexual abuse, rape, and molestation. We often hear of teachers and coaches being indicted for sexual abuse and we didn’t hear about that forty years ago.  

John
There is the whole issue of living together before marriage, or maybe not even intending to get married. This is common practice today, whereas forty years ago, it was rarely heard of.  

Ed
Today we face the issue of teenage pregnancy. We face the giving out of condoms in the school system. That was unheard of years ago.

John
That relates to the issue of Aids and other kinds of sexually transmitted diseases. There is a tremendous epidemic of Aids and STDs that we have to deal with today.  

Ed
Another issue that we struggle with is the whole issue of homosexuality and gay marriages. We discover that our social scientists say that approximately ten percent of our population has a “same sex” orientation. We are now reading about gay marriages on the front pages of newspapers.  

John
There is the issue of extra marital affairs. We know that happens even within the church and among Christians. Extra marital affairs cause so much pain and devastation for families.  

Ed
Pornography. We know that Playboy and all the similar magazines are easily available in magazine racks. But now pornography has gone into video so a person rents pornographic videos from video stores and these can be obtained over the Internet.  

John
All that business of sex in the media is a horrendous problem today. TV shows are rampant with immoral sexuality. It is also in music and music videos.

Ed
Another basic change in our society is having children outside of wedlock. Many years ago, when a person would be prematurely pregnant and not married, they would put that new born baby up for adoption. But now, increasingly we find that children are being raised by a single parent.  

John
There is that whole issue of child molestation and sex predators. A while ago, we received a note over at Star Lake Elementary School, right in our neighborhood, stating there was a white car with three young men in it parked right next to the school playground. These  young men were offering the children candy, enticing the children to come to their car. This is right in our own back yard and it is a serious problem.  

Ed
There have been enormous changes in sexual and marriage patterns from forty years ago. So in this real world with so much temptation and so much craziness, how does Jesus want us to live out our Christian faith in terms of sex and marriage in this crazy mixed up world of ours?

John
One thing that we as Christian parents are concerned about is how to raise our children with responsible sexual values. Where our children know the appropriate sexual boundaries and are willing to draw those appropriate sexual boundaries for their own lives. We as Christian parents are very concerned about raising our children so that they have responsible sexual morality.  

Ed
We know that God created us with healthy sexual drives. That is the way that God created us. God created sex as something beautiful and sacred and good and holy. Write that down kids: God created sex and marriage as something beautiful, good and holy.  

John
The question for me as I look on what has happened in our world, what has happened to this beautiful gift? What have we done to it? What has come of this whole issue of sexuality?  

Ed
Adultery. Adulterated. We need to understand the meaning of thee word, adulterated. Sex and marriage, which are sacred, beautiful, loving, have become adulterated. Sex and marriage have become disfigured, impure, corrupted, corroded, contaminated.  I would like to share an illustration with you. One time I visited Rome and the Vatican.  There in the Vatican, as you walk in the door, on your immediate right, is one of the most beautiful sculptures in the world. It is the Pieta, by Michelangelo. It is about nine feet tall and it is a sculpture of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary, who is sitting there. She is holding Jesus, her crucified Son, whose body has just come off the cross. She is holding her dead son, draped over the lap of her body. It is the most gorgeous marble sculpture in the whole world. When you see it, your breath is taken away. It is breathtaking, beautiful, gorgeous. Well, years ago, someone came into the Vatican with acid and they threw the acid onto this Pieta. O no. How tragic!!! They scarred it; they disfigured it; they adulterated it. Those of us who had seen the Pieta were so upset that they had disfigured something so beautiful. Similarly, sex and marriage between a man and a woman is intended to be something so beautiful, so breathtaking, so good. We feel the tragedy when sex and marriage are disfigured, when they are adulterated, when they are spoiled from the way that God intended them to be.  

John
To carry that illustration forward. What about a young person coming in and seeing that beautiful sculpture by Michelangelo and it was scarred and disfigured. What if that young person had never seen it before, so they look at it and say, “This is the way it has always been. This is the way it is supposed to be.” But they have never seen it in its original beauty, so they have no ideal what it was intended to be.  

Ed
The same with sex. The same with marriage. They have no idea of what it was intended to be. They think the disfigured image of sex and marriage is the model that God intended and it is not. … But, artists did restore the Pieta. Those artists came in and restored the disfigured Pieta, and if you went into the Vatican today, you will see the Pieta in all of its beauty. And it is gorgeous. It is beautiful. It will take your breath away. The scars are still there. There are still scars. But it is absolutely beautiful. It has been restored.  

John
When we think of restoration, do you think it is possible here in the church that we could restore the gift of our sexuality and marriage to the beauty and goodness that God originally intended? Do you think we can do that? Do you think we can restore our sexual relationships and marriage relationships to the beauty that God originally intended?  

Ed
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. You see it all the time. The purpose of Christ is to restore sexual relationships to the original beauty.  The purpose of Christ is to restore marriages which have become disfigured. That is the purpose of God. That is the purpose of Christ. That is the purpose of the church. John, we do that all the time. It is part of your job and mine. We see these young couples come into the church and they are ready to be married and we help them. We help them to have good marriages. We have older people in our church. We think of all those people in our parish who have loved each other for more than fifty years and these people in their great marriages are great models for us. They are great models of living and loving each other through the good times and the bad.  

John
The way I see these verses, Ed, is that these texts are to help us learn to have healthier sexual relationships. That is why Jesus gave us these Bible verses. To help us to learn to have those healthy sexual relationships and how to go about that. The kind of relationships that God wants for you and me.

Ed
Specifically, in the text for today, as we look at the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, we realize that Jesus taught that the Old Testament law was not enough. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is giving a new morality for new Christians. The first thing that Jesus teaches is that all people sin sexually. All people. That is a reality. There are no perfect people sexually in this room. There are not sinless people in this room. There is no one here in this room who dares throw a stone at another individual or family. No one. We have all sinned sexually.  

John
Therefore, we are all in need of God’s forgiveness. There is no room for condemnation. That is not what any of us should be doing. There is no condemnation. We are all guilty before God in terms of sexuality and we stand on the same level ground. We are all in need of God’s forgiveness.

Ed
You see the problem in the New Testament is that the Jews and the Pharisees thought that they were better because they could keep the law. They would say, “I am better. I am married. And my sexual sins are not as bad as your sexual sins. I stand on a little higher ground than you and I will look down my nose at you and say, ‘How terrible you have been.’” Jesus eliminates all of that. Jesus says that we are all sinners.

John
I like what the Apostle says when he writes, “We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are therefore justified by God’s grace as a gift.” We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. As a result of this, we are more gracious to each other. We are not condemning towards each other. We are more gracious, as fellow sinners, who stand in the need of God’s forgiveness. We are all in that same place.

Ed
It is wise to be less condemning. That is, you are a grandfather or grandmother and you finally discover that your grandson is a homosexual. Previously, you were so condemning about homosexuality. Or, you are a good solid married couple who has been married to several decades and you discover that your son is living with another person or that your daughter has had an abortion.  All I know is that when I look across this parish and I have been here for a long, long time, for more than thirty years, there is not one family who would dare throw one stone at another family. There is no room for stone throwing in this congregation. We are all sinners.

John
Again, we have to realize that Jesus is talking about deep feelings of the heart and not just the actions. He is talking about deep feelings of the heart. Lust. That is what Jesus is talking about. These are feelings that go behind the actions. God wants to heal our hearts of sexual impurities. The sixth graders and I are studying the Ten Commandments on Wednesday nights during Lent, I really like what Martin Luther says in his Small Catechism about the sixth commandment, which says, “You shall not commit adultery.” Here is what Luther says. It is a wonderful, clear, concise statement. “In matters of sex, our words and our conduct are to be pure and honorable.” That says it all for me. 

Ed
Jesus is saying the very same thing in the text for today. The way Jesus says it, “If your eye sins, pluck it out. If you hand sins, cut it off.” That is the Aramaic way of saying what Martin Luther say. That in matters of sex, may your conduct and actions be pure and honorable. Cut out the evil in your life. Cut out the unhealthy sexual habits in your life. That is what Jesus is inviting his disciples to be and do. … Well, if that is what the text says today, and you and I deal with this issue all the time (sex, sexuality, marriage, divorce) as part of our professional lives, so what is some practical advice that we would like to share with our fellow Christians that has to do with the restoring of the beauty and sacredness to sexuality and marriage? What are some advice that we would give? Write those words down, kids. Advice about sexuality. Write the number, 5, behind it. We are going to give you five pieces of advice.

John
1) Here is the first point. Don’t put yourself into situations full of temptation. One issue that I think is very important is the issue of temptation and vulnerability. For me, the two go very close together, hand in hand. Temptation and vulnerability. Let me give you an example. Take a person who struggles with alcohol, who is a recovering alcoholic, the last place that person should go to is a bar or tavern. The temptation is too great. Another example. You young people, when you are dating, the last place that you want to end up is in either of your homes or your friends’ homes when the parents aren’t there. The temptation is too great. You don’t put yourself in those situations. You don’t make yourself unnecessarily vulnerable. 

Ed
2) A second point is making intelligent decisions about your choice of friends. We make intelligent decisions every day of our lives. Lets make some intelligent decisions about the kinds of movies that you watch, the TV programs you watch, the kind of music that you listen to.  Be smart about the kinds of books and magazines that you read. As the saying goes, “Garbage in, garbage out.” That is very true. Maybe even more important than that is to be smart in our choice of friends. That is true if you are a teenager, a  young adult, a middle age young adult or older adult. Who do we chose as our friends. We need to be intelligent about choosing our friends and choose those friends who have a positive impact on you and share your Christian values. These are the kinds of friends you want to have. People who have good Christian values about sex and marriage.

John
3) A third point of advice. For adults who are married, take care of your marriage relationship. Both Pastor Markquart and myself have said time and time again is that you need to take good care of your marriage relationship. For those of you who are married, take good care of your marriage. Make sure that you are taking care of each other’s needs and have a high level of satisfaction in your marriage. It is when you are dissatisfied in your marriage, when there is pain and hurt in your marriage, that is when a person starts to look elsewhere for some of those needs. When there is unrest, that is often when marital affairs occur.  

Ed
4) But not necessarily occur. Point number four: Not everyone is doing it. Write that down, kids. It was interesting for me that in the recent issue of TIME magazine, there was an interesting article which surveyed life in America and reported on sexual patterns here in America. The article was really broadcasting the following statement: “One out of three men have affairs!!! One our of four women have had affairs. It is rampant. It is everywhere.” I thought to myself, “O, two out of three men don’t have affairs. Three out of four married women don’t have affairs. That isn’t the way they solve their problems.” But to read TIME magazine, you would think that everyone was having an affair.

John
Of course, if you are into the soaps and the movies, everybody is doing it. The movies and the soaps are kind of a distorted view of what reality is. Having an affair is a way to solve problems.  

Ed
It is not kind of distorted. It is distorted. When you watch the movies and the soaps, you get a distorted view of sexuality. In fact, when John and I did our opening dialogue with each other, we catalogued that we saw going on in the USA that people were struggling with sexually. It was a negative view. What we need to be aware of, is that which is not publicized, is that there are an awfully lot of people who are not doing these things. Remember that two out of three men are not having affairs. Remember that three out of four women are not having affairs. Remember that there is a high percentage of people out there who remain virgins. You don’t hear that in the media at all.  

John
5) A lot of people say that if you have been sexually involved, it is impossible to go back. You can’t go back, right? Well, there is an interesting concept that people are talking about today, especially younger people, and they are calling it “secondary virginity.” I like that concept. This is point number five, kids: “secondary virginity.” It is basically saying that if you  have been involved in some kind of sexual immorality, you can stop and you can make a decision not to continue. If you have been sexually active in impure ways, you can stop with God’s help, with prayer, and you can begin to experience a much more healthy sexuality for yourself.

Ed
You see that God wants us to restore our God given sexuality to its original intention but also our marriage. John and I work with a large number of people in preparation for their marriage. Among these, there are a large number of young couples who are living together. We say to those couples that we don’t think that is right. We have yet to talk with such young people and they say what they are doing is right. No one says, “God is really pleased with us and our living together.” None of them say that. What we do find is that a lot of people who living together want to have a good solid Christian marriage. When these young couples come to us, they are looking for their relationship to become a healthier and God pleasing relationship and have a marriage relationship which is blessed by God.

John
We are eager to do that. It is a great joy for us to do that. We are excited to do that.

Ed
We do that all the time. It is at the very heart of our work. And so in conclusion, I think we could say what we know sure about sex and marriage.  

John
We know for sure that sex and marriage is a very important part of our lives.  

Ed
We know for sure that God created sex and marriage to be good, beautiful, loving and sacred.  

John
We know for sure that Jesus Christ wanted his first disciples on the mountain above the Sea of Galilee to understand what God intended for them in sex and marriage.  

Ed
We know for sure  that you, as contemporary disciples, want to understand and follow the teachings of Jesus regarding sex and marriage.  

John
We know for sure that you, as contemporary disciples, want to live in a way that is pleasing to Jesus, both sexually and in your marriages.  

Ed
And so we both say,

Both Ed and John
Amen. 


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