On Lust and Adultery

"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell." - Matthew 5

"Keep me, above all things, from sin. Keep me from the death of deadly sin which puts hell in my soul. Keep me from the murder of lust that binds and poisons my heart. Keep me from the sins that eat flesh with irresistible fire." - Thomas Merton

Unfortunately, I am well acquainted with the sin that puts hell in my soul, that binds and poisons my heart, and that eats my flesh with fire. When Jesus condemned the twin sins of adultery and lust, I do not think he was threatening people so much with eternal damnation to the fires of hell as he was warning people about the toll those sins take on our souls right now.

It seems to me that the sins of lust and adultery fit in well with he story of Adam and Eve and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It has been shown to me that this story is less about God's command not to eat forbidden fruit, which seems arbitrary at best, downright cruel at worst, and more about God, in his great love and wisdom, setting good boundaries for us, his creation. God knows that we are not like him. We cannot have it all; we cannot experience everything. We certainly cannot intimately know all things. We are limited and finite. We need good boundaries to help us order our lives and live abundantly as God has willed for us.

But, like Adam and Eve, I kick against those boundaries that exist for my own good. Rather than heed the counsel not to covet a woman who is not mine and instead to drink from my own well and delight in the wife of my youth, I allow my eyes to roam. Not content with what I have been given, I want to experience, to know more. I desire the other, the new, the different, the exciting. I want to live like a god, as one who has no boundaries or limits. But my soul was not made to live in this way. So it burns as with fire. I cannot manage the good life I have been given within these boundaries, and at the same time dabble with something outside those boundaries. It leads to a divided heart, to feeling torn. It also leads to shame and self-loathing because I have betrayed that which was best.

So the thing that I think I want is out of my reach, and I resent my boundaries, though they only serve my own good. I obsess. My thoughts are out of control. I am not myself. Ths thing, this pleasure, looks so good, but it can never be, for my boundaries define my life and are part of my very identity. In my head, I know it is a lie. The forbidden pleasure will not lead to abundant life. I recognize that I am not capable of living well outside my boundaries. Yet the old self longs for more, thinking the grass is greener on the other side. The sin, lust, has already condemned me to a personal, private hell.

It would have been better and probably easier to have gouged out my eye at the very beginning. But that is really no solution at all, and Jesus knew it. I would be as capable of lust and violating God's boundaries if I were blind as I am now. Jesus' point was to take lust and adultery seriously because, as I can testify, they lead to bondage, suffering, and death. They put hell in your soul. Either I will be tormented by guilt, or by the frustration of not being able to possess what I think I want, or by the knowledge that it is not really what I want but, for reasons I do not fully understand, I continue to long for it.

I need to be delivered from this mess I have created. Keep me, O Lord, from this sin, this poison. Grant me wisdom, peace, contentment, and purity of heart.