Sermon: "Living up to Your Commitments"

Third in the "The Authentic Life" series.
Delivered October 23, 2005 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7

Theme: Despite all the reasons we are tempted to go back on our commitments, we need to be dependable, reliable people. The trustworthiness of our words is important. Perhaps the most important area in life we need to take commitment seriously is in marriage, because divorce will always hurt its victims.

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I would like to read to you from the Book of Matthew, Chapter 5; I am going to begin at Verse 31.

"It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.' But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery. Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' be 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one."

Let's pray. God we pray that we might hear what we need to hear, that you might work in us by your spirit and may we respond to you with the obedience that comes through faith. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

In courts we give testimony under oath. And the reason we do that is because it's upping the stakes. When we give testimony under oath, what's being required is that the court is telling us, "Look, we don't know whether you lie in your day-to-day life or not, but here under these circumstances the truth is so important that there are consequences if you don't tell the truth." It's important to tell the truth even to the point of having a penalty if we don't. The truth is required. That is what oaths are all about. In Jesus' day people took oaths as well, and one of the common things was to swear by things that were sacred. Now the religious leaders knew that it wasn't a safe bet to swear by God, by the name of God, because they realized that God was so high, so lofty that if for some reason you didn't fulfill what you vowed or didn't tell the absolute truth that the consequences were enormous. So instead they kind of figured out how do we hedge our bets a little bit you know and we can still show that we are really serious, but not be in that much trouble.

And so take a look at what goes on in this passage beginning in Verse 34. Jesus comes up with a list. Don't swear by heaven or by the earth or by Jerusalem or by your head. These were ways that people would hedge their bets and oaths. There is almost a descending quality of importance isn't it? Heaven; well that's where God is. Then the whole earth, and then just Jerusalem and then just my head. And so there was that sense that you could really show that you can really tell the truth this time, but not quite be under the gun as if you swore by God. Jesus rejects that whole way of thinking. Jesus says we shouldn't need oaths to prove that this is the time that we are really going to fulfill our word or really tell the truth. In Verse 37 he says, "Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes," and your 'No,' be ' No';anything else comes from the evil one."

Our word should always be reliable. In a casual commitment we make, in our description of what happened in a meeting or happened at work or at home; all of these things should be as reliable in every day life as if we were in a courtroom and there are consequences. Our word should be reliable. We should uphold our commitments. But let's face it, so often we don't. We don't keep our commitments and we don't tell the truth. We say we will do one thing, but end up doing another. Now sometimes this is a deliberate act. Sometimes people are deliberately trying to get their way by manipulation. I have a friend of mine in Baton Rouge who is a banker and he says that currently it takes 40 pages of paperwork to do a transaction that 30 years ago would have only required eight pages. And the reason is because every term has to be defined, every spot of the agreement has to be signed and verified to prove that you know what you are doing, that you are making this commitment so that there is no way that you can wiggle out of it later. Because inevitably people try to change their commitments, even legal ones or try to challenge them if it's not this explicit. So one of the reasons that people don't uphold their word is because they really want to get their way no matter what. But I think more often we sometimes don't keep our word because we are just disorganized and we are not thinking or caring deeply enough about how our actions affect other people.

Back in my Inner Varsity Christian fellowship days I used to send thank you letters out to people, but I would also send thank you notes to them; handwritten thank you notes. And the people who supported my ministry got a number of these thank you notes and this wasn't just because I was appreciative of their support, it was because I had a habit of carrying postcards around with me when I went on campus to have appointments. And then if a student didn't show up or came late I would sit there and write thank you notes. I wrote a lot of thank you notes. Students missed a lot of appointments. Now I know that has totally changed and every student that comes here makes all of their commitments, but when I - back in the old days when your staff member was a student people weren't keeping their commitments and when I mentioned it to them; I can't say confront, because I wasn't really confronting them, I would mention it and it sometime seemed like they didn't even care.

So sometimes we don't keep these commitments because we are not taking seriously enough how our actions affect other people. I think this is a problem in the church today; this kind of unreliability. And we are unreliable for a number of reasons and I would like to think about them for just a minute.

Sometimes we say yes when we mean no. We don't make ourselves clear or whatever and we make commitments that we don't intend to keep. Sometimes we do that because it's just easier than saying no. Have you ever been in that circumstance where somebody is putting some pressure on you and you can't think of a graceful way of saying no to it, so you end up saying yes, okay I will do that, yeah. But then later you don't do it. I am absolutely sure that's a problem in this church.

The reason is yesterday I had to call somebody and apologize, that I hadn't fulfilled the commitment that I had made to them. It wasn't a person in this church. It was someone from outside who was here for an event and asked me to do something on behalf of some retirement homes. I couldn't figure out a way to say no and I said yes and then I forgot to do it. It's a problem and as I was preparing for this sermon I realized okay, I've got to apologize for this and make amends. So I made a phone call and it was embarrassing and that's the way it is. So sometimes it's because its easier than saying no. Sometimes though it's because talk is cheap. We are talking and people are throwing things around and we say, "Oh yeah I will do that" and we don't even think about it. We say yes and we forget about it just seconds later. Have you ever said, "Yeah I will pray for that" and then not prayed? Classic case. Sometimes I don't even remember what I was supposed to be praying for.

Another reason is selfishness. We make the commitment thinking yeah I will do that, but then something better competes with it and all of a sudden we decide that even though I have already made this commitment, I am going to do this because this is going to be more fun, this serves me better and so we let people down. Every time we don't keep a commitment, every time we don't tell the truth, someone is wasting their time because we don't show up or because we are late, some group can't work as well because we aren't there to contribute our gifts as we committed ourselves to do and somebody is making a bad decision because we didn't give them the truth to work with. It's important that our yes be yes and our no be no. The trustworthiness of our words is important. We need to be dependable, reliable people. We need to keep our commitments and what Jesus said, "Anything less or anything more in having to swear or take over is from the evil one."

Now perhaps the most important area of life that we make strong public commitment is in the area of marriage. So let's take a moment to think about marriage in particular.

(Video clip) "About three months ago we decided to see a counselor. Joe thought we should see a counselor. There wasn't anything wrong exactly. I didn't understand what was wrong. They were worried something was wrong. Well it's just that I feel like things between us should be better than they are. There is nothing wrong really; it just feels like it could be better. Better how? You want me to be better, to try harder? Nothing was really wrong; they just needed a little help. Well it's just that I think marriage takes work. I think we have to work at it. Work harder? I am here everyday aren't I? I told him that I loved him and it's like he is not hearing that. A little help hearing each other. We tried working on things on our own. He always wanted to work on things. They needed to work on remembering. We just needed to remember what it's all about. Joe wanted me to give them some things to work on, exercises to improve their marriage. Well, you never want to work on any of the exercises. Exercises, see that's what's driving me crazy. I am not some experiment in your lab. I just wanted to keep things moving forward; to keep things fresh. So he brought home all these books. I got the books on marriage. Joe wanted to work through some books. Sue wanted to remember their vows, what they promised each other. We need to remember what we promised. I just kept reminding Joe that I loved him. I promised to always love him. Love languages for your marriage. That I said I do. After you say I do. And I still do, I mean I am here everyday when he wakes up and looks across the room. Myers Briggs types for couples. I am still here. They both wanted the same thing, they just needed to listen to each other. Listening to your spouse. Listen, I still need all those things that I said ten years ago, love, honor, cherish. You hear that they loved each other. For better or worse. She opens her arms to the poor. For richer or poorer. Having a Proverbs 31 marriage. In sickness and in health. Seven secrets to highly effective marriages. Forsaking all others. A little help remembering that marriage is both, remembering your commitment and working it out. But all that big stuff gets lost sometimes in the everyday; whose turn it is to do the laundry, buy the groceries. Putting the romance back in your household chores. So I asked them to remember; I have heard you both mention the early days of your relationship, tell me about that? What made you fall in love with each other? She was so spontaneous then; always coming to my lab and surprising me. I remember once during finals I was writing up my research and she just knocked on the door and said come on let's go. We drove up to the beach and she packed a picnic. He would always bring me flowers after every performance and I remember once before my senior recital I broke my ankle and I couldn't dance. Well when I got home from the emergency room, he had filled the whole apartment with roses. It was so extravagant and then there was a note that said I love you no matter what. I haven't thought about that in a long time. Sometimes it's hard to define why we love someone. All I know is before I met Sue I was an uptight, geeky engineer. And now, well now I am a slightly less geeky, slightly less uptight engineer. But I couldn't be who I am without her. Sometimes it's just that simple. Can it be that simple? That seems too simple."

In marriage we take vows. We commit ourselves publically and before God to work things through with our spouse. We make a commitment to our spouse, but we also make a commitment to the community surrounding us because we are saying that in joining together in marriage we are making this commitment to make it last; that it is going to endure, that we are going to learn how to make it work, even if it requires some work and some remembering; even if years later you are seeing things differently and are having to work to see things the same. We are also making a commitment to children; even children that are yet unborn are affected by the commitments we make in marriage. And so even though they are not born yet, what we decided there shapes their lives in the future. So the commitments we make are extremely important in marriage. But too often we don't take this commitment seriously enough. Divorce is a very real problem in our culture. Divorce has always been a problem. It's not a new thing. Divorce and bad marriages are as old as humanity and it was a problem in Jesus' day.

In Jewish society women weren't able to divorce men, so most of the times in scripture you look at a discussion about marriage and it will talk about men divorcing women. Now the discussion was all based upon the Old Testament law. The mosaic law allowed divorce for something they called uncleanness. Now there were two schools of thought about what uncleanness actually meant. One rabbinic school felt like uncleanness only meant the issue of adultery and nothing else. Now there was another school of thought and they felt that the issue of uncleanness had a broader meaning so for example if a wife had a bad temper or if she was a bad cook or if she just wasn't good looking as she used to be, that could be termed uncleanness and could become a legitimate reason for divorce. And so they had all kinds of discussions about this, but either way they wanted it to be legal and so one of the things that comes up in this passage is that they say, you know that whoever divorces his wife you know needs to have a certificate of divorce. This was very important for them to make it legal and this certificate of divorce protected women just a tiny bit, because in some cultures all a man would have to do is say three times, I divorce you and you would be divorced. So this put one additional hurdle in the way to make it a little better and it also gave her a certificate to prove she was no longer married and would make her eligible for remarriage. But it was a tiny little protection, generally speaking divorce, even this legal kind of divorce destroyed the lives of women. If they could find an opportunity to be married again it was often as damaged goods or they would try to reenter their fathers' family and they had very few choices otherwise.

Jesus hearing this sort of argument clearly takes a stricter view. Divorce is only allowed in a case of sexual infidelity. That is what he says. And he doesn't give his reasons here for that, but he does at another time when he is in a discussion and that comes up in Matthew 19 and I would like to go to that passage for just a moment. Matthew 19 and I will begin on the 3rd Verse of that passage.

"Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"

Okay, here is the question that they are debating within the two rabbinic schools. Is it for any reason or is it only for one reason? So they are trying to bring Jesus in to this argument. Instead of talking about what other rabbi's say, Jesus says,

"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate."

So Jesus says that the importance of marriage has to do with the creation of humanity with the way that God designed it to be and so there is a leaving of the parent's home. There is a uniting together and a becoming of one flesh in God's eyes. And so this is inherit in the way that things are made and so if God has made things to unite in this way then people shouldn't be separating it. That's what Jesus said. Now then they reply,

"Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"

And Jesus said to that,

"Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning."

They say, "Well, Moses told us to divorce our wives a separate way for certain things and Jesus says" No, no he permitted it because of the hardness of your hearts." So with all of these self righteous guys debating about what's a good reason for divorce, Jesus replies to them that there is only one reason and that's adultery and if they divorce their wives for anything less, and get married again, they will be guilty of adultery in God's eyes. A very serious reply and one that made all the people that were listening to him uncomfortable. Now divorce is still a problem. It's a problem in the church. There are many divorces in the church as in our culture at large. So what does Jesus' teaching tell us about this situation? I've got three major things to say about it and I want you to be patient with me until you hear all three.

The first is that divorce is never a good option. It's clearly apparent in Jesus' teaching. God never commands it and there will always be serious consequences from divorce. It's never a good option, but hear me, it's not always the worst option. There are times if things are so bad in a marriage, through infidelity, through abuse, that sometimes divorce as bad as it is might not be the worst thing. But divorce is always a concession to how broken and messed up we are. It's never an expression of what humanity and what marriage was created to be. It's always a sign that we have fallen short. And so when we think about divorce, we always need to think you know it's making the best out of a terrible situation and so when we think about it, we need to think about it like we would an amputation. Sometimes a disease advances so much and gets so bad that the only way to protect the life is to amputate the limb and that's how divorce is. Sometimes things are so bad that you've got to do an amputation. But when you do an amputation it affects the body for the rest of its life and divorce affects us and affects children for the rest of their lives. Divorce is never a good option.

Number Two. Divorce is wrong because it always hurts us in some way. The reason why divorce is wrong is because we are made for a life long union, that this is a natural part of who God has created us to be and children are best raised inside the protection of a long term union and breaking this bond will always, always hurt us in some way we don't need to be hurt. We would like to think of having a no fault divorce where the two parties aren't hurt and the children are protected and not hurt, but it doesn't happen. It's not the way we are created to be. There are certain things that are irrevocable actions and break things in such a way that they can never be quite healed in the future. For example, there is a certain amount of nutrition that has to happen very early in a child's life and if that nutrition doesn't happen then no amount of good nutrition later in life can make up for the things that didn't develop in the child's body and brain at a critical point in life. If a mother takes crack cocaine during pregnancy, you can give them the best medical care in the world following it, but certain things will never be what they could have been because of the affects of the drugs. In the same way, divorce exacts costs any adults involved and in the children that are affected and this comes from the way the family is made and the way we are made.

In today's music scene there are all kinds of songs that talk about the brokeness that hits the lives of children when there is abuse in the family and when there is divorce. A few years ago Everclear recorded this song. It's called "Father of Mine." I will read a few verses from it.

"Father of mine, tell me where you have been. You know I just close my eyes, my whole world disappeared. Father of mine, take me back to the day when I was still your golden boy, back before you went away. I will never be safe, I will never be sane. I will always be weird inside. I will always be lame. Now I am a grown man with a child of my own and I swear I am not going to let her know all the pain I have known. Then he walked away. Daddy gave me a name then he walked away."

A few years back another group, Pappa Roach recorded the song "Broken Home". As near as I can tell they are a two hit wonders there. The video they made with this was a powerful picture of the band trashing a house as a sign of what had happened in their own family life and these are the words.

"I can't seem to fight these feelings. I am caught in the middle of this. My wounds are not healing. I am stuck between my parents. I wish I had someone to talk to; someone to confide in. I just want to know the truth. I just want to know the truth. Broken home, all alone, I know my father loves me, but does my father even care if I am sad or I'm angry. You were never there when I needed you."

Divorce hurts. We can't escape that and that's why God views this commitment so seriously. Now we can do whatever we can to make the damage, to allow as little damage as possible and that's a worthy thing to do but our solutions through handling a divorce carefully will never be as good as what would have happened if we would have built a healthy family life. I think we all can agree on that. But still we have to remember that sometimes divorce might be less destructive than some of the alternatives.

Third point. Divorce is not the unforgivable sin. The church has a bad habit across the years of viewing sins surrounding sexuality and family as being uniquely terrible. All sin is terrible and shuts us out from the glory of God. All sin can be forgiven. And so what that means is that life can go on after divorce. It means that Christian life can go on after divorce. A bad marriage and divorce can become part of our past; a past that God has forgiven and we need to remember that too.

Before I finish I just want to talk a little bit about how God can bless the extra commitment we make to uphold the vows that we have made. I am talking particularly about marriage, but it's true about all of our commitments; that there is a grace of God and a presence of God that empowers us when we strive to uphold the commitments we make. Just last week I was at another church doing a special renewal week for the church, having special meetings and two people spoke there; Jesse and Linda. Now Jesse and Linda were a couple that just were having such fun together, had great senses of humor and was just wonderful to be around them and it was obvious the affection they had for each other. And then one day they came up to the front of the church and gave their testimony in front of us and Jesse said that about 15 years earlier he had been a functioning alcoholic. He was an alcoholic, but he could still hold down his job. And he said that about 15 years earlier he had walked in to his house to tell his wife that he had been having an affair.

Now you can imagine the kind of months they had following that confession. It was an incredible stress for them and they wondered what their relationship to God meant and they wondered what it meant to be in a relationship that had deteriorated to this extent, such deep betrayal, but because they were both willing to work at it, and they were both humble there was a way of healing for them. He was humble enough to realize his problems and directly addressed them and not make excuses. She was humble enough to swallow her pride and begin to put aside her justified anger. It was hard work. They didn't have to do it because there were other options. But here they were later giving their testimony in the church, a solid couple, obviously happy, at peace with one another, deeply secure, enjoying life together and growing in faith. The healing had happened.

Commitment works. Commitment releases the power of God to work. And so what that means is that in relationships it might not be a marriage relationship, it might be a family relationship or a church relationship or a relationship at work, but healing can happen there as we uphold our commitments to one another. It's not going to happen with an instantaneous miracle. That's not the kind of miracle we are talking about. We are talking about the slow miracles that grow out of true humility; miracles that grow out of maturity, miracles that come out of commitment because in commitment we can see God release his deep grace in to our lives. Jesus tells us here to let your yes be yes and let your no be no and let marriage be held in honor by all. Let's pray.

© 2005, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org