Exodus 20:1-11; Matthew 22:34-40
Today we have received what some call the first table of the laws that govern our relationship with God. It may sound odd to describe the Ten Commandments as “laws that govern our relationship with God,” but that is essentially what they are. As with many things, our culture prefers to individualize and relativize and moralize, and the Ten Commandments are no exception. In fact, we often use them as a baseline for individual moral behavior. I don’t mean to suggest that it is a bad thing, but I do mean to say that there is so much more to them than a personal ethic – even a personal ethic that we might agree upon.
It is true that these ten ordinances were influential in the formation of our legal system as a nation, but given the necessary separation of church and state in our constitution that really only applies to the second table of the laws that govern our relationship with God. It is the first set that we’ve been given to think about today, and this set begins with the character and nature of God.
Last week we talked about the fact that, in this reading, these commandments were being given to Moses on the mountain while the people waited below. We also talked about this whole interaction as contract negotiations between God and God’s chosen people – which did not normally happen. Gods and humans existed on differing plains and only priests and kings seemed to know their minds. In this case, God was establishing the people as a priestly nation, one that would know God and interpret God’s will for all of the nations.
This was one of the many ways that God was breaking through to God’s creation in order to establish a new understanding of what it meant for God to be God and for us to be God’s people. God was not only being revealed as functioning at a supernatural level; God was also being revealed as active and present in our mundane, daily lives as well.
The first tablet begins with God’s character as the liberator of the oppressed, and I’ll admit that God sounds more than a little self-centered in all of this – at least to our modern ways of understanding things. To understand why it mattered to God and to them for God to be so very central in this covenant we have to remember that many people believed in regional gods and gods that managed certain aspects of the cosmos. In a crunch, it was not uncommon to hedge your bets with more than one deity.
I’m reminded here of a time when a group of friends of mine went mountain biking. They stopped at the halfway point to be sure everyone caught up, and Ashley was lagging behind. A couple of cyclists approached and my friends flagged them down to ask about her. They said, “Are you talking about the blonde woman who was calling out to Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, or anyone else that might be listening? She’s just around the corner.”
Of course, Ashley is not alone in her pursuit. Luther wrote these famous words in his Large Catechism: “A god means that from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress … [That] upon which you set your heart and put your trust is properly your god.”
Richard Neihbur would later say that a god is a center of value from which we make decisions and the basis for assigning value to other events, people, and things. If the only way to assess value is by a marketable skill, then money is your god. If the only way to feel that you have value is by your participation in a political party or ideology, then it has become your god. If the value is assessed by race or poverty or some other social construct, then it has become one of your gods.
That is why the Ten Commandments begin with these four:
● You shall have no other gods before me.
● You shall not make for yourself an idol. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.
● You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God.
● Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.
Think of these four as vertical commands. Whether you think of God as being up and above or just all around and encompassing, they are about our association with the One who is beyond our comprehension. Remember also that these were not given to individuals. They were given to people with the intent that they would become mediators between God and the world.
There is no room for other gods in this space. We can certainly debate whether those gods even exist and if idols and idolatry matter supernaturally, but the issue here is that they are not only a distraction but a form of denial that God is God. According to v5, honoring God in this way is so important that it will impact the lives of our children for generations to come. I have to say that this used to be one of the most troubling passages for me. Why would God punish my grandchildren for my lack of faith?
As I have wrestled with this through the years, I’ve come to see that it is less about God’s petty vindictiveness and more of a description of the way sin and idolatry function, especially when we make an idol out of our faith traditions. In the evangelical church, there are some who claim to be deconstructing their faith. They have left the church and its hypocrisy and they are starting from scratch – some rejecting Christianity altogether. In the mainline church, we’ve watched the generation gap widen for the last 50 years, and we’ve raised a generation that is spiritual but not religious. Is that because our faith traditions are idolatrous? Maybe.
It may be that we’ve held on too tightly to that which comforts us and not tightly enough to that which confronts us. It may be that we have separated our faith practices from our life practices. It may be that we have followed the first command of Jesus to love the Lord our God with all of our heart and soul and mind but have not loved our neighbors as much as ourselves.
The good news is that we know the name of the Lord, but the question is whether we cry out in vanity – in self-preservation – or in praise and glory of the one who is worthy to be praised. This One is known to them as the “One who shall be as that one shall be,” or as God said to Moses, “I am.” Paul described God as the one in whom we live and move and have our being, and our tradition – which is grounded in scripture – speaks of God as the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of all that is, was, and shall be.
This Holy One is the one who loves us and provides for us in ways that are both direct and circumstantial, and this One also tells us not to take life so seriously that we can never rest. The last on the list of commands intended to demonstrate reverence before God is to take a break and know that God is God. First, it is a reminder that we are created in the image of the One who created the very first time by intentionally doing nothing at all.
Like the silent rest and the instruction to breath we might find in a piece of music, the great conductor tells us to stop, breathe, and simply be. Not only does this imitate God, who rested at the end of creation, but it allows us to see and appreciate all that God has done for us. Not only does it let us admire the handiwork of God, but it stands in opposition to the task masters of Egypt. Not only does it require us to stand in the rebellion against work and commitments that become blinders to God’s grace and mercy, it opens our eyes to rejoice in the work that has been done and to see what lies before us as God’s people.
Friends, as followers of the way of Jesus, I want to assure you that we are a part of the priestly kin-dom – the family of God’s own choosing – and we meet God here at this table and we proclaim that God is God, and we are not, and to God be all glory for that as we live into the hope of our liberation and the restoration of all creation together. Amen!
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