"Moses Stories For Our Times: The Ten Commandments, Pt. II"Dr.
James L. Mayfield
October 13, 2002 Text: Exodus 19:20, 20:12-17 God had rescued the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. Now the challenge was how to go about transforming these persons with a slave mentality into a strong healthy nation of people devoted and loyal to God. First they need to learn what is expected, what is required, to be such a people. And so, on Mt. Sinai God laid down the law, His basic expectations. Last week I talked about the first four commandments. These commandments make it clear that God expects the Israelites and all who follow in their footsteps to be loyal and devoted to God. Today I will talk about the other six commandments. These six commandments deal with basic essentials for living together as a people. They are not merely God's law for individual behavior -- although they are that, to be sure. They are also the essential laws for living together in harmony and trust as a community, a people, a nation. If as individuals we violate these laws, we as individuals commit sin against both God and neighbor. And if we as a society ignore and violate these laws, we will degenerate until we are a twisted and distorted society, a dog eat dog society driven by suspicion, bitterness, and cynicism and fostering lifestyles rooted in selfishness protected by fears. It is not surprising that the first of these commandments dealing with what is essential for a healthy society focuses on a family issue: Honor your father and your mother, that you may have long life in the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you. This commandment is not primarily addressed to small children telling them to respect their parents. Certainly, that message is part of what this commandment is about, but the primary thrust of this commandment is directed to adult children dealing with their parents who are aging. What is more, a promise accompanies this command. If the Israelites will honor their parents, they will have a long life in the land which God is giving them. What is being said in all of this? At least a couple of truths. One is that for a society to function well, it needs to draw on wisdom from the past. In our society with its economy that thrives on the concept of built-in obsolescence, we have a tendency to assume new is better than old just because it is new. Little wonder our society tends to idealize and at times even idolizing youth, while dismissing age and experience with patronizing politeness. Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land which the Lord is giving you. There is wisdom is seeking the wisdom of those with significant experience. It will protect us from repeating old mistakes, and help us discover the way to a better future. Of course, there is another level of meaning in this commandment. It has to do with adult children taking care of aging parents. To some extent, we learn about the responsibility of taking care of our aging parents by observing how our parents, took care of their aging parents. To set the pattern of ignoring the needs of our elderly parents because we are too busy may well come back to haunt us when our adult children ignore us in our old age because they are too busy. Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land which the Lord is giving you. The next commandment is more straightforward. You shall not murder. Life is a gift from God to each person, and it is gift we have no right to take away. Inevitably, when this commandment is discussed, questions arise about self-defense or killing to save someone from being murdered. In a sin filled world, where evil has a strong grip on the lives of too many, there are times when the taking of human life is closer to fulfilling the command to love our neighbor as ourselves, than doing nothing out of some sort of self-centered piety. What the commandment against murder condemns, is using murder as a way of getting what we want or as the way to resolve problems. In the Sermon On The Mount, Jesus told us not only are we not to commit murder, we are even to love our enemies. He was not talking about what we should feel as much as about what we are to do. Jesus is quoted using the Greek word agape. Agape is giving of ourselves for the other's good, whether we feel like it or not. This does not mean "giving-in to the other." Love must be tough or it is merely sentimentality having no power in the face of evil to do what justice requires. And of course, love must be tender or it loses it power to do what mercy requires in order for healing to happen. The next commandment is: You shall not commit adultery. Marriages are damaged by sexual infidelity. A marriage is not always destroyed, but it is always damaged. It is damaged by the weight of guilt that is carried by the one committing adultery. And if the spouse knows, the marriage is damaged by the collapse of trust. Marriages that have been damaged by adultery can recover and heal, but from my observation, it takes a lot of effort on the part of both husband and wife over a long period of time. You shall not commit adultery. It deeply wounds the marriage, sometimes it fatally wounds the marriage. But, here again, the issue is not merely a command directed to individual husbands and wives. If a group of individuals are to become a healthy society, a strong nation, marriages must be strong and healthy. Adultery undercuts the trust that is essential to a healthy marriage. It is not easy to rebuild trust once it is shattered by adultery. And when marriages fail because of adultery, one of the damaging fallouts is the children's ability to trust is also damaged. Anything that damages the ability of persons to trust one another undercuts the ability to have a strong, healthy society or nation. This issue of trust is, I think, at the heart of the matter in the remaining three commandments: You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet what belongs to your neighbor. Stealing not only hurts others in the sense of taking what belongs to them. It also damages their sense of security, and their ability to trust. People who are victims of burglary or robbery, often talk about feeling violated as persons, and being unable to feel as secure and unable to be as trusting as they had been in the past. You shall not steal. Nor are we to harm our neighbor by bearing false witness. When we tell lies that harm others, such as in business or legal settings, we not only damage the other person, we set in motion a collapse of trust. The recent failure of corporate officers to tell the truth to their stockholders not only has caused great economic problems, it has also set in motion a tidal wave of mistrust that has swept across much of the business world. To have a strong, healthy society, the people must be honest and not bear false witness that in any way brings harm to the neighbor. Not only is bearing false witness that does harm to the neighbor a sin, it is an act of evil that carries destructive consequences for the society as a whole. So too, we do harm when we covet what others have. When I covet what belongs to my neighbor not only am I crippled in my ability to enjoy what is mine, I am unable to be at ease with my neighbor. Coveting what our neighbors have sets loose in us an envy that all too often finds expression in various forms of resentment and even hostility -- some of them subtle and some not subtle at all. When we covet what others have, we do damage to our relationship with them, and any time we are damaging relationships, to some extent we are doing damage to the society as a whole. You shall not covet what belongs to your neighbor. God took on a huge task when God decided to make faithful people and a holy nation out of a bunch of ex-slaves. Looking into ourselves as individuals and into the society around us it is clear that to a large extent, that task remains unfinished. How can any of us with all our past experiences shaping us as they have, ever be remolded so that we become the people of God we are intended to be? To begin with, we must learn the simple but profound basics God is teaching us in these last six commandments. They contain the essentials for living in harmony and trust with one another. We are to honor our fathers and mothers. We are not to commit murder or adultery. We are not to steal or bear false witness. And we are not to covet what belongs to others. Let us pray. God, help us obey your commandments. Amen. Pastoral prayer: Let us thank God for the gifts and blessings we have received. We have come here with a variety of concerns and problems. Let us ask God for guidance and help. God, we know we are in dangerous waters with the storm clouds of war on the horizon. We long for peace that is long lasting - peace that is rooted in both justice and mercy. We need your guidance, and we need your help because the complexities of sin and evil at work in the world, hinder our ability to discern what is really true. How easy it is for us human beings to allow our fears of what might be and our deep desires for what we want to be, to blind us to what really is. We need your help. God, we earnestly pray that you to be at work in and through the decision makers of the world. Rescue them from the fears that blind them to reality and rescue them from the false hopes that seduce them with illusions. Help them be their best selves, so that they are able to discern what is accurate and true. Fill them with your tough and tender love so that what they do and say is in harmony with your will. Only you in your wisdom know the way to achieve lasting peace that is rooted in justice and mercy. Help each of us, but especially our President, leaders of other nations and all their advisors discern what that wisdom is. Enable all of us and each of us to live as Jesus was teaching us to live, when he taught us to pray: "Our Father ...." |