Matthew 5:27-32: What You've Heard About Lust

One of the things that I enjoy doing after cutting the grass is looking over the span of it all, and being satisfied with the work of my hand. There is something about the even cut that makes me feel like a master artist. But when viewing the grass from ground level you can't really see how beautiful it is, you can't see the detail, you can't see the lines in the grass. And for me the lines are the most important things.

So in order to see the lines, I go up to my bedroom, fling open the blinds, and gaze upon the Picasso of lawns in North America. By changing my vantage point, I was able to get a clearer picture of what I accomplished. This is a truism that touches many areas of life. Changing your vantage point often expands your perspective. In the sermon on the mount, when Jesus is comparing the Old righteousness and kingdom righteousness, he is inviting us to change our vantage point and see things from the perspective of the kingdom.

In the passage indicated above, he is inviting us to learn what it means to avoid adultery. But, as we should suspect by now, his invitation is going to involve much more than a mere prohibition, it will involve a change in our vantage point that will enable us to see human beings through a different light, and react to them from that enlightenment.

The way the Pharisees understood the 7th Commandment, Do not commit adultery, was the same way they understood the 6th, Do not murder. They studied the command and sought to live according to its negative implication. That is, they established rules that would keep them from sleeping with someone who is not their spouse.

In that way the Pharisees should be respected and even emulated. For when we live without those boundaries we may end up in a compromising situation, where do things that we ought not do. So let us applaud the Pharisees for taking that aspect of the command very seriously, and let us do the same. But our emulation must stop there. For while they upheld the letter of the law–they didn't commit adultery, since their hearts were full of lust, they found subtle ways to break the spirit of the law.

For example, they created a law that said women must walk behind men, and keep their head bowed down. That way they were out of a man’s vision, and he wouldn't be tempted. (An early version of blaming the victim, "if you weren't wearing that...") If they did happen to look upon a women and find her appealing, they had no problem imagining what it would be like to have sex with her. And if the appeal was strong enough, they would use divorce as a means to get rid of their current wife in order to marry the new object of their lustful hearts. And because they technically didn't break the commandment, they would consider themselves righteous.

But righteous they were not. Because true righteousness, as Jesus taught repetitively, comes from within. And the actions of the Pharisees betrayed the fact that what was within was lusting, lasciviousness, and a desire to commit adultery if the conditions were right, they were not righteous.

Jesus, on the other hand, comes to teach us how to have a kingdom heart. And a heart that is rooted in the kingdom is one that not only does not, but will not, look upon another person as an object that can be used to satisfy ones own desires. Because the kingdom hearted person sees the other as a being created in the image of God, and seeks to help them realize that reality. The kingdom hearted person sees through the vantage point of God. We are invited to become such a person.

So how then do we become people who have kingdom hearts? How do we become people that set aside fantasized desires and see others through the eyes of God?

Well, Jesus says, "If your right eye offends you, pluck it out... If your right hand offends you, cut it off... For it is better to enter into eternal life with one eye or one hand, than go to Gehenna with both."

Here is what I believe he is saying, "Remove the thing from your life that is causing you to see people as objects, or interact with them in a sinful fashion." See, in Jesus day, the right side was the dominant side, it was the side of honor. So when Jesus refers to the right hand, I believe he is talking about the dominant way of interacting with one another. When he is talking about the right eye, he is referring to the customary way of seeing another person. And as we have seen from the Pharisees, the standard way of seeing and interacting was a fallen way.Therefore Jesus says, "Get rid of that way of seeing and interacting, and learn to see things through your left eye, and interact with your left hand." In other words, learn to see and interact with people through a not so common way. That is, through the way of the kingdom. When a person has a heart that is rooted and grounded in the kingdom heart of God, their entire view of the world will fundamentally change. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" (2 Corinthians 5:17)And what of divorce? This is an important subject in our day, and it is important to pay careful attention to what Jesus is saying here. Matthew 5:31-32: "It was also said, "Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."

In a day when marriage is being defined, redefined, and argued over, what we see in the New Testament is an admonition to take it seriously. For marriage is the most precious gift. As such, it should not be entered into haphazardly, or exited without just cause. Marriage is supposed to be a divine union where a man and woman join together and express the beauty of the giver of marriage. As Hauerwas says, "[It] is giving you the practice of fidelity over a lifetime in which you can look back upon the marriage and call it love. It is a hard discipline over many years." In that regard marriage is a journey of loving and learning to love. 

Sometimes that journey is interrupted due to a breach of that commitment to fidelity. That breach often ends in divorce, and divorce is the unfortunate result of the presence of sin and brokenness in this world. It tears apart that which was never meant to be rent asunder. And we should mourn whenever a marriage ends in this way.

However, there are occasions where the end of a marriage is a viable option, and sometimes even a good one. The occasion Jesus references most is that of fornication. It is permissible, he says, to end a marriage if there has been infidelity by one of the parties. Note: He doesn't say you must get a divorce, grace, healing, and forgiveness are still available, but he understands and permits the divorce if that is the choice. 

In another place (Matt. 19:8) he says that divorce was permitted by Moses because of the "hardness of human hearts." Another way of saying it is, "divorce was permitted by Moses because of human meanness and obstinacy." So he permitted divorce because human beings hearts often grow cold, and once the heart grows cold all manner of immoral and destructive treatment occurs, and to suggest that a man or woman must remain married is to misunderstand the heart of God.

So sometimes divorce does happen, and sometimes it should. But if it happens, the disciple of Jesus should maintain a kingdom heart. They should lay aside anger, contempt, cultivated lusting, lying, and unforgiveness. They need not embrace the ways of this world and hate their ex-spouse. That is not the heart of God either. 

It is also true that God is reconciliatory God. He renews and restores. So there is hope for those who have been divorced to find life in a new marriage, or to reconcile with their spouse if the occasion presents itself and it is appropriate.

Either way, the message we receive is this: In all that you do, do it with a kingdom heart. Learn to see all things from the vantage point of the kingdom, and respond accordingly.