LENT 3B
Exodus 20:1-17Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
John 2:13-22
Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
I love the poetry of Psalm 19—the image of the heavens telling the glory
of God, of the sun dependably running its course, steadfast and golden, giving
structure to our days and our nights. When I was very young, my father, a NASA
scientist, would carry me outside every night as part of our bedtime ritual.
Through the branches of the big oak trees in our front yard, he would point out
the moon and the stars. Remembering my daddy’s protecting arms and the clarity
of his astronomy lessons, I continue to be comforted when I look at the night sky.
The constancy of the stars tells me that all is right with the universe. The
unchanging order of the constellations, so mysterious and distant, yet so full
of twinkling light, feels like a silent call to order, a divine harmony that
rings out to the end of the world.
It’s no wonder that Psalm 19 is paired
in our lectionary today with the Ten Commandments—the moral structure for so
much of our world. While we might not describe them with the zeal that the psalmist
uses to describe God’s commands—more desired than gold and sweeter than the
drippings of the honeycomb—we enjoy their “rightness” and their clarity. I remember
memorizing the Ten Commandments as a young child in Sunday School. I have grown
up with their clear “shalls” and “shalt nots” putting their stern stamp on my
moral fiber. When we asked a group of you last week in Pub Theology about your
understanding of sin, you all quickly honed in on the defining role of the Ten
Commandments. “They give me something to follow,” you said. “They give me a
standard against which to measure my actions.”
The 10 Commandments don’t just provide us with
order and measure in our personal lives. In the Christian West, they moved long
ago even into the realm of civil order. In the 9th century CE,
Alfred the Great prefaced his code of Saxon law with them, and the
Enlightenment philosopher Thomas Hobbes used them in formulating his understanding
of the social contract. Given their structuring function and their tie to our
laws, it’s no wonder that some Christians today want to post them in the local courthouses.
It’s not just the history of the Commandments that we proclaim, however, when
we clamor to make them a public monument. We are using them as a cultural
shorthand, as a symbol and an icon of God’s influence in our society.[1]
“There is something greater than the moral relativism of the post-modern
world,” these signs proudly proclaim. “This house, this city, this court is
grounded in God’s immutable Law. So there!” The louder the opposition protests
that religious statements do not belong in public places, the more some
Christians insist that the presence of the 10 Commandments are all that stand
between us and civil, as well as religious, chaos. They have become a cultural
symbol of order and measure.
Order and measure. How we long for
it. How we fear the threat of moral chaos. The policeman Javert, in the musical
drama Les Misérables, sings a song that
uses Psalm 19’s imagery: “Stars/ In your multitudes/ Scarce to be counted/
Filling the darkness/ With order and light./ You are the sentinels/ Silent and
sure/ Keeping watch in the night/ … You know your place in the sky/ You hold
your course and your aim/ And each in your season/ Returns and returns/ And is
always the same.” Javert is obsessed with order, with the order of the law. For
him, a criminal like Jean Valjean, the man for whom he spends his life hunting,
will always be guilty, no matter how Valjean has repented and reformed his life.
For the lawman Javert, grace and mercy are signs of weakness. They upset the
balance of reward and punishment. As Javert continues in his song: “And so it
has been and so it is written/ On the doorway to paradise/ That those who falter
and those who fall/ Must pay the price!/ Lord let me find him/ That I may see
him/ Safe behind bars/ I will never rest/ Till then/ This I swear/ This I swear
by the stars!”[2]
I wonder,
though … Do the stars require such a vow? What the psalmist loves about God’s
commands is not really the order that they bring to earth. What the psalmist
loves is the trusting relationship with God that the commands teach us. It is
the divine voice in the heavens that comforts him. It is the glory of God that
shines in the stars—not just their order and precision. The psalmist loves the
stars because they reflect the light of their trustworthy Creator. How easy it is
to latch on to the Ten Commandments, posting them in public places, using them
individually as a measuring stick for my soul (or even more often, for the soul
of my neighbor). How easy it is to hold onto them for clarity, rather than to
live deeply into the trusting relationships that they imply.
We need to
remember that the structure that the 10 Commandments give us is not based on
reward and punishment. Reward for adherence is mentioned only in the command to
honor father and mother. The only mention of punishment is found in God’s
warning that God is a jealous God. Not surprisingly, God does not need to use
sticks and carrots to motivate us to hear God’s words. The motivating factor is
trust. It is found in the recognition of God’s authority as Creator and Lord.
It is found in remembering all of God’s prior acts of redemption, in
remembering how God has always been with us.[3]
Indeed, in
the original Hebrew, God gives us not ten “commandments” but ten “words,” ten
“words of instruction.” They are the only words spoken directly by God to all
of God’s people together. While a commandment can be barked out and thrown at
us as an order to be obeyed, words of instruction and teaching are heard through
the building of relationship. “Now that I have brought you up out of slavery in
Egypt,” God explains to God’s people in today’s reading from Exodus, “it is
time for you to learn how to live in
covenant with me. Here is who I am, how time will unfold in this community, and
how you will relate with one another and with me in this space that we share.”[4]
First, here is who I am: I am your
creator and sustainer. You must not allow anything to come between you and me. I
alone can satisfy your longing. As the creator of all that is, I cannot be
limited by images of your own devising. Neither can I be
manipulated by your words or by any magical incantations of my mysterious name.
Nor can my name be used to show that I am on your side.
Secondly, here is how you are to
structure your time: As the sun crosses from day into night, so will your time
with me have order and pattern. Your time will be ordered for the building up
of relationship, with me and with your neighbor. Right relationship involves
participating in a time of rest, the Sabbath built into creation itself. You
are also to ensure the uninterrupted flow of tradition between generations, so
that wisdom and faith can pass unimpeded from parent to child forever.
And finally, here is how you are to
order your common space: This community space will not be a space for the
destruction of human life through killing or for the destruction of the family bonds
through adultery. No one, not even the powerful, may take what does not belong
to them. Justice must reign, with impartial judges and credible witnesses who
will protect the cry of the vulnerable among you. You are to be satisfied with
all that I have given you, and your care for your neighbor must show in your
actions and fill even the secret recesses of your hearts.[5]
Seen in this light, the 10 Commandments, explains Walter Brueggemann, are not
to be taken so much as “a series of rules … but as a proclamation in God’s own
mouth of who God is and how God shall be ‘practiced’ by this community of
liberated slaves.”[6]
The Ten Words are a gift from God, a life-giving gift.
I recently read that a right-wing
Christian, Matthew Hagee, had claimed that the unrest in
Ferguson was being “stoked and orchestrated by unnamed nefarious forces which
seek to spread chaos and undermine social cohesion.” If the Ten Commandments
were being followed there, continued Hagee, “none of this would ever have happened.”[7] In
other words, if black people weren’t killing and stealing, then there wouldn’t
be any trouble. I can hear a racist version of Javert in Hagee’s words, wringing his hands over the
threat of chaos and holding up the Commandments over our heads like a guillotine.
I imagine that Hagee might have agreed, too, that a giant stone tablet in front
of the Ferguson courthouse emblazoned with the Commandments would have prevented trouble.
Hagee
is wrong. The real
problem in Ferguson is greater than any individual crimes. The real problem in Ferguson is
that basic breaches of trust have created a broken system there. While the courts
this week did not convict Officer Wilson for his action in the killing of
Michael Brown, the criminal investigation pointed right to this systemic breakdown
of trust. In a mostly black community, only 4 out of 54 police officers were
black. Racist emails were freely circulated within the police department.
African Americans were stopped and searched without cause. The city raised
revenue by issuing arrest warrants for petty things like jaywalking and late
fees.[8]
The way forward in Ferguson lies with widespread repentance: turning back not to
stricter laws, but to building trust by respecting the dignity of every one of God’s
children.
As a young
girl, I learned to love the stars because I saw them from the secure perch of my
father’s arms. We too have a secure perch in the arms of our Heavenly Father. As Christians,
we have been adopted into God’s Covenant and are heirs of God’s promises. May we live our lives secure in that knowledge. May we rejoice in the glory of the stars, free from fear
and recrimination.
[1]
Patrick Miller, The Ten Commandments (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox, 2009), 2.
[2]
http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/lesmiserables/stars.htm
[3]
The Torah: A Woman’s Commentary (New
York: Women of Reform Judaism, 2008), 416.
[4]
Martin Buber, quoted in Johanna Van Wijk-Bos, Making the Wise Simple (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 2005), 160.
[5]
Much of this interpretation of the commandments is found in: W. Sibley Towner,
“Exegetical Perspective on Exodus 20:1-17 in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2 (Louisville: Westminster
John Knox, 2008), 78-79.
[6]
Quoted by Barbara Brown Taylor in her commentary on Exodus 19 in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 75.
[7]
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/hagee-strict-rules-and-ten-commandments-would-have-prevented-unrest-ferguson#sthash.d1H6dz7G.dpuf
[8]
http://thetandd.com/news/national/experts-ferguson-must-move-quickly-to-rebuild-public-trust/image_9bda2291-57f5-5693-99ea-ca23ae8cd5ed.html
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