Ten to Two

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
March 19, 2006
Third Sunday in Lent

Ten to Two
Exodus 20:1-17
John 2:13-22

Laws, rules, clearly drawn lines;
Go this far, but then go no farther;
You can do this, but you may not do that;
Stop. Go;
Do. Don’t.
Life is filled with rules, laws, regulations:
The speed limit is 30;
If you walk your dog, clean up after him;
Don’t talk on your cell phone while you are driving;
You must be this tall to ride the roller-coaster.

We sometimes chafe at all the rules,
all the regulations we live under.
Those we don’t like we ignore;
we pretend they don’t apply to us.
Stand on the corner of the intersection of 208 and 94
in the center of town and count the number of cars
that go by with drivers chattering away on their cellphones.

We have rules and laws to protect us;
they are written for our own good,
and the greater good of our society.
When you are navigating a 4,000 pound machine
through the center of town
we would all like to know that you are paying more attention
to your driving than to the person
on the other end of your telephone call.

God gave Moses and the children of Israel the Ten Commandments
for their own good - to guide them, to help them,
as they became a community, a people.
God didn’t give Moses the Ten Commandments
to restrict his children, to bind them,
to fence them in.
No God gave our ancestors in faith -- and us –
the Commandments to help us live better lives
both individually and as part of a larger community.

But we tend to think of the Ten Commandments as
a finger wagging at us,
a voice scolding us: “don’t you even think about it.”
And so we tend not to pay much attention to them;
we put more energy into arguing that we should have them
on the walls of buildings or carved into great hulking sculptures
than we do in living our lives by them.

In this season of reflection and repentance,
I invite you to ask yourself: do you live your lives
guided by the Ten Commandments?
Really?
Start with an even simpler question:
before you heard me read them a few minutes ago,
could you have listed all ten of them?
Would you have known where to find them in the Bible?
Do you know in what other book they appear?

Let’s take a walk through the Commandments
to refresh our memories as to what they say
and what they don’t say,
keeping in mind that as with everything in the Bible
there is always more than what is just on the surface.

Listen to the First Commandment:
“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;
you shall have no other gods before me.”
This sounds rather possessive: “you shall have no other gods”.
But this first commandment is a profoundly liberating statement:
God has led us to freedom,
led us to a place where we can live our lives as we choose.
We no longer have to worship multiple gods,
nor do we have to fear the wrath of angry gods.
We have one God and only God: the Lord God,
A God who says, “Forget the doves, the sheep, the oxen,
the money changers,
the foul smoke of the sacrifice.
Just bring me your heart;
Nothing more; nothing less.”

In the Second Commandment God tells us,
“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.
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,
but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation
of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
This is the “no golden idols” commandment.
don’t worship your new car, your house, your job,
your sports team.
Don’t make an idol out of plaques and statues that have
the Ten Commandments on them.
Don’t wave the Bible around as though it was a weapon
telling others “The Bible says…”
for that makes the Bible an idol.

And what are we to do about that last line:
that God will punish us
to the third and fourth generation for our sins?
Visiting the sins of the father upon the son.
This is a perfect example of the danger that comes when
we try to read the words of the Bible literally;
God himself repudiates this part of the commandment
in two different places in the Bible.
The first time is through the prophet Jeremiah:
(Jeremiah 31:27)
Can you guess where the second instance occurs?
Old Testament or New?
The New, of course, in the life of Jesus Christ,
when God assures us that forgiveness is ours
through his beloved Son.
No sacrifices, no money to change;
just a penitent heart,
true repentance.

The Third Commandment is so simple:
“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.”
It is not only when we use profanity
that we break this commandment;
it is when we use the name God lightly.
The hymn “How Clear is our Vocation, Lord,”
speaks of “the casual way we wear your name….”
We take possession of God’s name as though we own it,
have rights to it.
The person who sneers, “go ahead,
worship God in your own way,
while I worship God in His…”
There is no one in this church who is holier than anyone else here;
This Commandment takes direct aim at self-righteousness
that infects all God’s children.

Who doesn’t struggle with the Fourth Commandment:
“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.
Six days you shall labor and do all your work.
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.
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.”
The better translation of that last phrase is,
God made the day “holy”.
Holy – the whole day, not just an hour on Sunday morning,
but the whole day,
the whole day – to rest, to allow others to rest,
and to remember our maker, our Creator.
The one who created this world we live in
this world that has been entrusted to our care and stewardship.
“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.”

The Fifth Commandment is one that we follow
a few days each year: birthdays, Christmas,
anniversaries, and of course Mothers and Fathers Day:
But God is firmer than that:
“Honor your father and your mother,
so that your days may be long
in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
“Honor your father and mother.”
God doesn’t say honor your mother on the second Sunday in May,
and your father on the third Sunday in June;
No, honor your parents, respect your Elders
all the time, for with age comes wisdom
and there is much we can learn from our elders.
So we should care for all our elderly,
for they are all our parents.

We struggle with the Sixth Commandment
especially when our Armed Forces are in combat.
The operative word in the Hebrew is best translated “murder”,
rather than “kill”.
But does that mean you can kill if you are part of an army?
What if you are an executive of a mining company
and you make a decision to cut costs
on safety equipment and a month later
a miner dies – a miner who might have lived
if the safety equipment had been there
– is that murder?
If the cost of a prescription drug rises so high
that insurance companies stop covering the cost,
and the government insurance plan doesn’t include it,
and a person dies because she could not afford
the medication, is someone responsible for murder?
We might know what federal and state laws say,
but what does God intend?
What does Jesus teach us?
What does the Spirit call us to do?

The Seventh Commandment seems so straightforward:
“You shall not commit adultery.”
If you are married, no fooling around.
But the commandment is far broader than that;
this commandment seeks to protect relationships,
to condemn faithlessness across the board.
If you make a promise,
if you agree to take on a responsibility to any one,
then keep it.
Our newly ordained officers made promises to God,
to one another, and to all of us last week;
everyone who serves on a committee makes promises
that others depend upon.
Community depends upon our keeping our obligations
to one another; being faithful,
rather than making excuses for why we didn’t do
what we promised we’d do.

We have no kleptomaniacs in this congregation,
no one who steals money or things that don’t belong to them,
but here again the Eighth Commandment
goes well beyond what a quick reading would suggest.
You might never consider stealing another person’s wallet
but what about stealing another person’s time?
stealing another person’s joy?
stealing another person’s hope?
What about stealing another’s reputation?
I am not talking about identity theft;
rather something simpler, but more insidious,
something that goes on in churches all too often:
gossiping and maligning another person:
those notorious kitchen and parking lot conversations,
those conversations that fly directly in the face
of Paul’s teaching that everything we do should build
and not tear down;

The Eighth and the Ninth go together:
You should not take anything from your neighbor,
and you should not lie about him or her,
telling things that are not true,
spreading rumors, innuendo.
If you are saying something that is not based in fact,
then you are tearing the fabric of community
that God is trying to build.

And that brings us to the Tenth 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 that belongs to your neighbor.”
This is about much more than an act;
about much more than “don’t do this or that”
This commandment is about a state of mind.
If you are covetous, envious, jealous
about anything, about anyone,
you have put a barrier between yourself and God.
God wants you to be happy with what you have:
with what God has given you.
happy; content,
acknowledging that all you have
has come from God.
If you are envious, covetous,
then you are blind to what God has given you,
ungrateful for what you have
as you reach for more.

Jesus understood that we have trouble
remembering all Ten Commandments;
so he simplified them for us.
He took the Ten and made them Two --
the two great commandments:
Love God with all your heart and soul and strength and might;
and love your neighbor as yourself.

How simple is that: be filled with love,
love for yourself, love for your neighbor
all your neighbors, including strangers.
Joy Davidman, the wife of C.S. Lewis
observed that the means to loving God
is loving one another, loving men and women,
love without judgment, or anger, or rancor.
(Smoke on the Mountain, 136)
You do that and you will keep the commandments,
keep them in both the letter of the law,
and more important, in the Spirit.
Love frees us, liberates us,
allows us to focus on being God’s faithful children.
God knows that we find it hard,
sometimes even impossible to love one another.
But that is what we are called to do;
and God will help us;
all we have to do is ask for his help
to sweep away those sins that keep us from loving one another.
Ten to two;
It all starts with commitment, conviction,
breathing deeply, letting the Spirit in
and the old thoughts and prejudices
and petty feelings – letting them all out.
Ten to two,
for a new life in Christ,
a new life through Christ.
AMEN