“The Law” March 14, 2021 ; SAPC, Denton; Dr. Richard B. Culp; Exodus 20; Lenten 2021 series “Postcards from the Wilderness”
Another great story from the wilderness. I have preached on the Ten Commandments twice since coming to St. Andrew four years ago, and both times realized that it is hard to do them in one sermon. Perhaps it would be a good sermon series at some point. That being said, as I read the text in worship, I really wanted to preach on the exchange that takes place between Moses and the people after the commandments are shared. That is, the people deciding they needed Moses to speak to them because of their fear of talking directly to God. In some ways, that is so counter to our experience of talking to God through prayer and having a personal relationship with Christ.
Exodus 20: Then God spoke all these words:
2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before[a] me.
4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, 6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation[b] of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 You shall not murder.[c]
14 You shall not commit adultery.
15 You shall not steal.
16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 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 that belongs to your neighbor.
18 When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid[d] and trembled and stood at a distance, 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “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.” 21 Then the people stood at a distance, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.
Introduction: We stayed with friends last week while on vacation, and I told them that I was going to be preaching on the Ten Commandments when I returned, so my goal for them was to have them help me write the sermon.
Would you believe, the first night we got to-go food from Melvin’s Barbecue in Charleston, SC.
As we ate back at the house, I noticed that on the to-go cup the Ten Commandments were printed.
Right there for every customer to see.
the postcard prompt this week asks, “When are rules helpful?” what might you say to that?
Marj Carpenter story: A ten your-old wrote her Presbyterian minister this note – “My Dad says I should learn the Ten Commandments. But I don’t want to. We already have too many rules at my house.”
When are rules helpful?
Move 1: Rules are helpful when they shape our lives instead of becoming a check list we must do to get something.
a. To be clear, the Ten Commandments are not the ten things we have to do to earn salvation.
1. How do we know this? Because the commandments begin with the reminder of God’s relationship with us.
2. 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;
3. The first point is about God’s redemption of Israel.
4. In fact, in the Jewish tradition, these words we consider sort of the preamble to the Ten Commandments is actually considered to be the first commandment.
5. However we count the commandments, they begin with a reminder of the relationship God has already established:
a relationship that goes back to God creating by breathing life into the mud;
a relationship marked by the covenant God makes with Abraham;
a relationship in which God has heard the cries of the Israelite slaves in Egypt and has redeemed them and rescued them from slavery.
and most recently, a relationship in which God has provided manna and water to save God’s people in the wilderness.
6. The Israelites, we, do not need to obey the commandments to be saved.
7. God has already redeemed and saved. (Rolf Jacobsen; Luther Seminary Saint Paul, Minn. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/preaching-series-on-the-ten-commandments/commentary-on-exodus-191-6-201-17-2)
b. the commandments, then, are God’s guidance for how to live.
1. In fact, the text tells us that God spoke “these words,” not God “gave these commands to follow,” or “these rules.”
2. you may also have noticed that there are no consequences mentioned for disobedience.
3. Why? Old Testament scholar Rolf Jacobsen notes that these words God spoke are meant to appeal to a "deeper grounding and motivation: these are the commands of the Lord your God, who has created you and redeemed you. (Rolf Jacobsen, Luther Seminary Saint Paul, Minn. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/preaching-series-on-the-ten-commandments/commentary-on-exodus-191-6-201-17-2)
4. They become the words that define what it means to be people of God.
5. not the checklist; not the “you better do this or that or you’re in trouble.”
6. Quite simply, they become the blueprint for what it looks like to live as a child of God.
Rules are helpful when they shape our lives instead of becoming a check list we must do to get something.
Move 2: Rules also are helpful when they show us how to connect to one another.
a. Notice the focus in the commandments on neighbors.
1. God does not give us the law in order to perfect us or even to make us a better “you”or a better “me.”
2. The law is not primarily about us, but about our neighbors.
3. God does not give us the law so that we can get more spiritual or have our best life now, but so that our neighbor can have her or his best life now.
3. Notice how many times "neighbor" is explicitly mentioned in the commandments.
Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Do not covet your neighbor’s house. Do not covet your neighbor’s spouse.
When it is the day of rest, make sure that all of your neighbors — from yours sons and daughters right down to your sheep and oxen — get to rest just like you do. (Rolf Jacobsen, Luther Seminary; Saint Paul, Minn. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/preaching-series-on-the-ten-commandments/commentary-on-exodus-191-6-201-17-2
4. Notice how many times neighbor is implicitly mentioned in the commandments:
“your father and your mother” might be considered neighbors as well
not committing adultery, or murder, or stealing implicitly speaks to how we treat our neighbors.
5. The Ten commandments are about those with whom we are in relationship.
b. We who are called into being by God are called into relationships.
1. A relationship with God and relationships with each other.
2. AS the Israelites move into a new self-understanding, as they go from slaves in Egypt to freed people traveling in the wilderness to heirs of the Promised Land, these commandments shape how they understand themselves.
3. at the foundation of how they are is living in relationship with one another, and the commandments give them guidance for that.
4. We speak of how the world has changed and is continuing to change because of the pandemic, and probably because of lots of other changes going on in our world.
5. As we redefine ourselves in our new context, at the heart of who we are is the relationships we have with others.
6. If we want to know how to live in a relationship with one another, we need only look at the commandments, the words that God spoke and gave to the Israelites.
Rules also are helpful when they show us how to connect to one another.
Move 3: Rules are helpful when they adjust as our context changes:
a. homework for this afternoon: compare the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5
1. This is shown by a comparison of the Commandments in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5;
2. the latter text contains some important new developments. For example: the wife — on a list of property in Exodus 20:17 — is removed from that list in Deuteronomy 5:21; wife is exchanged with house and given her own commandment, perhaps reflecting a changing role for women in that culture. (Terence Fretheim, Luther Seminary
Saint Paul, Minn. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-in-lent-2/commentary-on-exodus-201-17-3)
2. Or we notice a different rationale is given for the Sabbath. In Exodus 20 the rationale is based on the Creator and the creation; in Deuteronomy 5 the rationale is about the Redeemer and the experience of slavery, freedom, and humane treatments of people and animals (Wayne Mclaughlin, a former colleague in Presbytery of the Miami Valley points this out in one of his Facebook posts)
3. 1. the writer of Deuteronomy was speaking in a different context and connects the commandments to their particular situation.
b. As we notice this shift in the commandments, we recognize that the way in which we live out the commandments may need to be reinterpreted as our context changes.
1. We need to make adjustments as well.
2. As the context in which we live changes, God’s word still speaks to us, but we see how it applies in different ways.
Rules are helpful when they adjust as our context changes.
Move 3: Rules are helpful when they teach us to dance.
a. Remember the Ten Commandments statue that Judge Roy Moore, in Alabama, had placed in his courthouse.
1. Lots of publicity and court cases.
2. In fact, Judge Moore would haul the statue around the country to speaking appearance.
3. It turns out that the statue weighed 5,280 pounds, or just over 500 pounds per commandment.
4. It had to be hauled on a flatbed truck.
5. To load and unload it on the truck“a 57-foot yellow I-beam crane that spans the ceiling of the warehouse drops down to retrieve the Rock from its chariot, and even this one—a five-ton crane!—buckles visibly under the weight.
b. Tom Long, in an article on the Ten commandments, notes that this humongous statue makes the Ten commandments out to be a weighty burden.
1. Instead, Long suggests we understand the commandments as an announcement of how we are to live as people set free by God.
2. He describes the difference - instead of seeing the commandments as weights, they are the dance steps to how to live as free people.
3. he goes on to note that instead of the Ten Commandments being symbolized by a heavy statue (500 lb. weights at that), we ought to hold a dance and soar with the Spirit as we claim our calling as God’s people who are set free.(Tom Long, 3/7/2006 Christian Century, “Dancing the Decalogue" https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2006-03/dancing-decalogue)
5. I sort of like that image: the ten dance steps of faith, rather than the Ten Commandments we see as the burdens of faith.
Conclusion: Back to my vacation: one of my friends and this to say about the Ten Commandments: "I’ve broken most of them…and most of them more than once.”
Thank God, literally, that we are already saved.
thank God that we have these commandments, these dance steps to guide us as we live out our calling as children of God.
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