Exodus 19:1-6, 20:1-2 “Precious”
INTRODUCTION
The world is filled with strange, ridiculous and useless laws. For example:
• In Missouri it is illegal to drive with an uncaged bear, and in Alaska it is improper to wake a sleeping bear for a photo opportunity.
• In New Jersey you cannot wear a bulletproof vest while committing a murder, nor can you ever have personalized license plates if you’ve been convicted of DUI.
• It is against the law in Idaho for a man to give his sweetheart over fifty pounds of chocolate.
• In Connecticut you can get jail time for walking across the streets on your hands.
I didn’t think much about strange rules and regulations until we started working with the City of Surprise and the State of Arizona during our preparation for building. For me the most absurd was having an archeological survey done on a piece of land that has been used agriculturally for over one hundred years.
Some people think that the Ten Commandments are as ridiculous as some of the laws that are on the books. For the next four weeks, we’re going to be studying the Ten Commandments seeking to discover their purpose and usefulness in our lives today.
NO PATH TO SALVATION
Even though the Protestant Reformation took place almost five hundred years ago, with the rallying cry, “The just shall live by faith,” there are still people who believe that they are saved by keeping the Ten Commandments. If you ever want to see a Lutheran minister cringe, say to someone during a funeral visitation that George was obviously in heaven with Jesus because George was such a good person. We don’t need to debate whether or not George is in heaven, but he didn’t get there by being a good person. Being faithful to his wife, not taking more than ten minutes for a break at work, always driving below the speed limit, and never saying anything more vulgar than “heck,” is not the path to heaven.
This truth is clearly seen in the passage of scripture that we have before us today. In chapter nineteen, God recounts what God has done for the Israelites. In verse four God declares that God has defeated the Egyptians and carried the Israelites on eagles’ wings to bring them to himself. God had already established a relationship between the Israelites and himself. The Ten Commandments came after the relationship.
The Apostle Paul stressed the idea of grace and faith instead of works in many of his writings. When the early church struggled to accept Gentiles without first converting them to Jews, Paul argued that all people were brought into God’s kingdom through the work of Jesus rather than their own work. Thus following Jewish laws and keeping Kosher were not helpful to the Gentiles. In one of the favorite verses for the Reformers, Ephesians 2:8-10, Paul celebrates the truth that we have been saved by grace through faith and this is not a work lest anyone should boast, rather it is a gift from God.
NO PATH TO REWARDS
If the Ten Commandments are not needed in order to achieve heaven, then what are they good for? Some people opt for a plan “B”. They stress that keeping the Ten Commandments are a path to be rewarded. They pick up on verse five, when God says, “If you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples … you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.”
People point to the covenant God made with Abraham—that God was going to bless Abraham with land, descendants and riches. Throughout the Bible it was understood that the righteous were blessed by God and such blessings would be shown in riches. These people turn a deaf ear to Jesus when he talks about “blessed are the poor,” in the Beatitudes on the Sermon on the Mount. They also ignore the fact that Jesus never accumulated riches, land or descendants, and that he said if anyone wanted to be his disciple they would need to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him. We are too surrounded with the reward system—too immersed—to believe that life can work another way. Certainly, God doesn’t go by the reward system, and we can be thankful for that.
Not only do we understand this is how the world works for us as individuals, we also see it as a country. There are many people who believe that the United States is going down the tube and that God will only bless America if we get our act together. Such thoughts beg the question, “Hasn’t God already blessed America?” The path suggested by many toward “righteousness” appears to deny justice for several groups of people: For women and their ability to make reproductive decisions, for gays and their ability to enjoy equal rights under the law, and for the human treatment of the poor, the homeless, and undocumented immigrants. We want God to bless America with power and wealth and to keep us number 1. More likely God’s blessings would be seen in peace and in a nation where all people experience and enjoy liberty and justice.
God may not reward people because they keep the Ten Commandments, but we do know that those who follow the path of the commandments appear to live fuller, happier lives than those who live their lives without boundaries.
THE PATH OF LOVE
Some of you may be saying to yourselves, “Well, if I don’t get to heaven or get rewarded by the Ten Commandments, then I might as well just eat, drink and be merry.” St. Paul was accused of advocating this position, but he denied it saying that we need the law.
Jesus said that he did not come to abolish the law but to complete it. So, what is this law, the Ten Commandments” that he came to complete—what is it for?
The Ten Commandments is a pathway of love. God gave the commandments to his people as an expression of his love for them. God wanted his people to have a full, free, and peaceful life.
The Ten Commandments are pictures of how love is demonstrated in our lives. We are told that the commandments can be boiled down to “Love the Lord you God with all of you hearts, soul, mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” We love God by seeking God first, but respecting God’s name, and by worshipping him on a regular basis. We love God and our neighbor by not killing, lying, stealing, coveting, and by respecting the marriage covenant of two people.
CONCLUSION
We may need to change some of our long held ideas about the Ten Commandments. Still, they play a powerful role in our lives. They enable us to love, and to experience a life that is full and free.
Amen
