TRINITY SERMONS

Trinity Presbyterian Church

2200 North Bell Avenue # Denton, Texas 76209

Rev. Craig Hunter

March 15, 2009

Commandments

Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 2:18-25; Exodus 20:1-27

A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds. After explaining the commandment to "honor thy father and thy mother," she asked "Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?" Without missing a beat one little boy answered, "Thou shall not kill."

Despite jokes such as this, discussion concerning the Ten Commandments of late has been no laughing matter. There has been a growing movement to post the commandments in public buildings around the country, a movement that has faced opposition from other groups concerned about the separation of church and state. As a case in point, the state capital in Austin has a monument of the Ten Commandments. The commandments are posted without any numbering, because, as different religious traditions number the commandments differently, to put numbers on them would reflect a sectarian bias.

What underlies this movement is the belief that our country needs to return to a more simple cultural understanding of right and wrong. James Madison purportedly wrote, "We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of the government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of . . . each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." (as quoted in "Word and Witness," March 15, 2009, Vol. 09:2, New Berlin, WI: Liturgical Publications Inc) Whether or not Madison ever wrote that, many think he should have. Many have a sense that, morally and religiously, our nation is headed downhill. For example, as theologians Hauerwas and Willimon relate, "A few years ago, newsman Ted Koppel gave what was to be the most popular commencement address at Duke University in recent decades. After enumerating various signs of moral decay in America, Koppel asked, "What is the solution to each of these problems?" He then proceeded to list each of the Ten Commandments, briefly explaining how, if Americans would only follow these ethical guidelines, we would have no moral problems." (see Stanley M. Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, The Truth About God, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999, p. 14)

What these and others seem to be saying is that our society, our country, needs a good dose of strong medicine, in this case in the form of the Ten Commandments. It may not taste good, it may not go down smoothly, but it is good for what ails us.

Or maybe not good for what ails "us" -- no, rather the discourse frequently seems to suggest that it is good for what ails the other guy. After all, all too often in these debates, the assumption seems to be that really it's the other guy that is sick, it's the society "out there" that is in need of repentance. In such a context, the Ten Commandments are implicitly used to make others a bit more like us. A bit more righteous, like us.

In thinking about this, the image that comes to mind is that of a stereotypical old mean Catholic nun teaching in a school. She walks up and down the aisles of our society, her eagle eyes on the lookout for any transgression, great or small, waiting, waiting a bit too eagerly for that moment when she catches someone doing something wrong. Whap! Out come the Ten Commandments, whap, they rap the knuckles of the chagrined culprit. Thou shalt not steal! Thou shalt not covet! She could say "Don't" -- Don't steal, but . . . no, that doesn't work as well, you really need the whole "Thou shalt not" to really get into it. There is nothing like a good "Thou shalt not" to really get your sense of righteous anger flowing.

I suspect this kind of image of the commandments as a ten-pronged whip used to keep us in line is not entirely foreign to us, indeed, it is probably all too familiar to some. And the way the Ten Commandments are used in political debate only furhter entrenches this image. But this whole business of rapping the knuckles of society, this business of trying to take us back to a purer age in our past -- well, that's not what the Ten Commandments are really about.

The Ten Commandments were not meant as a universal code of morality. They were not meant to undergird American political democracy either. No, these commandments received their meaning from the particular context in which they were given. What was that context? Well, as you might recall from your Old Testament history, or from the name of the book in which these commandments first appear, the context was one of Exodus. God heard the cry of the Israelites during their oppressive slavery in Egypt, and God acted in history to deliver them from bondage into freedom. They have been freed from slavery to worship God in the wilderness. That is the context in which this passage occurs. More specifically, this passage addresses the question of how to worship God. The 19th through the 24th chapters of Exodus are liturgical chapters, describing a religious ceremony. God says at the beginning of this section, "You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a royal nation." In other words, the context is one of love, deliverance, and worship. The commandments were a way for the Israelites to show love to God who had already loved them.

How then are we to worship God? Perhaps Moses wondered that as he climbed up the mountain. Would God tell him what clothes he needed to wear for worship? Would God tell him exactly how to divide the responsibilities between clergy and laity? Or what style of hymns to use, and how many?

God doesn't answer those questions, instead God talks about not making any idols, not stealing from anybody, not lying or anything like that. Such commandments must have been odd, they must have marked God out as an odd God. After all, other gods had idols, other gods were into other things -- fertility gods were worshipped through sex, war gods were worshipped through war, prosperity gods were worshipped through wealth. But not this God, this outsider God of an outsider people. No, this God seems to be all about relationships.

I am reminded of a conversation I overheard this last week with two other pastors from different denominations. They were discussing the question, what are the marks of discipleship? One pastor related how most of his tradition has seen proclamation as the primary mark of discipleship. Disciples, in other words, are those who tell others about Jesus. But as he has aged, his understanding of discipleship has changed, and he has grown to see servanthood as its primary mark. A secretary at the church I served in Japan put it more directly: You show your faith by how you handle relationships.

When you refrain from stealing, when you refrain from killing or coveting or lying, when you do the things in the ten commandments, in other words, you aren't just being a nice guy, you are engaging in an act of faith. The commandments are about relationships, and it is through a community struggling to embody those relationships that we witness to and worship our God. That is the purpose for which these commandments were given -- to establish a community, which through its worship and its relationships, witnesses to God.

This isn't to say that non-Christians or atheists or anybody else is amoral. It isn't to say that Christians have a lock on morality. Whether the Ten Commandments are useful to others outside our faith tradition is not our primary concern. Rather what is our primary concern is our belief that the God who delivered the Israelites from bondage delivers us still. What is our concern is that for us, as Christians, our relationships are holy because God has claimed them as such. We may be more or less moral than someone else, but our reasons for being so are different, and indeed, how we define morality itself is shaped by whose we are. We strive to be the odd people of an odd God, because we profess the faith that that odd God is the very same God who is at work in our world and in us bringing redemption to all.

All of this may sound easy enough. After all, I haven't killed anyone, I don't covet my neighbor's wife. My one neighbor doesn't have a wife, and I don't even really know my other neighbors on the other side. I think my parents would say that I honor them. You get the idea.

But the more you spend time with these commandments, the more you struggle to live rightly in your relationships and to honor God through them, the more you realize it isn't so easy. Thou shalt not kill . . . and yet, an American predator drone, acting indirectly in my name, killed 24 people in Pakistan two days ago. And yet, my country continues to execute those deemed guilty by a broken judicial system. And yet, I commit actions on a daily basis that do not contribute to a culture of life, but quite the contrary, contribute to death. Thou shalt not covet . . . and yet, the advertisements I see teach me to want what I don't need, to want what others have or don't have. And yet, I want that person's confidence or peace or wisdom, I want their gifts, as if the gifts given to me are not sufficient. Remember the Sabbath . . . and yet, I am tempted to work on my day off, to worship the work god, to put too much of my identity and self-worth in my success at work, or lack thereof. Thou shalt not steal . . . and yet, I consciously consume a disproportionate share of the earth's resources, I tend to assume that I am the owner rather than the steward of what I possess.

The list goes on. The more time I spend with these commandments, the heavier they get, the more they convict me of my own sin. And in convicting me of my sin, they convict me of my need for grace, of my need for God. Maybe that is part of the point, maybe that is part of the gift of the commandments. Maybe that is why we find them in the lectionary this week, smack dab in the middle of Lent. For Lent is a time for us to meditate on our own sin and need for grace. Lent is a time for us to slow down and consider with a different eye.

Rather than functioning as a hard-iron ruler used to keep us in line, the commandments seem to function more as signposts along a trail. I keep thinking of those markers you see along wilderness trails. Sometimes you have the red triangles or the blue squares, or whatever. Each trail has its own particular sign. They put the sign on trees or on markers stuck into the ground.

The commandments are a bit like that. There are other paths, with other signs. There are paths that proclaim that worth is to be found in wealth, and there are entire trails marked by those signs -- trails that often lead through college into business, into investment and into bigger and bigger homes, they lead through the ups and downs of the stock market, you think things are going along smoothly, there are plenty of others along the same path, but their presence doesn't ease your loneliness, and suddenly, the path ends with you standing alone on a precipice that leads to death. There are trails that are built upon individual experiences, suggesting that life is about accumulating as many different kinds of experiences as possible, the trail leads through foreign lands, it leads to accomplishments and achievements, to many pictures in the photo album and many trophies on the wall.

There are many other trails, I am sure. But those trails lead to death. The trail of the commandments is the trail of relationship with others and with God, and it leads to life. It isn't an easy trail -- indeed, it may be harder than others. Sometimes, it is dark out and it can be hard to see. Sometimes the trail goes steeply uphill, as it does during this season of Lent. Sometimes you go astray, sometimes you slip, and you are foolish if you hike alone. But the commandments are like living beacons, they are one of the ways that God comes to us. As Willimon and Hauerwas write, "The commandments are a chief means by which our lives are bent toward the way and will of God." (Hauerwas and Willimon, p. 22) In struggling to follow the path that they lay out, we grow in our relationship with God and with each other, and we exhibit that relationship to the world. "The Ten Commandments must be read and lived within the background of this vocation given by a saving God. Christians live as those who have been chosen by God, called, claimed, possessed, owned by God that we might proclaim, in word and deed, what God has done. We live by the commandments as a way of worshipping the true God. When we thus worship the true God, we show forth to the world the sort of people God is able to produce. Our little lives are caught up in the great purposes of God for the world. We become commandeered for purposes beyond ourselves. We, for whom lying, deceit, and falsehood come quite naturally, are transformed by our obedience into a people of truth." (Hauerwas and Willimon, p. 17)

To know these commandments, to know their path, is to grow in relationship with the one who made it. David Mosser, a pastor and professor, uses this comparison. He shares his experience in high school of an elderly English teacher completing her 45th and final year of teaching. She was a demanding teacher who had a reputation for deluging her students with work. The whole class struggled to complete her extensive reading list of novels. But somewhere deep in the second semester, Mosser relates, when most classes were starting to get antsy to be finished, his English class began to wish the relationship with the teacher wouldn't end. "Although she 'laid down the law' and made us work harder for her than any teacher we had ever had, we eventually realized she had shared a precious gift with us. This gift was her love of learning and reading. Her success with us had to do with her own internal law of getting out of something what we had put into it. It was a lesson that proved valuable to this heretofore hesitant student. Through a lot of work that appeared to be like a yoke, she offered a gift that has continued to give to me ever since." ("Word and Witness," March 15, 2009, Vol. 09:2, New Berlin, WI: Liturgical Publications Inc.)

The question for us is whether we will strive to live by these commandments, whether we as a community will strive to follow the path that they lay out. The promise of God, the promise of Christ, is that the path leads to life. Will you follow it?