ONE BIG, HAPPY FAMILY
“Almost all people at all times have agreed (in theory) that human beings ought to be honest and kind and helpful to one another. But though it is natural to being with all that, if our thinking about morality stops there, we might just as well have not thought at all. Unless we go on to the second thing-the tidying up inside each human being-we are only deceiving ourselves. You cannot make men good by law; and without good men you cannot have a good society.”
Those words from C.S. Lewis are sadly true. If we could be good by wanting to be good, then Jesus could have stayed in His heavenly place forever. The six commandments related to human relations are perhaps harder for us to abide by than the previous four relating to our relationship with God. After all, they are much more visible, much more public. Sometimes it seems that we have the impression that we are to observe the commandments; as in, we see them, we read them, we know they exist, but we seldom feel that we are to physically keep them.
My Jewish study Bible says that the fifth commandment is a counterpart to the honor due God; it forms a bridge between duties toward God and toward humans. Honor thy father and mother is a grown up commandment. While we expect it from our children, they learn it from us. To honor goes beyond honor. There can be no injury, no unkind speech. This commandment mandates kindness, respect, and obedience.
The Brothers Grimm wrote a rather telling tale about a little old man with trembling hands and feeble eyes, whose table habits became increasing offensive to his daughter-in-law, until one day she objected to her husband about his father. She and her husband took the old man to a corner of the kitchen, set him on a stool, and gave him his food in a big bowl. Now he was no longer troubling them by spilling his food.
One day, in his trembling, he dropped the bowl and broke it. Now the daughter-in-law lost even her moderate civility. “If you are a pig,” she said, “you must eat from a trough.” And they made a little wooden trough, and he ate from it. One night they noticed their 4-year-old son playing with blocks of wood. When the father asked what he was doing, he said with a smile, “I’m making a trough to feed you and Mama when I get big.”
For a while the man and woman just looked at each other, not saying a thing. Then they cried. Then they went to the corner and led the little old man back to his place at the table. They gave him a comfortable chair, and put his food on a plate. And never again were they really, deeply troubled by the food he spilled or by the dishes he occasionally broke. They had learned that, in honoring a parent, they had planned their own future.
When we honor parents we really honor God, because all three had a hand in our creation. The honor that we show our parents will come back to us, through our own children and their ability to honor people in authority. Family patterns are often repeated, for good or for bad, if there is no effort made to change them. If you want to be sitting alone someday, waiting for a phone call or visit, just let your children see you neglect your elderly parents.
Next we face the most offensive behavior between human beings – murder. The meaning behind this Hebrew word – ratsach – is not the same as to kill, for it excludes warfare and corporal punishment. This is murder, whether intentional or accidental. It includes all ways in which life can be destroyed or shortened, so you be the judge. Murder may not be limited to the body, but may involve the soul or spirit.
As children are tried to fend off harsh words or insults by saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Deep down we know that’s not true. I would prefer a nice clean break that would eventually heal to a wounded heart that may never recover. Words can hurt, they can devastate, they can maim, and they can never, never be withdrawn. You can remove a bullet, an arrow, or a shard of glass, but once a word is aimed and fired, it stays lodged forever. The greatest emotional pain I ever endured was the result of just one little word.
Because we are connected, one person’s death diminishes us. Each violent death reported on the news should remind us of our own mortality, and cause us to mourn. During times of war, casualties are inevitable, but those deaths should not be treated like statistics. Each one was someone’s child, possibly someone’s parent or spouse, and their death will affect great numbers of people. Life is not only precious when it is our own – all of life is precious.
Life is not the only precious thing – so is marriage. A friend of mine who pastors in SD recently called to see how I was doing. I asked him how things were going in his parish, and he said he wasn’t quite prepared for what he encountered in the church when he got there. I asked him what that was and because he was in public, he cryptically answered, “Exodus 20:14.”
Adultery. It’s practically a buzzword among political scandals. It seems that those who are trying to preserve the sanctity of marriage through law have forgotten what it means in their personal lives. Technically, the Old Testament view of adultery is any relations between a married or engaged woman and someone not her husband. This is not the affair of a married man with someone not his wife. It is seen as an injustice because it robs a man of his wife’s affection and possibly produces offspring that is not his that he would have to provide for.
Anyone who has been affected by infidelity can tell you that more than just the marriage bed becomes defiled by adultery. The entire marital relationship and the family situation also suffers destruction. The seventh commandment creates boundaries for the husband and wife and the rest of the world. Boundaries are not something we always feel comfortable with, that is, until they are not there.
But boundaries in a relationship are necessary and vital for survival of integrity and identity. Imagine the chaos if employers had no boundaries on their behavior toward subordinates. Picture a day at school if students had no reason to show respect for their teachers or other students, but could do whatever they wished.
In the English novel Canterbury Tales, it is noted that the commandment about adultery comes between thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not steal, because adultery is the murder of the marital union and the theft of a spouse. The slippery slope that often leads to adultery is the struggle in the person’s mind between what they want versus what they should have, or more accurately, what they feel they deserve.
In Romans, Paul said, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” Given that statement, we cannot mistake lust for love because they do not work the same. Society may say they are interchangeable, but love is on a completely different level than lust. Love is holy.
Beg, borrow, or steal. These words mean different things to different people. Some vow never to do any of these three. Some would never beg, but they might borrow. Others may beg, but they refuse to borrow. Still others may bypass begging or borrowing and go right on to stealing. Only the truly desperate person might do all three. Stealing may be subtle or blatant, it may be active or passive, but no matter what, God forbids it. Still, that does not stop people from stealing.
When we are the ones who are victimized, we want justice, but how many times are we guilty of some lesser offense? We downplay or minimize the little crimes we commit by using a variety of words like sneak, snitch, lift, make off with, appropriate, or even borrow. Have you ever “borrowed” anything from a neighbor and failed to return the item? Then you are a thief. Have you ever “snuck” some food from the plate of a dinner companion when they got up to go to the restroom? Then you are a thief. Have you ever “lifted” a few dollars from a family member’s purse or wallet? Then you are a thief.
What happens when we steal? Rather than gain, we actually lose. We give up a part of our character; we lose a part of our self-respect. We may never be caught or even noticed, but we will carry the guilt. We obviously lose a part of our relationship with God. We further ourselves from God, put up a barrier behind which we feel we can be less visible, less sinful. We suffer from a weakened conscience. That small voice inside of us can be relentless, but once covered by a layer of repeated sin, it becomes more difficult to detect.
Such falseness in our lives might make it easier for us to slide into the sin of deceit, which is prohibited by the ninth commandment because it has no basis in fact, and God is a God of truth. False testimony was such an undermining of the law itself that Moses required the witnesses of capital crimes to be the executioners. Any kind of false oath or testimony such as perjury is forbidden, but also whispering about people, gossip, and slander, against friends or enemies.
When television was new and game shows were more sophisticated, you may recall there was a popular show called To Tell the Truth. For those of you who weren’t around then, the premise was lying, and the object was for the panel of judges to correctly identify the person telling the truth. Only one person was who they said they were. The others were actually rewarded for being skillful enough to fool the judges. This was Hollywood’s exception to the ninth commandment, and it just shows how far down the list we consider lying to be.
Now, lying has been around as long as we have. Soon after the creation of man and woman, Satan slithered into the beautiful Garden of Eden and proceeded to lie to Eve, who then lied to herself and to her husband, and the rest is history. This commandment was given to promote justice, but it was also given to promote community. In the ancient world it was not allowable to accept the testimony of only one witness, and if a person was found guilty of giving false testimony, that person received the punishment of the one they accused.
If we can’t say anything bad about anyone else, they will have no reason to say anything bad about us. We probably all have friends who tell us details of the lives of others, true or untrue. Do you ever wonder what those people say about you behind your back? Do you ever wonder what people will say about you when you are gone?
And do you ever wonder which of your possessions your neighbors are drooling over? Coveting may seem harmless, but it leads to other things like jealous or bitterness, and potentially theft or overextending oneself through purchases. It is desire running riot. Covetous people will break all of God’s commandments in order to satisfy their desires, because at the heart of sin is the sin in the heart. To covet is to feed inward desires for anything that God says is sinful.
One author said to observe this commandment prevents all public crimes because of fear of the law. Whether or not that is accurate remains with each person. There are plenty of non-public crimes committed among us every day. We have these commandments, but do we know why we have them? Why are some of them used in our moral code of society, in our civil law? Why are some so subjective to personal interpretation and obedience?
The reaction of the people who received these was fear and trembling at the presence of God’s power on the mountain. Moses reassured them by saying, “Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.” If these commandments had been delivered to us personally in the presence of God, would we consider them in a different way? Would they help us obey any better?
It’s something to think about, but again, what we really need to reflect on is what these commandments mean to us and our relationships. They are brief, they are practical, and they are absolutely vital for community to survive and for God to be obeyed. They cannot transform us inwardly. Only Christ can do that, but they point us to that path where love for God and love for others fulfills the law. Let our desire to abide by the laws of God’s kingdom make us truly able to love in this way.
