Ten Commandments

This is a sermon that Elizabeth and I preached together about the Ten Commandments as part of our summer sermon series on Exodus.  I was unable to cut out very much because the sermon is somewhat abstract going between narratives and explanations.  I apologize for the length!

Elizabeth:

Dr. Sibley Towner, Old Testament scholar and long time professor at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, observes:

In function, the 10 Commandments can be compared to 10 posts supporting the fence which separates the viable community of Israelites from the marauding beasts of disorder, confusion, and bloodshed howling beyond.

The commandments are rooted in relationship, born of God’s love for the people of Israel.  The covenant keeping God of Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebekah, speaks a wilderness word of promise to Moses: “Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the people.  Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.”  And so the first word of the commandments matters most of all: “I am the Lord your God.”

Matt:

The man stands in a great crowd of people. On all four sides, he feels the pressure of shoulders pressed against him. He breathes in the scent of the hair of the person standing in front of him, and feels a breath on the back of his neck. He pictures himself as a brick in a wall - mortared in on all sides by the bricks around him.

 

He senses a change. The deafening silence has become thicker. Suddenly, slowly, the motion begins. The brick-wall crowd begins to move.

Pressed in on all sides, the man has no choice but to move along with his fellow bricks. But something is wrong. Before him, through the heads of the crowd, he can only see darkness, made more obvious by a light which warms his back.

The man now feels frightened and alone. He is being pulled unwillingly into darkness.

The man decides what he must do: he must stop. Instead of allowing himself to be buffeted and pushed, shoved and pulled into the darkness, he must plant his feet. He sets his feet firmly on the ground.

The people behind him begin to make their way around the standing-still man, like a river flowing around a stubborn stone.

With the throng passing him by, he knows that he is not just another one of those bricks. There is something that makes him different from the wall of which he is a part.

The gift God gives helps us live in the world from which we are different. The world moves, jostles, and swells toward destructive powers: selfishness, greed, narcissism. But our God tells us that the life of the other is just as important as our own. Our God tells us that we need not lust after that which our neighbor has, but rejoice in our relationships. Our God reminds us to celebrate the Lord and to share our joy.

Though we are a part of this world, though we are bricks in the wall, we are not conformed to this world. Left to our own devices we will do what comes naturally to us: the human things - the things of this world. But we are transformed with the words, “I am the Lord your God.”

Elizabeth:

First we were family.  Then we were slaves.   Joseph welcomed us. But Pharaoh exercised his power to diminish us.  He tried to kill our boy babies. He made us his slaves.  He expected more and more from us.  He offered less and less to us.  We worked all day and much of the night.  It was never enough.  Our backs ached with the effort.  We wanted out. Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.  Moses could not convince him to let us leave.  The battle of mind and will between  them was intractable.  When Pharaoh’s first born was killed, things changed.  He wanted us gone---no longer to be reminded of our God.  But leaving wasn’t easy.  Pharaoh and his army pursued us.  We were terrified.  If only we could cross the Red Sea, we would be free.   The chariots of the powerful Pharaoh bore down on us. It looked as if we would be killed.  But, the Lord drove back the sea.  The waters were divided.  We walked across the sea on dry land.  God’s power saved us.  We rejoiced.  Our celebration was short lived. Had we been saved only to die in the wilderness?  We grew impatient with Moses, angry with God.  The wilderness stretched in every direction.  We were weary.  We wept for lack of food, for want of water, for fear of the future.  

Into fear, God speaks a word.  Peace.  Into oppression, God speaks a word. Freedom.  Into confusion, God speaks a word.  Order.  Into hunger, God speaks.   Bread of life.  Into thirst, God pours living water. Into our wilderness, God speaks a word.  Presence.  Into the chaos, God speaks a word.  Community.  And the first of all these words is simply, I am the Lord your God.  That is enough.  The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting

Matt:

She boarded the bus without pretense. She has simply come to the end of a long day, and her aching feet were tired of the pressure. She placed her money in the round glass jar. She turned to her left and looked down the long aisle toward the back of the bus.

She knew that she should make the long march to the back of the bus. She knew that the path of least resistance lay in the long trod between the plastic benches. But as she placed one foot in front of the other to begin the trek, she noticed an empty seat only halfway down on her right. Her body screamed out to her to settle herself in the closest seat she could. Her feet begged her to shorten the journey and allow them to rest. She wiped her gloved hand against her forehead brushing the cool sweat off of her dark skin.

She shuffled her feet to the middle of the bus, halted, and turned. People began to notice that she had stopped her progress down the aisle. They nudged their neighbors, pointing toward the woman. The bus took a collective breath in and held it.

She turned around and scootched back until the backs of her legs pressed against the bright green plastic seat. When she felt the pressure of the seat against the backs of her knees, Rosa settled down into the seat, feeling a flood of relief wash over her. The years of pressure seemed to lift off of her feet, off of her back, off of her shoulders, and off of her soul. She looked at the pale-skinned man in front of her and said, "Evenin'.”

Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal. A bond is created which connects each one of us. It goes deeper than murder, it goes deeper than respecting property.

Buried in this bond is the demand that we all deserve the right to be treated as children of God. And the responsibility to maintain these rights lies on our shoulders. As the children of God who have received this gift, it is our responsibility to treat our neighbors with love and respect. It is our responsibility to make sure that our neighbors treat each other well. When we witness those who are beaten down, when we witness those who are disadvantaged, when we witness those whose souls are being murdered, adulterated, or stolen. It is our responsibility to bring them inside the fence of justice. A justice created with the words, “I am the Lord your God.”

Matt:

To begin with, there is darkness. An all-encompassing darkness. It covers all that which does not exist. It covers the very face of the deep. And into this darkness,

God speaks the thing, the only thing, which can overcome this darkness: light. God speaks a light that creeps into every nook, every cranny. As darkness has covered the face of the deep, that face is lit up in the basking glow of the light which God creates. Out of the nothingness, out of the darkness, out of the emptiness, God makes that which defies nothing: everything.

God creates a heaven, God creates an earth. God creates oceans and lands, seas and mountains. God creates trees and ferns, flowers, vines, fruits, and grass. God creates the flying fowl, the swimming sea creatures, the crawling critters, roaming beasts, every living creature. God even creates the humans, the people. God's creation swells and grows, it moves and shifts, it moans, it groans. It seems to know no bounds. God's creativity expands beyond the comprehension of any piece of the creation. The bounds of this creation know no end.

Elizabeth:

They enter.  Some quietly, tentatively. Others with confidence.  For them, this is a place as familiar as home. Some speak to those around them.  One person moves toward another,  speaking in the low voice of concern.  And there are celebrations, too---hugs and high fives and a welcome refrain, I’m so glad to see you. There, a woman sits in silence, eyes downcast, as if the thing she has come for has little to do with the others. They all sit and wait.   Children smile at their friends, they fidget, they speak in a stage whisper.  If you know them, you may wonder what these people, who come alone or with another, have in common.  You know this area.  You’ve seen the news.  It is not politics, or age or race that bind this group.  It is not gender or socio economic level or experience that bind them to one another.  It is not educational status or career goal or worldview.  And yet, they speak with a single voice.  They sit and stand as one. They share a language.  They share a table. They share a culture.  Their language is faith.  Their table belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ.  The creating God binds them together.  The covenant keeping God holds them when they disagree.  Their voice is one---thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

 

The commandments belong to this community.   It is to the people of God that the commandments are given.  It is for the people of God that the commandments exist---not for divine finger wagging or moral hand slapping.   The commandments are gift.  They free us to live as God’s people---to be a  community that embodies the life of Christ----generously loving, faithfully sharing, creating life, health and wholeness in the face of the world’s death and destruction.   The promise of the creator God is sure, I am the Lord, your God.

Elizabeth:

Hands trembling, hearts full, they face each other. Friends and family look on with glistening eyes. The two pledge their love to each other---for a lifetime.   Their promises are rooted in their strong belief that God has brought them together---that God is the author of their relationship.   Theirs is a covenant relationship.   Those watching know things will not work out as well as they hope.   There will be disappointments, failures, loss, trials . . . and long stretches of wilderness.  On some days, they will forget to show mercy to one another.  On other days, they will grow weary with the tedium of marriage.  There will be temptations from within and from without. They will fail to practice kindness and forgiveness.   Somedays they will wonder how it all happened.  But God will not fail them.   The creator of the covenant is also the sustainer of the covenant.  The one who has chosen them and led them to each other, will prevail.   God’s love will transform their relationship.  God’s love will permit them to embody love to those who do not understand the law.  

The law is one of God’s enduring gifts.  In the thirteenth chapter of Romans, the apostle Paul summarizes the entire law like this:  Love your neighbor as yourself.   Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

In function, the 10 Commandments can be compared to 10 posts supporting the fence which separates the viable community of Israelites, of Christians, of you and me, from the marauding beasts of disorder, confusion, and bloodshed howling beyond.