As a kid, I can remember reading
the ten commandments or talking about them in Sunday School and thinking-I got
these—this is simple. I hadn’t murdered
anyone— I was not committing adultery-- I went to church pretty
regularly—so I had the sabbath covered and I didn’t steal except that one time
from my sister’s piggy bank to buy an ice cream from the ice cream truck—you
know how powerful that ice cream music is—like one of the sirens in Greek
Mythology luring me in.
Of course, I had no idea of that bearing
false witness-might actually mean lying about someone or that I was forgetting
those times on the playground when I thought it might be cool to take the
Lord’s name in vain. Or that backtalk or
eyerolling might not be honoring my parents. So maybe they are not as easy and simple as
you might think.
In the Episcopal Church during Lent
one of the liturgical practices we engage in--is the recitation of the Ten
Commandments—which we also call the Decalogue.
We put them out front at the beginning of the liturgy as we try to create
a more penitential tone to this season of Lent.
So what are the 10
Commandments? Are they simply a set of rules meant to make our lives boring,
dull? Caden’s been using this statement at our house fun sponge— apparently I am a fun sponge—I
suck all the fun out of life so are the
commandments and God’s rules---fun sponges-meant to suck all the fun out of
life.
Isn’t Christianity all about
behaving, following God’s rules so that we can be saved and make our way into
heaven when our hearts stop beating.
Perhaps it might be good to
remember, that the Ten commandments are just some of the rules that God had
passed on to the Israelites people –they are just ten of 613.
613 rules or laws that can be found in the
first five books of the Bible—Genesis, Exodus Leviticus Deuteronomy and
Numbers. It would also be good to
remember that the Commandments and all of the other laws were given to the
Israelite people as they were wandering the desert after their enslavement in
Egypt. They were trying to get their
acts together to become a community of people who had to live together. The commandments were given to them as the as
the way or the basis for how they were to live together in community with each
other and in relationship to God.
One rabbi I read this week said
that the 10 Commandments would have been seen as a gift to the Israelite people
not a fun sponges, but gifts--gifts by the God who had already saved them. And
that the commandments would be a pathway to a deeper, richer fuller life with
God and with neighbor—the commandments
were meant to teach the people how they were to live to really live.
What if we were to start looking at
these commandments as a gifts given to us from God.
Let’s try this for a moment—let’s
try the first two commandment. The first
one about having no other God’s but God and the second one about not having
idols—those are really about the things in our lives that have power–how might
it be a gift if we could really put God at the center of our lives—that’s what
this command is say-God should be the center.
There is a wonderful prayer
attributed to Julian of Norwich----“God, of your goodness, give me yourself;
you are enough for me, and anything less that I could ask for would not do you
full honor. And if I ask anything that is less, I shall always lack something,
but in you alone I have everything'.”
What if God was enough-can you
imagine the peace that would invade our lives if all we needed was God—can you
imagine how our priorities might be different. How there might be a lot less
stress---if we were to have no other God’s but God.
Let’s try it with another one—keep
holy the sabbath day-- first off we have co-opted that and turned it
into the go to church commandment, it is a little bit about that but it also really about having a
healthy relationship between work and rest or between being busy and rest.
Remember the story in Genesis God works hard for six days and then hallows a
day of rest.
In this country we don’t have a good balance between work and
rest—we are a country of doers and workers and our value is tied up in what we
produce so we tend to overwork and not value rest. But what if we had better balance between
work and rest—how might our other relationships be enhanced? How might our
health be different? We might also want
to consider and reflect on those things
that drives us to not have an adequate work/rest balance? What are the things that drive us to
overwork? Can you imagine the gift this might be in our
lives if we could get this right.
Gifts—I think these commandment
really are gifts that lead to really living a life that is Good and meaningful and healthy and
peaceful—were relationships are cherished--Wasn’t that God’s hope for the
people of Israel.
So perhaps today we can begin to
see that when we put the 10 commandments out front—we do so not to make
ourselves feel guilty or to dwell on our
failures or beat ourselves up but rather
we put them out front during this season of lent to meditate on, to ruminate on
so that we might continue to move more fully into the life that God has for us
and for all people.
Which commandment is calling to you
today—to reflect on—to meditate on— which of the ten might bring you a little
more life. Spend some time with them—it
might just pay dividends—it just might be a gift from God.
AMEN
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