April 7, 2013 Adultery

Matt 5  Next rule:
Adultery.  Obviously unrighteous, no argument there.  Check.

No adultery seems like an easy rule to obey, for at least 50% of the population according to Yahoo! news reports.  But in the kingdom of heaven, there is no difference between the action of sleeping with another man’s wife, and the secret fantasy of holding her hand while the other man uses the restroom at the movie theater.  The things which separate the desire and the action here are time and opportunity.  But in heaven, there is no time, and everything is opportunity, so there is literally no difference  between the thought and the action. 

Adultery is the most obvious conclusion to the willingness to stare with greedy eyes.  The mind which combines the pleasure of ownership with the image of a person is especially unfit for the kingdom of heaven.  Even the most subtle willingness or desire to use and manipulate a person in order to satisfy your own appetite, means the kingdom is not right for you.  

That is cannibalism, and it is not permitted as even a stray thought in the kingdom of heaven.  It’s what makes the kingdom so great, everyone is of unique value, and every one totally free, so wannabe slave traders simply cannot exist.  

I’m not so sure we will be kicked out so much as we’ll never seek to really enter such a kingdom in the first.  It would be like a die-hard carnivore choosing to eat the rest of his life at a Vegan Café.  But supposing such a turn should occur, that we should desire to submit our lust and need to God in order to find true life and be permitted in his kingdom, well, let's just say some habits die very hard.

Is there some random gate into your brain where the stray thoughts of manipulation, ownership, and control of another seem to always fly in?  Some window left open where these random strays seem to blow in during the evening breezes? 

“I wasn’t thinking about her until she came out onto the rooftop and started bathing.  I couldn’t close the window so I couldn’t stop my stare.  And after staring for a while, I just had to have her as my own.”  

Jesus supposes that it would be better for a man to have boarded up the window once she put her bathtub on the roof instead of what was obviously coming next.   Actually, he didn’t so much suppose as much as suggest the most grotesque counter measure I can imagine.  

His suggestion echoes the fierceness of the violation by explaining that it would be better to gouge out your own eye instead of allowing it to be the window of opportunity for thoughts which makes mankind so unprepared and unable to accept the gift of his kingdom, the truth of love.