Wave Your Palm Branch

Based on Isaiah 50:4-9

It’s a hard life as a prophet. Poor Isaiah. God was giving him messages of encouragement to those who were weary. And what thanks does he get? He gets his back struck. He is insulted and spit on. And, as one who has a beard, I particularly grimace at this. People pull out the hair on his cheeks. Wow, that stings! But just imagine how that happens. Someone probably has to come from behind Isaiah to hold his arms back while someone else forcefully holds his head steady while a third person, looking at Isaiah in the eye with a smirk on his face, grabs a chunk of his beard and pulls it out while the others are laughing at him. Ugh.

It is baffling to me. Isn’t it to you? Every morning, God wakened Isaiah’s ear to speak to him a word that he could then pass on to those who were weary. He is allowing himself to be used of God to lift up the downtrodden, to encourage the discouraged. Isaiah is speaking a good word. Why would anyone be against this? Why is it that the God inspired words Isaiah is speaking would inspire others to treat him so terribly? It is a mystery to me.

Regrettably, we don’t know the specifics of what Isaiah was saying or who those people were that persecuted and abused him. We are only left to guess. Was what Isaiah said to lift up the weary provocative in some way? Was his message that lifted up the oppressed and downtrodden sound threatening to those in power? It can’t be the case that it was the weary ones who would do such a thing to the one who is encouraging them. So, are the ones who spat in his face and pulled out his beard thugs hired by the powers that be to try to intimidate Isaiah and get him to stop speaking his message? We are just left to guess.

We do know throughout history that those who speak words of comfort to those who are weary, who proclaim good news to the poor, experience resistance. Sometimes the resistance comes from people who have been manipulated or don’t understand what it’s about. Sometimes the resistance comes from high places.

This being Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week, we are reminded of how Jesus as a prophet experienced something similar to what Isaiah had to endure. When Jesus began his public ministry, as we find recorded in the gospel of Luke, he read a passage from Isaiah, the first few verses of Isaiah 61, “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This is good news to the poor, the downcast, the weary. And many of them were happy to hear it, demonstrated by the waving of the palm branches as Jesus triumphantly enters into Jerusalem. But not everyone felt the same way. And, as we will be reminded on Friday, Jesus will be mocked and spit upon. He will have his back whipped and beaten. But he will not have his beard pulled out. It will be much worse. He will be nailed to a cross and left to die of asphyxiation in public view for all to see. Those who were threatened by the prophetic message of Jesus saw to it that he could no longer speak.

But Jesus knew something his enemies didn’t know. Just like Isaiah, Jesus knew that God would vindicate him. He knew that his enemies would be overpowered. God won’t prevent the persecution and abuse. But God’s truth will be vindicated. Jesus, like Isaiah, set his face like flint and with confidence made his way through the suffering and abuse. And on Sunday morning, Jesus was vindicated. The power of death was broken. Liberation for those weighed down by the powers of sin and death was secured.

William Wilberforce was a British politician who became convinced by friends and colleagues that slavery was a moral evil and not of God. He was convinced to introduce legislation in the parliament to end slavery in the British empire. That’s what he did. And he was laughed at. No one in parliament took him seriously. Some, of course, had financial interest in the slave trade, so they were not about to end this evil system. Year after year, Wilberforce introduced legislation to end the slave trade and year after year he was ignored. For twenty years, Wilberforce persisted. He did it in spite of the ridicule because he knew that it was the right and moral thing to do. He was convinced that his position was ordained of God. Slowly public opinion also shifted. Finally, in 1807, parliament acted and the slave trade was abolished. One month after his death, in 1834, slavery itself was abolished in most of the empire.

Martin Luther King initially planned to follow his father’s footsteps and be a Baptist preacher. But destiny opened the door and he stepped into the arena to become a drum major for justice. We are all familiar with his oratorical skills and the clarity of his moral call for equality and justice, not just for black people, but for poor whites as well. Yes, his early work was around ending segregation and insuring that black people could vote. He had many champions for this cause along with many who resisted mightily. King was arrested numerous times. He was beaten. He was stabbed. His house was fire bombed. But he persisted because he knew that he was doing God’s will. He carried the message of a prophet. And although there was resistance from all corners, there were many triumphs along the way.

But then King began to expand his prophetic message. He called for the end of the war in Vietnam. He challenged militarism. Drifting away from the Republican party he started identifying himself as a Democratic Socialist. He called for the federal government to be the employer of last resort, to guarantee every American a job or a basic income so that poverty would end. He sought to bring poor white people together with people of color in a poor people’s campaign. All of this prompted more and more pushback. People told King he needed to get back in his lane. He was sounding like a communist. And as he worked to organize sanitation workers in Memphis he was assassinated. Martin Luther King was a prophet. He spoke a prophetic word, inspired by the gospel, with the firm conviction that every human being is a beloved child of God who possessed inherent dignity. He carried a vision that guided his passion, which was to create beloved community. But when he was assassinated, there were a lot of people in America who thought to themselves, “Good riddance. He had it coming.” Many white people cheered.

Isaiah, Jesus, William Wilberforce, Martin Luther King, were prophets. They fulfilled their prophetic role in the face of resistance confident that in time they would be vindicated. It was their conviction that God, who was the source and inspiration of their message, would see them through. And even if they lost their lives, God’s message and God’s will would someday be fulfilled. The abuse each of them received was different. It varied in severity. Wilberforce was laughed at and not taken seriously. Jesus was crucified. God’s prophetic message of good news to the oppressed, the binding up of the brokenhearted, the proclamation of liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, the proclamation of jubilee, it continues. Messengers are lifted up and brought low. The message persists. God’s truth marches on.

Maybe right now you are saying to yourself, “Thank God I am not called to be a prophet.” The life of the prophet is not an easy one. It takes a lot of courage, endurance, and persistence. It’s not for everyone. But I don’t want to let us off the hook. Do we sometimes find ourselves in situations where we could speak up for the weary, offer good news to the poor, comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, but we are too afraid to speak up? Are we worried about offending someone? There are more times than I want to acknowledge where I failed to be prophetic because I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers or because I was worried about being offensive or too political. I don’t think I’m alone.

At this point I could call on us to be courageous, trust in God and speak that good news, proclaim that call for justice and liberty. But that may be asking too much of us. There just isn’t very many Isaiah’s, William Wilberforces and Martin Luther King’s in the world. And, of course, there’s only one Jesus. So, I want to leave us with a word of grace. If we don’t have enough courage to speak up like a prophet, can we at least champion those who do? Can we not hold with respect those who do take the risk to speak hard truths into the public square and call for a moral revival in which every human being is treated with dignity? Even if the message that the prophet speaks does challenge us, provoke us, unsettle us. Can we at least commit to be the ones who wave the palm branches and not be the ones who cry out, “Crucify!”?

With God there is Hope

Based on Jeremiah 31:31-34

This past Wednesday was St. Patrick’s Day. This day has become an excuse for people to drink an excessive amount of alcohol, wear green, and celebrate all things Irish. No Irish person in America back in the 19th century would have any idea how much Irish culture would be celebrated in this country. Back then, Irish people were fleeing Ireland which was being ravaged by the potato famine. For survival, they risked the trip across the Atlantic Ocean to come to America, a place where they hoped they would be able to carve out for themselves a better life.

I am sure that it was better for the Irish over here than it was over there. But that doesn’t mean it was a great life for Irish people. The bigotry they experienced from the English didn’t magically disappear on this side of the Atlantic. The Irish in America were widely discriminated against. I have seen a cartoon from the late 19th century of an Irish character, lanky, wearing a disheveled long coat and a large top hat, an extended nose, hunched over, and his skin tone was dark shaded. Not everyone in America in those days would classify Irish people as white. They were driven into ghettoes, prevented from anything other than menial labor, and stereotyped as drunks, crooks and disease ridden. It was a brutal existence.

But the Irish that came over to America kept carving out a space for themselves. They clung to the hope that one day their children and grandchildren would have a better life. I doubt if anyone told their kids that one day an Irish Catholic would be president, or that the Chicago River would be dyed green, or that there would be parades celebrating Irish culture all over the country and t-shirts that said, “Kiss Me, I’m Irish.” But there was hope that one day the Irish would claim their place in the American experiment. There was hope that future generations would thrive in this land of promise and possibility. Hope is what kept them going during those times of turmoil in 19th century America.

There was a time several years ago when Kim and I were facing financial ruin. We took advantage of access to easy credit, loaded up our credit cards, and then found ourselves struggling just to make the minimum payments. We seriously contemplated filing for bankruptcy. It was stressful. All that debt weighed very heavily on us. But we had hope that eventually we would claw our way out of this mountain of debt. We went through a debt consolidation process. We also got a surprising windfall when my mother’s sister passed away and left me and my sister a sizeable inheritance. As a result, we were able to get out of that deep hole we had dug for ourselves. We hoped that our finances would some day recover. That kept us making the sacrifices necessary to get to a better place.

This is the power of hope. In times of struggle and turmoil, when it seems everything is against you, the obstacles are huge, breaks are not coming your way, when despair is lurking to pull you down into the abyss. But hope…hope is what has the power to lift you up and pull you forward. Hope is what keeps us believing that one day things will be better.

Israel found themselves in a terrible situation. They were in desperate need for hope. Jerusalem was razed to the ground. The Temple, the center of Jewish religion, was demolished. Not one stone left on top of another. The best and brightest of Israel had been force marched to Babylon to live in exile. Everything was in shambles. God’s chosen people had lost the land God had given them. It appeared they were literally a God-forsaken people. It was a time of unspeakable loss.

Israel knew they were to blame. They knew that as a people they had failed in their loyalty to God. They didn’t faithfully keep God’s commandments. They worshipped other gods. They oppressed the widows and orphans in their midst. They knew that God was punishing them for their overall failure to be faithful and obedient to the God who had delivered their ancestors from slavery in Egypt.

As a people, they had been in this situation before. But this was bad. I mean they were decimated. Their future looked really grim. The question that had to have been on many of their minds was, “Has God forsaken us? Do we have a future?” I imagine that there was a real concern that a line had been crossed. Perhaps there was no return. Maybe God was finally through with them. They would all die off in Babylon. God would go choose another people who would be more faithful. It was just a matter of time before Israel would fade away into the dustbin of history.

So, Jeremiah went into action. He offered his people a word of hope, a promise that Israel does have a future. Jeremiah told the people that God has not given up on them. God is faithful. God’s love is steadfast. And this is what God will do at some point in the future. God will write the law, not on tablets of stone but on the tablet of the heart. In that day everyone will know God, not just in their heads but in their hearts. Israel will intuitively know what is the right thing to do. Their hearts will be in the right place. And God will forget the sin of Israel. It will be a fresh start. God will see to it that the people will know God and live the right way. Never again will the people be punished for their rebellious hearts because God will make their hearts right. God is bound and determined to have this people, Israel, be a people who will love, be faithful, and obedient to God’s commandments so that they can be a light to the nations, a vessel to bless the world.

Now, Jeremiah tells them this is what God will do in those days. That’s an open-ended time period. He didn’t give a specific time of when God would do this. And truthfully what Jeremiah said would happen still hasn’t come to pass. God hasn’t written the law on the heart of Israel. The future society that Jeremiah is describing is a vision of utopia, a perfect society that only exists in the imagination. It is aspirational.

Did Jeremiah give false hope? Remember that Jeremiah didn’t make this up. He is a prophet who speaks on God’s behalf. Who is to say that this prophecy won’t come true some day? Whether or when this God inspired, utopian vision ever becomes reality, maybe the more important point is that God will not give up on Israel. This is what Israel needed to hear in their time of turmoil, that all was not lost, that God still loved them and was committed to them. Israel needed to hear a word of hope so that they would not fall into the depths of despair. And God, through Jeremiah, gave them that word of hope. They did have a future. Things will get better. God will make a way for them.

Skipping ahead about 500 years, Paul was writing his letters to his churches. Some of those letters he wrote while sitting in a jail cell with chains wrapped around his legs. He wrote about faith, hope, and love. Faith and love are super important. But sometimes what we really need is hope, especially when times are tough and the future uncertain.

In life we sometimes find ourselves in terrible situations and wonder if there is any hope. All the options are bad. The goal you set for yourself appears to be way out of reach. As you lay awake in the middle of the night and run through your mind all the conceivable possibilities to get you out of the jam you’re in, nothing seems to work. The problem is so big, so much out of your hands, that there is nothing you can do to fix it. All appears hopeless.

Maybe there are times when we are in hopeless situations. Last spring, graduating seniors hoped to walk across the stage at their graduation or have fun at the senior prom. That didn’t happen. Maybe you had planned to take a cruise last summer. Didn’t happen. If you have a D in English and your only shot of getting an A is how well you do on a final exam…pretty hopeless. Toys R’Us discovered that in the era of online shopping, having huge big box stores filled with toys is not a good business model. If your favorite team in March Madness is down by 30 points with one minute to go in the game…that’s a hopeless situation.

But just because we find ourselves in hopeless situations does not mean there is no hope at all. God is known by many names. And one of those names for God is hope. God is a god of hope. As Paul wrote in Romans 15, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in faith so that you overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Hope is not determined by circumstances but is something that flows within us by the power of the Spirit. We can possess hope even in hopeless situations. With God there is always hope.

When Jeremiah gave to Israel that vision of hope, he didn’t tell them that everything would go back to the way things used to be. He didn’t say there would be a rebuilt Temple and a restored Jerusalem. He said that what God was up to was establishing a new covenant. Now in some ways the covenant is the same. God is the one who initiates it, like all the other covenants we have been reviewing these past few weeks. God is still committed to Israel. God still has commandments that God wants followed. But in other ways this covenant is different. The law will be written on their hearts. All their sins will be forgiven and forgotten. No one will have to teach them to know God because everyone will intuitively know God. God will still be their God. They will still be God’s people. But it will not be like it was. God is establishing something better. God is establishing greater possibilities for covenant faithfulness. This is where their hope rested, not in repeating the past but in the establishment of something different, something new, something better.

This is what hope is about. Hope is about trusting that things will be better some day. Being better means they won’t be the same. Things will be different. Not a copy of the past. Not the realization of a utopian fantasy. But things will be better. Somehow God is going to work it out, open up new possibilities that bring about better outcomes, life that is more flourishing, community that is more aligned with God’s desires. This is what hope is about, trusting that tomorrow will be better than today.

As we emerge from the pandemic, I am here to tell you that there is hope. God has been at work through this season, establishing new possibilities for a future that is better than the past. One big example is how we as a church share the gospel. Before the pandemic, if someone wanted to be engaged in worship with us and hear a message from God’s word, they would have to show up on Sunday morning in a building. But now, because many of our churches were closed for the sake of public health, churches were forced to take worship and the sermon to the digital space. All of a sudden, access to worship and the hearing of sermons blew wide open. Anyone with a computer and an internet connection could participate. And as churches are returning to in person worship, online worship is not going away. The potential to reach more people who for whatever reason would never go to a church building or simply could not worship on Sunday morning now have opportunities to be inspired by worship and grow in their understanding. Through the Facebook platform discipleship groups can be formed where people can share their thoughts and questions, where prayer requests can be made, where planning can happen for outreach events. Meeting platforms like Zoom allow people from across the country, even the world, to come together for worship, for education, or strategizing without the expense of travel. These modes of connection that came to the fore during this pandemic is generating new possibilities for bringing people together, sharing the gospel, and growth in discipleship. The barriers of distance and buildings are dissolving. The Spirit of God is at work. With God things can be better. We do have a future with hope. It will be different. Because it will be better.

This is our hope, that God never gives up on us. No matter what we go through in life, God never forsakes us. We don’t know how things will work out. We don’t know when things will return to normal, whatever that means. And I’m wondering if we want things to go back exactly to the way they were before the pandemic. But if we trust in God, trust that God is with us, then we have hope. And hope is not a small thing when everything around us is changing, things are falling apart and the losses pile up. Loss is part of the process of restoration, the bringing to pass of something better, of something closer to what God has desired all along.

Gaze Upon the Cross and Be Healed

Based on John 3:14-21

        Have any of you been bitten by a snake before? How about a spider bite? Bee sting or wasp sting? Those hurt, don’t they? The sting or bite is painful enough, but as the venom starts working its way through your body, the pain gets worse and worse. For some, the body reacts to those stings and bites so badly that if they don’t get medical treatment quickly they may die. The sting is bad enough. But that poisonous venom, that’s what really hurts.

Sin is sort of like getting snake bit. I believe that’s what Jesus has in mind when we hear these words from the gospel of John. Jesus compares his saving work with when Moses lifts up a bronze serpent in the desert. Sin and being snake bitten go hand in hand. You see, sin is more than just doing something bad. Sin is more like poisonous venom that lingers in you and will harm you, even kill you, if an antidote isn’t applied. Sin is like snake venom coursing through your veins.

When Jesus talks about Moses lifting up that bronze serpent in the desert, he’s referring to this story we find in Numbers 21:4-9:

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

We can see how Jesus takes this story from Israel’s past as a symbol for what happens when Jesus is lifted up on the cross. The bronze serpent, when gazed upon with faith, brought healing. Just so, Jesus, the one who took on himself all the sin of the world when lifted up on the cross, brings healing to those who look on him with faith. They receive healing from the poison of sin. Yes, Jesus was lifted up on the cross so that no one might perish, but have everlasting life.

This is the good news of the gospel! We can be healed from the corrupting poison of sin by looking upon Jesus and believing in faith that he can heal us. There is healing for our sin-sick souls. All who look upon the crucified Jesus in faith will be healed,

Yet, so many people refuse to do this. So many people refuse to acknowledge the depth of their sickness and their need for healing. They know their lives aren’t right but they don’t realize how messed up they really are. They think that if they just try harder, that somehow everything will work out all right. Most of you have heard of Alcoholics Anonymous. The program has twelve steps toward recovery. The first step in the program is to acknowledge that you need help, that you don’t have enough power to help yourself. Many people acknowledge that their lives are a mess. But they will not acknowledge that they need help. It is hard to admit that you are helpless, that you can’t do life by yourself. We don’t have all the answers. We don’t have enough strength. We can’t make it through life on our own. We need help. The first step toward healing, whether it be from addiction or from sin, is to admit that you need help.

What today’s scripture teaches is that those who admit that they are powerless over the effects of sin and are humble enough to stand in the glaring light of God’s truth, warts and all, trusting in the healing power of Jesus, that they will receive healing from the poison of sin that is ruining their lives. This is such a crucial step, to humbly stand before Jesus, completely vulnerable, aware of how sick you are, hoping that Jesus won’t reject you but will heal you. John Wesley spoke of the “almost Christian.” An “almost Christian” is one who believes that Jesus saves us from sin. But the “almost Christian” has not become humble enough to stand before Jesus, fully aware of how much they need to be saved, and trust that Jesus can heal them. An “almost Christian” believes Jesus can heal. A true Christian believes that Jesus is healing them.

It is hard for us to admit how bad it is, how sick we really are. It is hard to let the light of God’s truth shine on us, in those dark places where we try to keep things hidden. We try to avoid being honest about how messed up we are by thinking to ourselves, “I’m not that bad a person.” We wouldn’t say we were as pious as Job but we are good people. But let’s look at Job for a minute. Job was so pious even God was bragging about him. But when the time of testing came, eventually, Job grew angry with God. The testing revealed in Job the sin of pride. Job could not understand why God was letting this happen to him. He didn’t deserve it. He demands of God to explain Godself. Then, God finally answers Job by blowing him away with a string of questions that reveals to Job how arrogant he was toward God. The light of God’s truth shined brightly on Job. But instead of being defensive, Job recognized he had messed up. Job said to God, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. I had heard of you, but now my eye sees you; therefore, I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” In spite of how pious he was, so pious God was bragging on him, the glaring light of God’s truth made Job realize that he was not well at all.

Dorotheos, a great spiritual teacher from many centuries ago, taught from experience that the closer we draw to God, the more evident it becomes to us of how sinful we truly are. We all live with blinders on, even those of us who have given our lives to Jesus. We have heard and believed the gospel, but have we seen God? If we did, would we not realize just how corrupt we still are? Surely, like Job, we would despise ourselves and repent in dust and ashes if we stood before the glaring light of God’s truth. We would beg to look upon the cross of Christ and be healed from the poison of sin coursing through our veins.

We have to let the light of God’s truth shine upon us. It will be painful. Like you, I believe in Jesus. I trust in Christ alone for my salvation. But when the searchlight of God’s truth gets flipped on, I join Adam and Eve and run for cover! Am I the only one? How hard it is to be completely honest before God and acknowledge how sin sick we are, even as believers. In Psalm 26:2, the psalmist sings, “Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and mind.” How many of us would want to endure that kind of test?

For many of us, including me, we have to increase our trust in the power of Jesus to save us from our sin. We have to trust not in our own goodness, but rather trust in God’s mercy, who sent Jesus to be the one who can draw the poison of sin out of us. This is the good news for us: we can’t save ourselves, but God can save us. God has provided the remedy for the sin sickness that is killing us. We can look upon the cross and be healed, believing that if we look on the cross and trust in the healing power of the cross of Christ, that we will have everlasting life. The poison of sin is drawn out of us when we gaze upon the cross of Christ. That is what Jesus taught. And it is a mystery. We don’t know how it works. But it is what God has revealed to us. The cross of Christ is the means by which we are healed from sin. The more we can truly believe that with all our heart, the more we are able to let our lives stand before the bright spotlight of God’s truth and be able to say, in the words of an ancient prayer, “Do not look on my many sins, but have mercy on me, O God, in your loving compassion, and save me.”

I know it can be scary. It’s scary to acknowledge that we are hopelessly messed up. It’s scary to confront the painful truth of ourselves. It is scary to acknowledge that our lives, which may last seventy, eighty years, even longer, are but a puff of wind, a flower that blooms during the day but at night dries up and withers away. It is scary to admit that all our hopes and dreams, our successes and disappointments, our goals and plans, are but a flash in a pan. The years of pain, rejection, and abuse we are inflicted with, the wearing away of our bodies, all leads to death. It’s scary to admit that we are going to die.

Sarah Foulger offers a powerful perspective on this. She finds it interesting that God has Moses make a bronze serpent, that which the people feared most. The people didn’t want to see poisonous snakes. They were frightened of them. Those poisonous snakes were the source of so much death. But, if they could muster up enough courage to gaze upon what they feared, the poisonous snake, then they would be healed. If they could confront their fear and realize that the power of God can overcome what they fear, then they would be healed.

Foulger makes the connection for us. We fear rejection. Christ was rejected. We fear pain. Christ suffered. We fear being abused. Christ was abused. We fear death. Christ died. As we gaze upon Christ on the cross, we realize that our fears of abuse, pain, suffering, rejection, even death, can all be overcome because we can know that God does not condemn us. God does not condemn us, God loves us. God does not reject us. God forgives us and claims us as God’s children. We come to realize that God’s love for us is steadfast. Nothing can separate us from God’s love. We discover that the poison of abuse, suffering, rejection, and death has lost its sting in Christ who conquers. We need not be afraid of anything because perfect love casts out fear. And to live without fear is to live a full and abundant life.

This is the gospel. We can stand in the glaring spotlight of God’s truth and allow our life, our thoughts, our deeds, to be tried by God. We can be assured that we will flunk that test. Yet, God loves us anyway because God knows of what we are made. God knows that we are but dust and ashes. We can be assured that God loves us, in spite of our many shortcomings. We can always look upon the cross of Christ and be healed.

Keeping the Commandments

 

Based on Exodus 20:1-17

           These past few weeks, as we have made our journey through Lent, we have been reviewing a few of the covenants we find in the scriptures. Two weeks ago, we considered God’s covenant with Noah and all air-breathing creatures. This covenant marks God’s promise never to destroy the earth again. There are no obligations on our part. We can simply trust this commitment God has made. Last week we reflected on the covenant God established with Abraham and Sarah. In this covenant, God does give Abraham an obligation, which is to walk with God and be blameless. Abraham achieved that obligation by trusting in God and being faithful. As a result, God fulfilled God’s obligation by making Abraham the father of as many children as there are stars in the heavens, that from Abraham and Sarah have come a multitude of nations. Jews, Christians and Muslims claim Abraham as a patriarch.

            In these two covenants, we have seen a narrowing of focus and an increase in responsibility. For the covenant with Noah, that covenant was for pretty much all of creation and creation had no responsibility. For the covenant with Abraham, this covenant is for a multitude of nations and it does come with an obligation to walk with God and be blameless, that is, to live our lives trusting in God and being faithful.

            Today, we are going to reflect on a third covenant which, like the two before, was initiated by God. This is the covenant that was established with Moses and is for a particular people. The Moses covenant is for the people called Israel, more broadly, the Hebrews, all the people who were enslaved in Egypt but whom God delivered. Even more broadly, the Moses covenant is for the Jews, a particular people, the chosen people of God. We will see that this covenant, which is more targeted than the previous two, also has a greater level of obligation to be met by the recipients of this covenant. These obligations are condensed into the Ten Commandments. We are going to spend some time today reflecting on these commandments, not in great detail, that would take too long. Instead, we are going to look at the framework of these commandments and see how they are helpful for us in our own living, even though they were not given specifically to us but are a gift provided by God to the Jewish people.

            Someone once came up to Jesus and asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” And Jesus answered, “The greatest commandment is to love God with your heart, mind, soul, and strength. But there is another one equally important, which is to love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. If you follow these two commandments, you are living right.” Love God, love neighbor. The key word is “love.” If you live a life of love, then you are living within God’s will. It could not be more simple, right? Well, it’s easy to say. It’s easy to remember that living right means to love. But it’s not always easy to do. We sometimes don’t feel very loving. There are some people we find extremely hard to love. We have had our love spurned and it broke our heart, making us leery of making ourselves vulnerable again. Sometimes love requires doing difficult things. Love is easy to say, a word that gets thrown around a lot. I love you and I also love rocky road ice cream. Love has the power to transform the world. Love also can be demanding. Love is what makes life worth living.

            Love is also a great way to understand what the Ten Commandments are all about. These commandments are more than just what you see on some billboards when you are driving down the interstate or something people argue about being displayed at county courthouses. These commandments are not meant to be an exhaustive list of do’s and don’ts. No, these commandments emerge from a central, core commitment, which is love. These commandments serve as a set of guidelines that help us understand what living a life of love looks like. They are a teaching rubric. Let’s dig in to these commandments and see what we can find.

            These Ten Commandments come out of a specific context. They didn’t just fall down from the sky. God saw what the Egyptians were doing to the Hebrew people, how they were enslaved and oppressed. So, God called forth Moses to lead the people out of Egypt and to go toward the Promised Land. God initiated all of this. God saw their oppression. God raised up Moses. God worked amazing signs of power. God led them through the wilderness. God brought them to their land of freedom. God did all of this.

            Now that God has done this, delivered the Hebrews from bondage and is leading them to the land of freedom, the question for Israel becomes, “How can we demonstrate our gratitude? Because you have chosen us and have become our God, how do you want us to serve you?” See, this is an important point to remember about the Ten Commandments. God acted first to save the Israelites from slavery. God acted first by claiming them as God’s chosen people. Israel was the recipient of God’s gracious act of liberation. It was only natural for people to want to know how the God who delivered them wants them to live. They couldn’t just say, “Thanks, God. We’ll take it from here. Why don’t you go on and find some other people to save.” That’s ridiculous. They owe their freedom to God. Without God they would still be enslaved. It was only right and natural for them to want to know how they might serve the God who freed them. So, God provides the people with these commandments so that they have some direction on how to properly love God and love one another as the community of God’s chosen people.

            What God gives Israel in these commandments is a kind of hedge. By that I mean a boundary line. If you stay on this side of the hedge all is good. But if you cross over the hedge you are straying into dangerous territory. One way to look at these commandments is God saying to Israel, “Whatever you do, make sure you obey these commandments. If you do these things, stay within the lines, you’ll be good.” Also, note that these commandments are all about action. They are about worshipping God instead of other gods. They are about not making idols. They are about keeping the Sabbath, honoring your parents, not killing, not committing adultery, not coveting your neighbor’s stuff. These commandments are all about how to live your life. There is nothing about having correct beliefs. These commandments are about how to do life together. They provide a container that keeps community together, ordered, healthy, safe, and life-giving. They provide boundaries that make possible the flourishing of love for God and neighbor as yourself. The commandments, when followed, establish community life founded on love and on the inherent dignity of every person and even the dignity of animals and of the land when you consider the practice of Sabbath-keeping.

            So, what about us? God gave these commandments to the Jewish people. They were not given to us Gentiles. Are we meant to follow them as well?

            First of all, the God of Israel is our God too. As Christians, who have been delivered from sin by the saving work of Jesus Christ, a Jew from Palestine, we direct our praise and adoration to the same God who delivered Israel from slavey in Egypt. Just as God, through Moses, delivered Israel from slavery, so God, through Jesus, has saved us from slavery to sin and death. As a response to the salvation God has made possible for us, do we not want to serve this God? Do we not want to know how to live together as a community that is delivered from the power of sin and death? These commandments can serve as a teaching rubric for us as well, to guide us on how to serve the God who saved us and how to live together as a delivered community.

            But also, let’s face it. The Ten Commandments provide an excellent code of conduct for us. They are not all inclusive. They don’t cover every possible ethical challenge. But they do give us enough guidance so that we can understand what loving God and loving neighbor looks like. They serve as boundary markers for us. We can be confident that if we abide by these ten commandments that we are on safe ground, that we are living lives that honor the God who delivers us.

            Still, we acknowledge that abiding by this code is not always easy. For example, in these days it is a challenge to keep the Sabbath. Long gone are the days when everything was closed on Sunday. It takes a great deal of determination to honor the Sabbath day by simply setting everything down, not do anything but simply be, to rest and delight in creation. Taking a day to do nothing feels so wrong in a society that drives us to always be using our waking hours in a productive way. Sabbath is a practice that reminds us that we are human beings and not human “doings.” It is just really hard to resist the pressures of society and take a day where we just play and set aside the to do lists. Then there is the command not to kill or is it murder. Hopefully, none of us will ever have to face the ambiguity of this commandment. What is the right word? Should the Hebrew be translated as kill or murder? It probably can’t prohibit killing because, as we see in the history of Israel, when they entered the promised land, there were already people living there. Ethnic cleansing took place, we cannot deny that. God killed a lot of Egyptians in the process of liberating Israel. So, the commandment must mean not to murder. But even if you kill someone as an act of self-defense or to prevent that person from killing someone else, isn’t that still the taking of a human life? Doesn’t the life of that person that you killed matter, have value? These are just a couple of examples of how the Ten Commandments are an excellent code of conduct. But life is often messy and the application of these commandments are not always easy.

            God knows how hard this is for us. God knows the power of sin is still active and effective. God knows how we struggle sometimes with knowing what is the right thing to do as well as the struggle of actually doing what we know is the right thing to do. Doing the right thing is not always easy. God knows that sometimes we harm others without meaning to. God knows that sometimes when we are hurting, or confused, or tired, or angry, or afraid, that we are not our best selves and say and do things that we later regret. But there is still hope for us. We are still saved by grace. God is still quick to forgive when we confess our sins. The Spirit of God is at work in our hearts, slowly working within us, healing us, making us wiser, stirring up our conscience, sanctifying us. We are all a work in progress. And the work that God has begun within each of us will be brought to completion. We have hope.

            So, my invitation for us this week is to review these ten commandments and to consider which of them we need to work on. Is there a particular commandment that you struggle with? I think if I took a poll a majority of us would acknowledge that keeping the Sabbath is at the top of the list. But maybe there is another commandment that is pulling for your attention. I’m going to read a paraphrase of these commandments and I invite you to notice which one of these is calling out for you to spend some time with.

 

Worship only God.

Do not worship idols.

Do not manipulate the use of God’s name.

Keep the Sabbath.

Honor your parents.

Do not commit murder.

Do not commit adultery.

Do not steal.

Do not lie.

Do not covet what other people have.

 

            Which one of these speaks to you as the one you need to focus on? Is there someone you can talk to about this, who can encourage you and keep you accountable? If you are drawing a blank, I invite you to keep thinking about it. Talk to God about it. Ask God to help you keep your commitments to this code of conduct, even as you express deep gratitude to God, who is merciful, patient, forgiving, who loves you with a perfect love and will never abandon you.