The Ten Commandments and the Foolishness of Christ

Transcribed from the sermon preached March 15, 2009

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Exodus 20: 1-20

So God has heard the cry of his people in Egypt, and with Moses’ help, liberates them.  They show up at Sinai free, to learn laws which will help them keep their freedom.  These are the laws of the God who wants his people to remain free. 

There is one God. Worship only this God.  Make no finite images. Now that seems rather simple.  Worship only the God who gives freedom.  We could choose to worship the gods who would give knowledge, money or power, sex or fame, smaller gods, created images rather than the Creator.  Such gods will lead to enslavement again. We Protestants apply this event to our images of God – saints, Mary, even Jesus and the cross. These images are not God.

The holocaust woke us up to the fact that we need to make room for racial ethnic and religious pluralism.  The contest for exclusive truth claims ends with everyone enslaved to the god of war.  But we believe there is one Creator, the God who gives breath, the God of life and love is the source of all goodness and truth, in this religion or in others or in science.  We may give Her many names, call Her God or Goddess, or call her nothing at all, but underneath our many labels and even our silence is the One Creator.

Beware of trivializing God by failing to keep God’s name Holy: Isn’t it ironic that those who would fight to display the ten commandments in Government places would attach the name of God to their narrow political agenda.  The Holy name of God is always bigger than our political position, whether we are conservative or liberal Christians America, Jewish or Muslim in Israel and Palestine.  The Holy name of God is always greater than some product, a job or a boss, any minister or priest, above this church or any source of knowledge. 

We know that the idea of human progress, the humanism of modernity has failed quicker than the most primitive superstitions before it, as two world wars, the atomic bomb, Stalin, rampant anxiety and depression, and global ecosystems on the verge of collapse testify.  The human being or human knowledge as god ain’t cutting it: a little humility please.

  ⁸Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. ⁹Six days we shall labor and do all our work. On the seventh day we rest.

Now it is possible that the guys who instituted the Sabbath law were eliminating competition from their priestly duties and privilege, and we don’t think all the laws of these priestly dudes were God given for all people for all time, but the Sabbath works.

It was Howard Rice, the chaplain in seminary. who reminded us future pastors to take a Sabbath, to take a day off to rest, worship and remember the God who liberates.  He said, “Many pastors both complain and brag about working seven days a week.  But you need to know that is your choice.  Have the humility to realize that God can take care of God’s Church without you.”  Now I know all of us are needed and important, there is more work than we can do in six days, we need the seventh; the people we help need us to work the seventh.  We don’t want to let them down. Still remember, God herself rested.

David Wells writes the temptation to break the Sabbath is the temptation to do extra good. Why is extra good necessary? Because salvation is just out of reach and we are striving for it? Because we are surrounded by suffering and evil, and God can’t or won’t intervene, so we must? The Sabbath is a great test of our faith in God. If we look to him, he will look after what he has given to us.”

Sabbath is also about saving others from our needs: the earth, animals, people who work for us, our family.  A Sabbath gives us time to acknowledge one another as well as God.  To give each other rest.  You just knew the Sabbath would go by the way side under Capitalism.  If Customer desire is god then forget about Yahweh and get back to work Lamen Sanneh called Las Vegas and Disneyland the “Burning bush of secular culture.”  .  If entertainment is god, then by all means, leave the lights on; send out the gladiators and prostitutes!

Next the scripture tells us: ¹²Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.  “Honoring one’s parents is about acknowledging contingency,” says Wells. “The decisive choices in our lives -- that we should exist and should be children of God -- were made before we were born. Whatever our feelings about our parents, our practice toward them must be one of gratitude, reflecting the fact that without them there would be no us. Our respect for them is a practical demonstration of our thankfulness to God.” God Spoke These Words (Exodus 20:1-17) by David F. Wells http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2053

But honoring our parents is also insurance for our future, that our “days may be long” in the good land.  What comes around goes around, or do unto others, as you would have them do to you.

Remember Jesus summed up all the law by saying, Love the Lord your God with all your heart mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself. 

¹³You shall not murder. ¹⁴You shall not commit adultery. ¹⁵You shall not steal. ¹⁶You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. ¹⁷You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Now we know that patriarchy is showing its ugly head in these commandments addressing only men and including women in the section on property.  And when these were written it was ok to have slaves and a bunch of wives.  A man didn’t have to remain faithful to only one woman as long as he took responsibility for and married the other women.  You just couldn’t shame another man by stealing his wife or abusing his daughter.  But by using Jesus golden rule, we include women and take out slaves, and obeying these commandment will keep us out of a whole heck of a lot of trouble, and thereby help keep us free.

Now here is the spiritual frosting, it is not just about not killing, committing adultery, stealing and lying; we are not even to plot such things.  You have heard the saying, there are two ways to be rich: with abundance of possessions or scarcity of wants.  We see and know something is not ours and is off base, and we release it from our minds, we free ourselves even from the envy.  Buddhism often refers to the dangers of clinging and attachment to material things.  Jesus says, do not worry; look at the birds of the air and the flowers of the field...  As Christians our job is not to catch up, nor keep up, nor step over the Jones, but to worship God and love our neighbor as ourselves.

Now here is the thing folks.  The problem with the law, not just the ten commandments or scripture, but all law, is that it reminds us of our failures, and it sets us up to condemn one another, to be on our guard and be ready to make our case.  And it can never answer every question in every context, even if we keep adding on precedent.  The law becomes like Green Eggs and Ham, we have to make a new law, or add detail for every possible situation: Would you, could you in the rain or on the train, gay, straight, or on the plane.  Then we always want to interpret the law to justify ourselves against our adversary.  Some then see power as the solution of enforcement, while others seek wisdom in interpretation and administration of the law.  However, ultimately, the law may help establish justice, a temporary judgment, but it cannot bring peace.  We create insurance to become our savior, but it is like building a dam that will eventually fill up and run over.  Even when we comply with the law, doctors will still be sued, buildings will not be strong enough to withstand some floods or earthquakes, the poor will get the short end of the stick.  But also, doctors and engineers will make mistakes, ministers will be less than all knowing, marriages will struggle or end in divorce. When the revolutionary leaders come to power they will be unjust too, and all will sin and fall short of the glory of God.

We can and do become slaves to the law, or at least, slaves to its dualistic categories.  In both Christian and Buddhist thought, there is a way of being, a Spirit behind or underneath the law, underneath the temple, which holds the law.  Jesus lived in tune with this Spirit, he is the Word behind the words, and gave his life that we might see and be free. 

So we give thanks for the commandments as they teach us to beware, but we are saved and set free from the law by grace through Christ.  In Jesus Christ you are forgiven and set free to love whatever the context.  May God give us ears to hear and eyes to see the wisdom and power of God.