Matthew 5: 27-30

             In the last fifteen years or so, we in America have become much more acquainted than we were with the cultures of the Middle East. Among the many contrasts that have stood out, one of the most startling to our liberated Western society is the way women are regarded - and how they regarded themselves - in some of those countries.

            Needless to say, Western women, when they became more aware of how women were treated in the Middle East, saw it as an outrage. These women needed to be liberated. And so we were startled when some of those women were actually interviewed, and said they liked the way they were treated just fine. They had lifetime security, and they couldn't imagine why Western women wanted to do the same things that the men had to do. Different strokes...

            The Bible that we read and revere is a product of the Middle East, and there are many times that we can't really understand the Bible unless we take that into account. What the Bible teaches about women and marriage is a case in point. When the Bible was written, marriage was, by and large, about property and position - and while it served both men and women, it was an arrangement between men. We see this in stories like that of Jacob, who had to work fourteen years for his father-in-law Laban, in order to win his Laban's daughter's hand in marriage. And, we still have vestiges of this in our customs - asking the father of the bride for her hand in marriage, or the "Giving of the Bride" by the father in the traditional wedding ceremony. Nothing wrong with following those traditional gestures - couples still choose to do so - but they are echoes of a time when marriage was an arrangement made between men.

            And adultery, as it was defined in the time of the Bible, was breaking the arrangement. The understanding was that married men were free to have sexual adventures, as long as it was with a slave woman, an unmarried woman, or with a foreign woman, whether she was married or not. None of those situations was considered adultery. Adultery was having an affair with the wife of another Jewish man - because then you were stealing his property.

            It's important to know some of that background, because when we look at the Bible from our 21st century perspective, we see a total double standard when it comes to men and women; it looks to us like the Bible is hopelessly sexist, and even cruel to women.  In fact, what we see in the Bible is amazing strides in beginning to break the shackles of that male-dominated system.

            We begin to see some of that in the Old Testament, where women begin to have some rights surrounding divorce; but we especially see it in Jesus. Someone has said that every time Jesus talked with a woman in the New Testament, he broke down another social barrier by which they were seen as second-class citizens.

            And I believe the teaching in today's scripture lesson also breaks down barriers. It is part of the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus is engaged in a project we've been talking about for the last couple weeks - reinterpreting the Old Testament law in a way that takes it beyond just following rules, and makes it a matter of offering our whole heart to God. This time it's about the commandment on adultery.

            "You have heard that it was said," said Jesus, "'You shall not commit adultery.'" We see this commandment, and rightly so, as relating to faithfulness in marriage. I believe that's the way God would want us to see it, and wants us to honor our marriages with complete fidelity. But as I've already shared, Jewish men didn't have to be faithful- they simply had to honor another man's property. And that's the way some of the men might have heard the commandment in Jesus' day. That doesn't apply to me. One of the obvious times that this law was interpreted in favor of the male is in John 8, when the men brought before Jesus a woman caught in the act of adultery. That's the time when Jesus responded, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." And he let her go free. The thing about that story is the obvious question that doesn't get asked: where was the man? Why was he not accused? Simply because that's not how things were done - men protected each other.

            All this gender double standard is part of the scene Jesus is addressing. So a man can stand there pretty smug when Jesus raises the subject. Until they hear what Jesus says next: "But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." What does that mean?

            First of all, it is addressed to men. If you look at a woman... So, this is not a case where the woman will be accused, and the man conveniently disappear. Jesus is specifically holding men accountable here. Second of all, the subject here is any woman - not just a fellow Jew's wife. Even a slave woman, even a foreign woman are given dignity - are off limits now.

            And then, of course, the third point - the shocking, obvious one: the culprit here is not just wrong action - it's wrong attitudes. The whole argument of, It's okay if I look, as long as I don't touch - Jesus shoots it down. So what is Jesus saying exactly here? We know, that as human beings, part of God's nature - we are wired to be attracted to the opposite sex. Certainly Jesus is not saying that that's a bad thing in and of itself. We also know, from the Bible, and from the experience of being human, that human sexuality is a great gift from God - and has the potential of great blessing. Certainly Jesus is saying nothing here to put that in a negative light.

            What Jesus is talking about is lust. The Bible dictionary I use defines lust as 'burning with sexual desire." Again, sexual desire, in and of itself, is not necessarily evil. What is evil is what sexual desire has become in our society - a focus on body parts, rather than on personhood. A focus on the physical, rather than the spiritual. I believe the problem with the lust Jesus was addressing is that when we see someone in that light, we don't see them as human beings. We see them as second-class commodities. And Jesus said that men simply are not to regard women that way.

            And we might think that we've graduated from that thinking; we might think that we are much more enlightened than those Middle East people 2000 years ago. But look again. All around us women are still regarded as sex objects without souls. Just this past week, one of the popular cop shows on TV had the story of a woman who was murdered, it turned out, by a high-ranking official, and as the men talked it over, one said to the other, "You mean you're going to arrest one of the best men in our community just because some prostitute died?" The attitude is still there, folks, and Jesus will not have it. Every person is a child of God, and not just a body to be used. Every person - male and female - has the breath of God within, and when we reduce people to sex objects, we are not honoring what God has made.

            It is a sinful world, we know that. And one of the real signs of that is how we have taken human sexuality, one of the truly beautiful gifts God ever dreamed up, and made it into one of the most destructive forces in the world. Homes are wrecked, diseases are spread, people lose self-respect, souls are crushed - all because of the perversion of something that God intended to be good. We simply are not intended to look upon one another as body parts; as creatures of lust; as sex objects. Animals may do that; it may be nature's way. But we are not mere animals; and there is a higher law we follow than simple nature. The Bible says we were created in the very image of God; and that means we put a higher standard on ourselves, and regard others in a higher way.

            I am reading the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus as a recipe for deeper living - and one of the ingredients certainly must be living by a moral code - and this is something much wider in scope than sexuality, as important as that is. This comes down to what kind of person you will be, how you will treat others, and how you'll keep your life presentable before God. Our prayer through this Lenten season has been that God would create within us a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within us.

            And so, as we come before God today, and share in the sacred meal Jesus began with his disciples, we ask that God will create in each of us a heart of love and respect, that we might love God and our neighbor with the highest standard and the deepest appreciation. We lose so much of that in our society by our obsession with physical attractiveness and sex for its own sake. God created human sexuality, the male-ness or the female-ness of each of us, as a gift that is intimately part of who we are as people - something to celebrate.

            Improper lust does not fit into that picture. If we apply the teaching of Jesus very specifically, he would be calling those who are addicted to pornography to get help; those who are considering adultery to reconsider; those who excuse in themselves sexual phrases to refer to other people, or fantasies that seem harmless - be aware of what Jesus is saying here - what happens in our minds are small steps to what can actually ruin lives. And in general, let all of us be aware of God's love for each person, and treat each other in every arena of life with integrity and godly love.

            Finally, let us love our selves for who God made us to be - not trying to live up to some impossible physical standard - but precious in God's sight as the beautiful, sensual, loving creations he made us to be. In God's family nobody is second-class; everybody is invited to the table.