A Gift To Free Us
In church, the Decalogue, or the Ten
Commandments are read each Sunday of Lent. We hear the word of God through the
gift he gave the Israelites in the desert. We don’t often think of the Ten
Commandments as a gift but they are. A new way of life without being controlled
by those that enslaved them; a way that was different and new, so God explained
the vision to them.
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| Freedom through boundaries? |
The first four statements declare how the community
will maintain its relationship with God. Honoring God is simple.
1. Since God saved them from the
Egyptians, they should leave all of Egypt behind including the Gods they may
have worshipped there. They are to only pray to the God that saved them.
2. They should not worship things
that cannot save them. They should not make other things more important than
God.
3. How we talk about someone informs
how we feel about them, so God reminds the Israelites that they are to use God's name with reverence and care. Our words have meaning and strength.
4. God gives Israel the Sabbath for
rest and to reconnect with God. When they were slaves they never had time to
rest and recover from work so God gives them that time so they will be healthy
and strong. It is the same reason we are expected to continue Sabbath because
it allows us to heal and strengthens us, physically and spiritually, for the
rest of our week.
The last six statements by God were made to help the
Israelites understand what it was to live in this new community. Not
a community of rules but a community that is based on
mutual trust and respect.
1. God understands that harmony
begins in the most basic of relationships. The commandment to honor your father
and mother comes from the belief that if a child learns respect for those in
their home that respect will be carried out into the world. All good behavior
begins at home.
2. In a community that is built on
trust and respect, murder is the result of uncontrolled anger. God does not
command that the Israelites do not kill because God knows that they will be
called to defend themselves in the future. God is clear that murder will break
apart a community because the anger that causes one to murder does not end with
that act but then spreads into the community.
3. Like with the commandment about parents and
children, the commandment against adultery reminds us that the communities is a
mirror of the family structure in so many ways. If a person is unable to keep
their promises to care for one another how can they care for the others for
whom they have promised to care?
4. In a community that is governed
by respect and love there should be no reason for theft or to take something
that does not belong to you which would demonstrate disrespect for the other in the
community.
5. To give false testimony about
another person comes from a desire to usurp them or because you fear them. Neither
motivation comes from a relationship that is honest or honorable.
6. Finally God was aware that we are
often driven by our desires and that when we wants something others have those
things become idols and get in the way of our relationship with God and our
neighbors. This is why God cautions us against wanting what other have.
Each of these Ten Commandments speaks to our nature
to be distracted from the things that are most important. God desires that we
live our lives in a way that honors both God and those around us not in a
manner that is holds other things up as more important. When we give into our
urges and are controlled by those urges, we become slaves to those urges
and that is the last thing God wanted for the Israelites or for us. The Commandments were
a gift given to Israel to keep free from the things that would imprison them.
Not a means to continue to control them
Today’s Scripture: Exodus 20: 1-17
1 Then God spoke all these
words: 2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out
of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before me. 4 You shall
not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in
heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under
the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord
your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to
the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, 6 but showing
steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my
commandments. 7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your
God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. 8 Remember the
sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work.
10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any
work--you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your
livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord
made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh
day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. 12 Honor
your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the
Lord your God is giving you. 13 You shall not murder. 14 You shall not commit adultery.
15 You shall not steal. 16 You shall not bear false witness against your
neighbor. 17 You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet
your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything
that belongs to your neighbor.
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