“God’s Law As Comfort”

(Exodus 20:1-4. 7-9, 12-20)

Then God spoke all these words, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.  You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth….  You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.  Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work….  Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.  You shall not murder.  You shall not commit adultery.  You shall not steal.  You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.  You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.”  Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid, for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.”

            One thing that a kid needed to know before she or he left Jean Russell’s Sunday School class was that they had to be able to recite the 10 commandments.  This is one of Jean’s legacies, among many others.  Just out of seminary myself, I saw this as charmingly old-fashioned, and, of course, I never revealed to Jean that I thought it might not be that important.  In retrospect, I know it has been important for all those people who are now middle-aged adults. Along with the exposure to Jean’s unconditional love and delight in each one of them, that fundamental of Judeo-Christian tradition was a really good lesson.

            This whole business of the arguments about whether the 10 Commandments should be posted in civil courtrooms has kind of given the ancient slate of laws a controversial reputation.

            So, let’s take another look at them today.  In preparing for this sermon I have been helped out by Christian Century’s preaching coach of the month of October.  Her name is Liz Cooledge Jenkins, a writer and ordained minister based in Washington state.

            She takes us back to the ancient context for this morning’s lesson.  Remember that the Israelites led by Moses, had been wandering in the desert for what seemed like forever.  They were at an in-between space, no longer in Egypt, but they had not yet arrived in the Promised Land.  They were no longer eating the Pharoah’s food, but were not yet farming and herding like settled people did in ancient times.  They were wandering around surviving miraculously by the grace of God on manna and water that appeared out of nowhere.  They were free of Egyptian laws, but they didn’t yet have written laws of their own.  AND they had to learn what freedom looked and felt like. 

            …And then, down from Mount Sinai came Moses with the tablet of 10 laws.  Walter Bruggeman, one of the most respected Old Testament theologians working and writing today, gives a handy summary of the basic message of those laws.  First: love and trust God, rather than an earthly system like Pharoah’s; second, adopt a mentality of sabbath rest as “an alternative to aggressive anxiety”; third, recognize that all neighbors are to be protected and respected, not exploited; finally, do not under any circumstances let big ones take advantage of little ones.  Put another way, the rich and powerful may not exploit those who do not have wealth and power.

            This is good stuff, folks, especially when Bruggeman breaks it down for us!  Remember that we are told that the Children of Israel had been brutalized by the Egyptians as slaves for hundreds of years; then God freed them, liberated them from this dehumanizing system.  Embedded in these commandments is a message of affirming their humanity, and they are called to affirm the humanity of others.  We are to learn to do this by trusting God, by respecting each other, by resting, by being content and, of course, by refusing to kill, steal, cheat or lie. 

            So, after their ordeal of slavery, this message must have felt to the Israelites like comfort, like a balm.  The message for me and, maybe you too, is that the commandments are not moralizing rules that are meant to cause division between those who think they follow them perfectly and those who are looked down upon by the rigid rule followers.

            Instead, they are guidelines that help human beings to not only do well but to flourish. 

            Another aspect of the commandments is that they help us to learn how to deal with the laws of the world, the human laws.  They are another way to deal with authority and to know what is divinely given and what is human-made. 

Desmond Tutu wrote this as he navigated his anti-apartheid activism: “When a clash occurs between the laws of man and the laws of God, then, for the Christian, there can be no debate or argument about which he must obey.”  Tutu continues in this quote from his work, God Is Not a Christian.  “Please let us be mindful of the important distinction between what is legal and what is morally right.”

            Jesus, in his answer to the question, “What is the greatest commandment?” tells us there are two: Honor God and love your neighbor.

            So, if we see legislators enacting laws that are racist and bigoted, they cannot be followed if we claim to honor God’s image in all people.  Therefore, God’s laws offer us freedom to resist when we need to.

              So, our guide, Rev. Jenkins, sums it up this way: in a world that is intent upon exploiting the poor and disadvantaged, it is our job to be generous.  In a competitive, dog-eat-dog world, it is our job to build community.  In a rushed and impatient world, it is our job to demonstrate how to carve out space to rest.  In a world where wealth is so very unjustly distributed, those of us who have resources need to stop trying to pile up more and more. 

            It is our job not only to open our hands but to call upon, to demand that our government, corporations, social media companies, businesses of all kinds, make decisions everyday to open their hands, to open their pocketbooks, their stock portfolios, their paying of wages to those who do not have enough.  Open your hands, everyone.  This is how the ancient Israelites were taught to live free and to care for others.

            Now, of course, we know that they went through generation after generation of forgetting who God intended them to be.  They went through punishment, through prophets calling their greed and selfishness into accountability.  They went through hard times because they refused to understand what real freedom was….  Just like us, the lessons must be learned over and over.  People forget to honor God and love neighbor.  People fall back into greediness and egotistic behavior.  People fall back into strategizing for their own gain and making a case for how this is the right way.  People fall back into demanding that almost anyone has the right to own and carry an automatic weapon.  People fall back into framing their own selfish behavior as “the American Way.”  People fall back into hatred and causing divisions.  People fall back into believing that some races, genders, economic groups are less than themselves.  We fall back into acting that way, legislating that way, communicating that way to those around us and to our children. 

            So, we must return over and over to the 10 Commandments.  When we find that human laws contradict God’s law, God’s law offers us a new kind of freedom.  We can love and trust God rather than “believe in” the human security system, necessary as it is.  We can learn little-by-little to calm our anxieties by observing a sabbath rest.    We can learn to respect and live in harmony with all our neighbors.  We can let go of this crazy need of ours to acquire wealth in search of finding meaning for our lives.    It’s simple, though not easy, to reclaim the freedom to live together with God and all God’s people in peace, love and harmony.  Amen.

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