The Ten Commandments [Lent 3B]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
Exodus 20:1-17
The Ten Commandments
If I were inclined to guess, I
would guess that the number one reason people reject the Christian religion is
the Christians. We're a large group and some of the individual members are, ya
know, crazy, strange, hateful. And
honestly all of us have bad days, days when the love of Christ in our lives is
less than obvious. So if one were
looking for a reason to not follow Jesus, Jesus' followers offer many very
solid reasons.
But after the Christians, I suspect
the next most prevalent reason to dismiss the faith is the impression that
Christianity is all about rules, restrictions, judgment: Thou shalt not! It's no surprise that some people think
this; I mean, every time a Christian group wants to set up a monument in a
public space, it is never the Beatitudes or the Fruits of the Spirit, it's
always a big statue of the Ten Commandments – in King James' English, of
course. It is mostly a list of
restrictions – things we are not supposed to do, thou shalt nots. Though, it should be said, as one commentator
points out, “We can keep all of [the commandments] while taking a nap. That's hardly burdensome.”[1] But burdensome or not, that we have Ten
Commandments is probably one of the most well-known elements of our religious
tradition in the larger culture.
And that is necessarily not a bad
thing – especially if Christians would stop trying to apply the Commandments to
those outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
The Ten Commandments, or the Decalogue, which is what we call this list
in the Prayer Book, does actually hold a very important place in our religious
tradition – both historically and still today – which is why we recited it at
the beginning of today's liturgy. There
are a number of rules, laws, and restrictions in the Bible, but this list is
special.
The Ten Words, so-called in the
Jewish tradition, is the charter covenant between YHWH and the people God led
out of Egypt. God is extending to the
people an invitation into a relationship.
And so while, some will always think of this as a list of rules, it is
actually all about relationships. The Catechism
in the Prayer Books asserts that The Decalogue is a gift given to the people of
God “to define our relationship with God and our neighbors.”[2]
The first word defines the primary
relationship: I AM the LORD your God.
Which is to say: I will be your God and you will be my people. This is the starting point; it has to be. These commandments only make sense in the
context of the covenant relationship. In the same way that Baptismal Covenant
only makes sense after God initiates with us an eternal bond.
A covenant relationship is always
reciprocal. So, as I mentioned, the
Baptismal Covenant is that God will love and keep us forever and, for our part,
we vow to certain beliefs, the Creed, and certain behaviors, the five
promises. In marriage, another covenant
relationship, the two individuals getting married make promises to each other:
to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for
poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we our parted
by death. It is a solemn vow, mutually
made by the members of the marriage relationship.
The Covenant made at Sinai, found
in our Exodus reading today, is like these examples. YHWH vows to be the people's God: to show
steadfast love, to stay with them, protect them, lead them to the land of
promise – basically, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for
worse. The Ten Commandments are the community's
response – their offering in response to God's generous invitation.
The Prayer Book suggests we learn
two things from these commandments: our duty to God and our duty to our
neighbors. And that is true enough. The Commandments can be divided into two
basic camps. The first half of the list
is about God and the second half is about other people. And if we follow the instructions we will
live solid, moral lifestyles. No doubt.
But I don't think God's intention
was to be a holy enforcer – the judge, jury, and executioner of the
people. God is instead teaching the
people how to be in relationship. Like a
marriage, the heart and soul of the covenant is the not rules; it is love.
And so the first half of the list
is God's way of telling the people how to love their God. And it begins: God wants all your heart – no
other gods. Hebrew scholar Robert Alter
says, “God does not tolerate rivals to the hearts of [God's] people.”[3] Even the word “jealous” that God uses has
sexual connotations. It is the
expectation of the one spouse that the other will not go outside the
marriage. God is all in and wants the
beloved community to be all in too.
And so early in
the list we get these restrictions against worshiping other gods and creating graven
images or idols. And in that time and culture, when all of Israel's neighbors
were worshiping a variety gods – both seen and unseen – that restriction was
easy for the community to understand. God is being clear: love is expressed in singleness
of heart. Devotion to just one God was
unusual in those days; but God asked for fidelity in a world of open
relationships.
It's what God still wants – our
love, our hearts, our all. But times
have changed; it's not enough to simply refrain from idol creation. But in that seemingly archaic commandment is
the key to understanding the entire covenant, the key to this loving
relationship into which God invites us.
This covenant is new to the people,
they are entering a new kind of relationship with God; but also there is
intentional continuity built in. In the Ten Commands there is an appeal to the
Genesis stories, an appeal to the beginning.
We see the explicit tie to the Creation story in the commandment to keep
Sabbath. God rested on the seventh day,
therefore all things should follow God's example and rest on the final day of
each week. It is a protective and
generous commandment; but also it is a reminder that the God who led the people
out of Egypt is the same God who made all things in the beginning; God is their
Salvation and God is their Creator.
In the Ten Commandments, God tells
the people: You shall not make for yourself an idol, which is an image of a god. In the creation story, we remember that it is
God who actually creates images of God – not made of stone or wood, but from
the dust and filled with breath of God. The true image of God is the human
being; the image of God is you and me.
Every person is a living, breathing
image of God – a reflection of the Divine Being. The first half of the Decalogue tells us how
to honor God; but, it turns out, the second half of the list does too. When we honor those made in God's image, we
honor the one whose image they bear.
Loving God and loving those created in God's image cannot be separated. It is how we love God, by loving people.
The Ten Commandments are the
guidelines for living in community – a community that necessarily includes God
and our neighbors: Therefore, you shall not exploit the image of God. You shall
not neglect the image of God. You shall
not kill the image of God. You shall not violate the image of God. You shall not betray the image of God. You
shall not despise the image of God.
God has entered into such an
intimate relationship with humankind, that God puts something of the divine
nature in each of us. When God looks at us, God sees a reflection – God's self,
God's own image. And when we sin against our sisters and brothers, or when
someone sins against us, God takes that personally.
Some will always think of this as a
list of rules. But the Ten Commandments
remind us that God has invited us into a relationship – a deep, loving covenant
relationship. The Ten Commandments also
remind us that it is not enough to love God alone; if we want to be in
relationship with God, we have to be in relationship with the ones God
loves.
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