The following is a link to our reading from Exodus this morning:
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
I think more often than not the Ten Commandments are portrayed in a negative light—they are the things we have to do or God will get mad at us. Sort of like children—I’m doing it because mom and dad will ground me if I don’t, but I don’t like it. But any of you who are parents know that you set certain rules and boundaries for your children, not to have power over them—at least I hope this isn’t your motivation—but instead because you want to keep them safe and healthy, and because you believe that the boundaries you are setting will actually help them to become happier adults. You give them rules and boundaries because you know that these limitations will actually help them be less limited as adults. You give them structure because you know that this structure will actually free them from much pain and suffering.
Look at the beginning of our reading from Exodus for this morning:
Look at the beginning of our reading from Exodus for this morning:
“Then God spoke all these words: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”
First God cares of his people and then he teaches them how to care for themselves. First God frees his people and then he teaches them how to continue to live in freedom.
There is not time in the course of a ten minute sermon to talk about all ten commandments, but I want to talk about a few of them to help you better understand what I mean when I say that the Ten Commandments are not burdens but instead are the very things that unburden us.
So let’s look at the first commandment: You shall have no other gods before me. You could read this as the command of a jealous God who cannot tolerate His people giving their attention to any other deity. You could see God as a petty tyrant who has an over-inflated ego and cannot stand divided loyalties. If you do, this command will indeed feel like an unbearable burden. But I think something else is going on here. I think God understands that the things that we turn into gods--money, security, success, power, pleasure, comfort, fitting in, getting ahead, and so on and so forth—never bring us the happiness and peace that we think they will bring us. None of the things I have named are bad in and of themselves. But when any one of these things becomes the primary focus of our lives. When any one of these things or anything else for that matter becomes the thing to which we give all our attention, our very heart and soul, then we have made them into a god, a god that will not bring us peace and happiness. A false god that will bring us pain and suffering. God knows this. God does not need our undivided attention, God just knows that the worship of anything other than God will bring us only unhappiness and suffering.
So let’s look at the first commandment: You shall have no other gods before me. You could read this as the command of a jealous God who cannot tolerate His people giving their attention to any other deity. You could see God as a petty tyrant who has an over-inflated ego and cannot stand divided loyalties. If you do, this command will indeed feel like an unbearable burden. But I think something else is going on here. I think God understands that the things that we turn into gods--money, security, success, power, pleasure, comfort, fitting in, getting ahead, and so on and so forth—never bring us the happiness and peace that we think they will bring us. None of the things I have named are bad in and of themselves. But when any one of these things becomes the primary focus of our lives. When any one of these things or anything else for that matter becomes the thing to which we give all our attention, our very heart and soul, then we have made them into a god, a god that will not bring us peace and happiness. A false god that will bring us pain and suffering. God knows this. God does not need our undivided attention, God just knows that the worship of anything other than God will bring us only unhappiness and suffering.
Or, maybe looking at the fourth commandment more closely will help you grasp what I am saying.
“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work.”
I think this commandment is broken by just about all of us on a regular basis, and we are incredibly unhappy as a society as a result. If you talk to most Americans, you will hear much discontent with our current culture of working and working and working with little time for rest or family and friends. Yet we seem to be unable to free ourselves from the bondage we find ourselves in. The news and politicians are relentless. We must increase or productivity and buy more if we are to save ourselves from the abyss of falling behind as a country.
I remember feeling rather appalled when the Cadillac ad for their car the ERT came on during the Olympics last winter. You might remember it. A wealthy middle-aged American man struts around his large house touting the wonders of working all the time. He pokes fun at other countries who see the balance of work and rest differently. It ends with the man saying, “As for all the stuff—that’s the upside of only taking 2 weeks off.” I wondered how this ad appeared to the millions of Americans who not only don’t even get 2 weeks off, but only on a rare occasion get 1 day off during a week. I wondered how this ad appeared to the millions of Americans who work 6 or 7 days a week all year long and still can barely keep a roof over their family’s head and food on their table. I wondered what this kind of relentless work effort is doing to our health, our families, our very souls. | |
God knows that we are not machines built to function without stop. God knows that to be healthy and happy we need to balance work with rest. God knows that there are some things more important than the corporate bottom line, ever increasing wealth, and the accumulation of more and more material goods. And the flip side to our overwork? Others who are out of work. When some work too much, there is not work for others. When we relentlessly strive to have more and more stuff, the planet suffers. Our overwork, not only effects our individual health and the health of our family, it also, in a sense, causes us to steal from our neighbors and from the very earth itself. In the end we are not freer but are instead enslaved.
And finally I want to touch on the 10th commandment:
And finally I want to touch on the 10th commandment:
“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 else that belongs to your neighbor.”
Another commandment I fear that we break all the time. I read once that the reason most Americans feel poor, even when most are not, is because we usually compare ourselves to those who have more than we have rather than comparing ourselves to those who have less. I came to understand this when I was 22 years old. I was working in an Alzheimer’s Care Center as a nurse’s aide. I had made the decision not to go to law school and instead to go to seminary. I was talking to one of the other aides about this and made the comment that I would be earning a lot less money this way. She said to me, “Well, I am an Episcopalian, and my priest may not make as much as a lawyer, but he sure makes a lot more than I do as a nurse’s aide.” And she was right. Coveting never led anyone to happiness.
God gave us the Ten Commandments not to burden us, but to free us. Perhaps we should all stop calling them the Commandments and instead use the language of Godly Play, and call them the 10 best things, because as God already knows, following them will lead to freedom and peace.
Amen.
God gave us the Ten Commandments not to burden us, but to free us. Perhaps we should all stop calling them the Commandments and instead use the language of Godly Play, and call them the 10 best things, because as God already knows, following them will lead to freedom and peace.
Amen.