The seventh commandment turns the Éros (erotic love) of romance into the agÁpe (unconditional Christ-like love) of committed life together. That discipline yields longer, deeper rewards. It’s the lesson learned in good marriages.
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David McAllister-Wilson: The joy of Christian service is fidelity in all of our relationships
In the week I was
asked to reflect on the seventh commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,”
a self-professed “conservative Christian” congressman was caught passionately
kissing an aide and a prominent mega-church pastor resigned his church because of
a string of extramarital affairs. Of course, worse things happened in America
One clue is that the Hebrew word we translate as “adultery” is
different from the word for “promiscuity.” The commandment isn’t about sex, or
even sex with multiple partners. Indeed, it isn’t even about the three or four
people directly affected by adultery. Like so many of God’s commandments, (not
just the ten, but the 613 mitzvot in
the Old Testament), this one is about fidelity of relationships as a benefit
for the whole community. That’s why when they asked Jesus: “What is the most
important commandment?” he said they were all summed up by two relationships:
“Love God with all your heart,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The
seventh commandment, like all of them, is about establishing just and loving
covenants so that the whole community can flourish. That’s the goal of the
pursuit of happiness.
How do we get there from here? The truth is the Ten Commandments
didn’t work. The Old Testament is the story of persistent and pervasive
covenant-breaking because the commandments are not self-evident or
self-enforcing. And now, we don’t live in a command economy, like North Korea
The challenge of living a moral life in a free and wealthy society
is that we have returned to the Garden of Eden and are making the same bad
choices. Research shows Americans are less interested in “religion” but still
crave “spirituality,” the feeling of connectedness to the transcendent and each
other. And we imagine a spirit at work in our feelings, in our sensations and
gratifications, like we feel good after ingesting sugar or cocaine. The
excitement of the new “relationship” in adultery is a distorted spiritual quest.
What do we have to offer as Christians? It must be our example as
participants in the new covenant offered by Christ. My wife, Drema, has
performed about 400 weddings. At every one she says: “Your love has brought you
to this moment. Your commitment is what will guide you from here on.” It’s how
we live the seventh commandment. It’s how the éros (erotic love) of romance
becomes the agápe (unconditional Christ-like love) of committed life together.
That discipline yields longer, deeper rewards. It’s the lesson learned in good
marriages, successful businesses and at the gym. The Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore put
it this way: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life
was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
The joy of Christian service, including fidelity in all our
relationships, is what we have to offer. In my tradition, that healthy,
growing, contagious love in Christ is understood as God’s “sanctifying grace,”
which unites personal and social holiness. If we model this, we can be a
blessing to the nation.
The Rev. Dr. David McAllister-Wilson has been
president of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington
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