Sermon October 2, 2011

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20, Psalm 19

Philippians 3:4b-14, Matthew 21:33-46

“God's Loving Wisdom”

Šĕmaʿ Yisĕrāʾel Ădōnāy Ĕlōhênû Ădōnāy eḥād.

Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one.

After a month-long sojourn celebrating the presence of God in creation, we meet up with the Israelites or Hebrew people following their escape from slavery and partway through their journey in the wilderness. And it is a fortunate day to meet them, as they receive the law, the standards that God gave them to live and be identified as people of God.

We can transition into today's texts of worship and celebration through a reminder from Psalm 19, that all of creation is moved to praise God and shout God's great word and that we are chastised and instructed by that word.

  The heavens are telling the glory of God;
   and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
 Day to day pours forth speech,
   and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
   their voice is not heard;
 yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
   and their words to the end of the world.

The law of the Lord is perfect,
   reviving the soul;
the decrees of the Lord are sure,
   making wise the simple;
the precepts of the Lord are right,
   rejoicing the heart;

More to be desired are they than gold,
   even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey,
   and drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover by them is your servant warned;
   in keeping them there is great reward.
But who can detect their errors?
   Clear me from hidden faults.
Keep back your servant also from the insolent;
   do not let them have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless,
   and innocent of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
   be acceptable to you,
   O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.¹

The Torah, the law of God, the word that comes from the mouth of God, the words of the commandments written on stone by the finger of God—these are the cause for celebrating echoing to us throughout the universe made by God's own hand.

The 10 words, the 10 commandments—the heart and center of the multitudes of laws within the First Testament—came to the people of the Hebrews as a final piece of the puzzle and covenant God had made with Abraham their ancestor.

One great preacher described this gift.

Barbara Brown Taylor entitles her sermon on this text, "Peculiar Treasures," because that's what the people were to the God who had brought them out of bondage, out into the wilderness on their way to a new life. One is reminded of treasures in the way she describes the story of this people: "God's covenant with their grandfather Abraham had three shining jewels in it: descendants as plentiful as the stars in the sky, a special relationship to God, and a land of milk and honey all their own." But "something was still missing," she writes, "something Moses went up the mountain to get."

Taylor reflects beautifully on the relationship between the law and the promise, and about how much we might think we like the promise better than the law, and how much we appreciate just being loved, unconditionally. She then uses the metaphor of a tent (a good metaphor for people in the wilderness!) to explain how it all works together, because "promise without law is like a tent without tent poles."²

In God's infinitely loving wisdom, God gave them a loving covenant and a law within which to live that covenant. The law gave them an identity unique to this people of God so that they could be what Isaiah would call them seven hundred years later, a light to the nations—a beacon to the Gentiles, the people who lived beyond and outside the bloodline and tradition of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is and was through this ethical and revelatory law that people could perceive the called nature of the people of the God of Abraham and now the God of Moses.

Though intended to be a moral and ethical national identification, a revelation of God's love within the people of Israel and a compassionate and just way of living, the ten commandments have and can be interpreted badly and with great evil consequences.

People's experiences with the and valuing of the ten commandments vary greatly depending upon the circumstances in which we learn them—and how they are understood. As I prepared my sermon for this morning, I tried to remember how or when I first heard the ten commandments, but like many children who grew up in church, I'm not sure I can. I'm not saying I ever knew them—and I couldn't probably name them in exact order, even now, but they were always there in some form.

I remember wondering what an idol was when I was a child. Taking God's name in vain somehow meant cursing or cussing. The sabbath, I knew that people worked on Sundays, people like the preacher; and we liked to go out to eat and people were working at those restaurants. Honoring my father and mother . . as an adolescent that got more complicated. Murder and killing were wrong, got it. Adultery—I had no idea, except that the word made some people turn red and giggle. Stealing I understood. Lying I understood and only occasionally did I try to cover up something when I though I might get into trouble. I was jealous of people sometimes, so I thought I understood coveting—though coveting wives was a bit confusing . . . and as I understood more, I understood more.

I also sat in on at least one sermon of a series on the commandments where I was yelled at and staunchly berated for things I barely understood. And I heard them preached in what seemed like anger and very little grace and compassion.

Within Christianity there is a variety of feelings about the ten commandments and what they mean—some hold onto the childhood confusion or simplicity and others dig deeper. Some see them as judgmental and other find freedom in their structure. Some want to justify their behavior by narrowing the definitions of one word, adultery perhaps or another, murder or others, bear false witness. Or perhaps as people live and experience the grace of God in Jesus Christ, knowing that God is love we realize that the law is love, too. And through the experiences of our lives we learn that the ten commandments are about the revelation or unveiling of love as it is lived in and among other people.

The ten commandments can be seen as a living breath of God blowing through our lives, structuring our behavior, clarifying our questions about how we show love. They are also treated as idols, ironically, and even can be used to instill fear and quell cries of injustice. Even in the final words of today's text we can hear the first inklings of that divided view. The people withdrew from God's power and word in fear of God's anger, while Moses sought to comfort them by telling them that the law was meant to prove them and make them more obviously into God's chosen people.

And through the years, I've come to know that the living and loving wisdom of God is contained within these commands. I might see some of them quite differently now that I did when I was at my most rigid and self-righteous, yet I still understand them to be authoritative. I understand, for instance, that idolatry means holding anything above God—family, job, church, etc. I know that I understand coveting a neighbor's wife or husband, even though neither one is my neighbor's property, as understood in the commandment. That holds true for the others as well. They aren't suggestions—as I've heard the cynical say, and yet they are the living, breathing, moving word of God.

The whole of the commandments is a loving way to live in relationship with the one God. The whole of the commandments is a loving way to live in relationship with every person in the world.

Paul and Jesus spoke of the law and those who abused it, or used it for their own gain—let us know the commandments, allow God to write them on our hearts and let us live into them by loving God as God and no one else and loving our neighbors as we have been taught to love, with wisdom and with grace.

Šĕmaʿ Yisĕrāʾel Ădōnāy Ĕlōhênû Ădōnāy eḥād.

Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one. Amen.

1Psalm 19:1-4a, 7-14

2Barbara Brown Taylor in (Gospel Medicine). http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/october-2-2011.html