Sermon on the Mount
Week 17 –Dealing with Lust
The Sermon on the Mount is the core of Jesus’ yoke and if we want to be true Jesus followers, then we need to understand how to live out his yoke. The main purpose of the Sermon on the Mount is to show how to live a life that God finds pious, that is, how to live out the righteousness of God here on Earth. We have looked at the “Principles of the Yoke” by studying the Beatitudes to learn what traits it is that God finds honorable in a person. Jesus then talked about the “Purpose of the Yoke” by sharing 4 metaphors of how a person following the Yoke would impact his community and his world.
We are now starting on the “Parting of the Yoke” where will see Jesus “fulfilling” the Old Covenant. In this section he will explore 6 concepts and he will “bind” and “loose” specific practical applications of the covenant to contemporary situations.
Last week we looked at the “Thou shall not murder” commandment and gained an understanding of why killing is wrong; all life is created by God in the image of God and is therefore sacred. We learned that killing sometimes acceptable because a person, though, who no longer considers other’s lives as sacred has violated the very basis of the social contract we have with one another and is a danger to the sacredness of all other life.
We then saw the Jesus associated 3 other offenses with killing because they destroy the sacredness of life. Anger without cause, despising others, and hurtful words are all “on par” with killing because the destruction these things do to the inner worth of person are the same as killing. Our words and our attitudes towards others can “kill” a person o the inside.
Therefore, the first step up toward the “Peak of Piety” is to adopt a godly perspective on the view of other’s lives. When we see that each person is created by God in His image and is sacred, we realize that our connection with one another is indeed a gauge for our connection to God. We saw that to value others leads us toward piety.
After expounding on the sixth commandment, Jesus tackles the seventh commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Exod. 20:14, 17; Lev. 18:20; 20:10; Deut. 22:22-29.
The Jewish rabbis in Jesus time had worked out a set of definitions of adultery that all centered around the marital status of the woman. They prescribed that if a woman was married, engaged, or had the potential to be in either of those relationships (i.e., a virgin or maiden) then having sex with that woman was considered adultery. This means that sexual relations with a woman who falls outside of these boundaries (divorced, widowed, unwed prostitute, etc..) was not considered adultery, even if the man was married.
The reason for this is a Jewish understanding of sex. In Jewish law, sex is not considered shameful, sinful or obscene. Church history, emanating from Augustine, and cemented in our “Victorian” historical culture teaches that sex is basically a necessary evil and should be endured only for the sole purpose of procreation. This view of sex would have been considered foreign to Jesus’ listeners because, although sexual desire comes from the yetzer ra (the evil impulse), it is no more evil than hunger or thirst, which also come from the yetzer ra. Like hunger, thirst or other basic instincts, sexual desire must be controlled and channeled, satisfied at the proper time, place and manner.
In theory, the Law of Moses defined the standards that were then generally followed by the Jewish people. The standards were in place, but the adherence was rather spotty and selective. Homosexuality, incest, and bestiality were soundly condemned, but prostitution was widely practiced among the Jews. Strict penalty was imposed on the wife for marital infidelity, but the husband in general was free to have sexual relations with other women beyond his wife, so long as it wasn’t another man’s wife.
So, in the self-serving, pharisaical attitudes of the day, a man visiting an unwed prostitute was just satisfying his God-given, humanly desire and was not committing adultery.
So, Jesus attacks this double standard and clarifies the meaning of the Seventh Commandment by binding lusting for any woman with adultery. What is interesting is that the Greek word for woman that Matthew uses here is “lust for any woman,” not just a desire for a married woman.
The sexual standards introduced by Jesus in our text and elsewhere in the New Testament were revolutionary and radical for that day. The heart of the teaching by Jesus and the apostles is to call the people of God back to the ideal set forth in Genesis 2:24. This principle is the foundation for all of the teaching on human sexuality in the New Testament.
To drive his point home, Jesus then engages in some hyperbole. How do we know this is an exaggeration and not to be taken literally? The answer is simple: Jewish law prohibits self-mutilation. The basis for the prohibition is Genesis 9:5: “And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.” With self-mutilation comes blood, and Jews are prohibited from desecrating their own body. Remember, in Judaism, we do not “own” our bodies; God does.
Basically, Jesus is preventively answers protests for those who would excuse themselves by saying
“I cannot help myself. It is a just a natural desire.” Jesus uses a form of argument known as reductio ad absurdum to stifle the objections. A reductio ad absurdum is a form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd consequence.
So, Jesus, anticipating this excuse says that if one starts from the proposition that he is controlled by his sexual desires, then the only choice he has if he cannot control himself is to pluck out his eye or cut off his hand. But it is foolish to suppose that God requires us to dismember ourselves (actually, that kind of self-mutilation is an abomination to God and expressly forbidden). Therefore, it must also be foolish to suppose that we cannot refrain from lust. In other words, since the conclusion is absurd, then the premise must also be absurd and we must be able to control our sexual desires, just as we control our other appetites.
Once we understand this, we have to ask ourselves: How does this teaching move us towards the “Peak of Piety?”
The three expressions of piety are all forms of self-control. Giving to the poor requires one to be self-controlled with his material goods. Prayer requires one to be self-controlled with his time and thoughts and fasting requires one to be self-controlled with his physical appetite.
One can clearly see that controlling sexual appetite and physical appetite are closely related. A person who can fast, can also control his sexual urges.