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.