The
Ten Commandments are traditionally depicted as two tablets. When the
commandments are split up between those two tablets, they are not split up with
five on the first and five on the second. They are split up with the first four
on the first tablet and the last six on the other. This is because there is a
shift in the commandments following the fourth commandment. The first four deal with our relationship
with God and the latter four deal with our relationships with others.
In
our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus is asked which of the commandments was
the greatest, wanting Jesus to weigh in on a discussion that divided many in
his day, hoping that in giving his stance on this topic, they could use it
against him. Instead of picking one he says that the greatest is “Love the Lord
your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
And then goes on to say that the second greatest commandment is to, “Love your
neighbor as yourself.” It might sound like Jesus is side stepping their
question and not picking any of the Ten Commandments at all, but what he is
essentially saying the greatest commandment is the first four and the second
greatest commandment is all the rest.
The
Ten Commandments begin with God saying that we are to; have no other gods
before me.” As people who have heard this so many times before, this sentence
does not sound odd to us, because we are so familiar with it. But what does it mean when it tells us to not
have any other gods, “before” God? What does it mean to have God before me and
none else? When I hear that phrase I think of a line, like when I was early
elementary school, when we went from place to place in a line, or here in
Cambridge when you see the classes of preschoolers heading to the park each
day; each one holding onto their own loop with their teacher going before them.
Our lives are a line of small children who easily wander and the one who goes
before, leading and guiding the way, assuring the path is clear and the way is
safe, is God and no one else is to stand at the front of the line. God gets to
be line leader every day.
This
is a great image and it true in every aspect, but it does not get the heart of
what God is actually requiring of us here in this passage. This is a
directional word. How many of you have flown over the Midwest? Have you ever
looked out the window? What do you see? You see large squares all laid out
beneath you like a giant patchwork quilt. This is because the entirety of that
part of the country is laid out in a grid; the roads basically only go in two
directions; north and south, or east and west. When giving directions, you tell
someone to go north on Rock for 3 miles and then turn west 21st
street. In the ancient near east when giving directions you did not use north
or south or east and west, this was before cardinal directions but after
getting lost. When they gave directions they spoke of going right or left,
going before or going behind. Directions were relational words. And dealt with
where you were in relationship to the things around you. When you go to
Jerusalem from Bethlehem you keep the rising sun before and Bethlehem behind
you. When it comes to where you are in relationship with God, God is to be
always and only before you, but no one or nothing was to stand between you.
When
it comes to having no other gods before you, the concept of God in front, like
a line leader is not wrong, but it too impersonal for what is actually being
said here. This is God standing before you, facing you. You, standing before
God facing God. You and God standing
there face to face. This is a two people standing in relationship with one
another, facing each other, looking into one another’s eyes. It is beautiful,
this, this is what we do in a wedding ceremony. Two people there facing the one
they love, looking them in the eye, with NO ONE standing in between. A couple,
in love, facing each other, so the only one they can really see is the other,
so that the rest of the world falls away and the only one there, the only one
that matters is the one they love.
God
says, “You shall have no other gods before me.” God wants be in that kind of
relationship with us, no one standing between. Having no other gods before you,
is not so much about hierarchy, about God being at the front, but is about being
in relationship with God and having no one standing in the middle of the
relationship, mucking it up. God loves us enough to not want to have anyone or
anything to stand between you, to get in the way, messing up the relationship,
taking your eyes off God, obstructing your view of who God.
God
first, means that there is nothing or nobody in your life that matters more to
you than God. Nothing means more to you than God. This does not mean that you
do not love anyone else. Just as a married couple stands face to face, loving
one another as they love no one else, this does not mean they do not have other
loves. They still love their parents, their siblings, their friends and their
children, if children are to be a part of their lives. It is the same with God,
although God is the one who is to always before us, this does not mean that we
neglect all others, or that there can be no other loves in a person’s life. No
it means, the love we have for God is always and only “before” us, and all
other loves are essentially behind us, to our right or our left, relationally
speaking. Everything else is there, in relationship with us, but not before us,
not front of us, not the one whom we are facing at all times, the focus from
which all other relationships are derived.
But
not only does God want to be forever and only before us, but God also says that
we are not to make or have any idols. Not only is God to be always an only
before us, but there are to be no other gods in our life, no other gods, to our
right or our left. Nothing that looks like a God, nothing we have made or was
made by someone else is to serve as god alongside of God in our lives.
This
is sounds like the easier of the first two commandments. Not once in my life
have picked up something that I have made, or that someone else has made and
said to myself, “This is my god, or this is god too.” Since I was born into a
Christian household and have been raised knowing this commandment, never have I
had a thing called an idol, an object that I have purposely and actively
worshipped, either alongside of God or instead of God. And although I know this
was a very real problem in the ancient near east, in “bible” times, when they
were constantly making golden cows and calling them God or setting up temples
to Ba’al or erecting Asherah poles in the sanctuary, I know this was a constant
problem with Israelites and those early Christians who were coming out of pagan
religions, but this is not a problem for us Christians today. We all know
better than to make an idol, to buy and idol or to worship anything that has
been made by our own hands or those of another, calling it “God.” This is
simply not a problem for us.
I
think there is a failing in thinking this commandment is not for us, because it
is not a temptation for us. We may not make golden cows, or anything else of
that sort but there are a lot of things we make with our hands, with our time,
with our money, a lot of things we make ourselves to which we all too freely
give our allegiance, our honor, our respect. We may not bow down and worship
any thing in our lives, but there are
plenty of things that are vying for our worship, calling for our praise and
honor, that are in essence desiring to at least be on par with God in our
lives.
Our
idols today are the things to which we give our attention, our time, our money,
our honor allegiance. Jesus tells us that no person can have two masters. God
is the primary relationship in our lives anything that attempts to vie for that
position in our life, whether it be our marriage, our children, our job, our
hobbies, or our love for this great country in which we have the privilege to
live. Nothing is more important than God. Nothing stands next to God. Nothing
is to take our focus off of God. Our love is first and foremost for God.
This
has to do with where our attention is, where our time is spent, what is important
to us. What takes priority in our lives? There are things you know you need to
do, read your Bible, spend time each day in prayer, and in worship of God,
taking time to spend with other Christians studying the Bible, in prayer, as
well as coming to worship each week. We know we are to share the truth of the
gospel with our friends, our colleagues and our neighbors. All this is a part
of our relationship with God, all this (over simplified, yes, but in essence)
is what it entails to standing before God and to have God stand before us.
Doing these things and living a life that exemplifies the love Christ lived
while here on earth, is what it looks like to stand in relationship before God.
It is when other things unseat these
things in our lives that we begin to make them gods for us. What stops you from
reading your bible daily? That is a
god, unseating a part of your relationship with the one true God. What keeps
you from praying, from reaching out to your neighbor, from gathering with
others who are a part of the body? Those are gods, taking over parts of your
relationship with God. To whom are you giving your allegiance alongside of God?
That is an idol in your life. What stands alongside of God in your life? Whatever
that is, it is taking part of the priority off of God. All of these things,
taking the place of and stealing parts of our relationship with God away, are
the graven images. All of us are making for ourselves graven images, putting in
to the house of our lives idols, worshiping other gods alongside of and
sometimes instead of God, just as assuredly as the Israelites, did with the
golden calf, Ba’al, Asherah or any of the myriad of other gods we know better than to worship. Idols,
other gods, graven images we all have them, the key is to identify them, to
admit that they are there and work to remove them, so that God can not only
stand before us, but so that God can stand alone in the position of god in our
lives. First and only in our hearts and our lives, so that we can indeed love
the Lord our God with all our
hearts, with all our souls and with all our minds. God first, God only.
The
next two also deal with our relationship with God, but they come out of the
first two. The first two have to do with relationship to God, where God stands
in our life. They tell us, God first; God only; God before, with none other
standing alongside of God. The next two build on that relationship. “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.”
As
I was growing up I was taught that this commandment basically meant cussing,
Not saying the ½ dozen to dozen words our culture has set aside as crude; words
that we hear peppering other people’s daily language but we should never hear
in common usage among those who are saved and sanctified. We all know which
ones I am speaking of, I do not need to make a list of the words we have all
been taught are not to be a part of proper or formal speech but may by some be
used in day to day communication, but not by “us.” I was taught that that kind
of cussing was included in this commandment but also that this commandment
included exclamations such as, “Oh, My God,” or the more simple, “Jesus,” with
or without the “Mary and Joseph.” (Which was supposed to soften it and make it
more acceptable, less offensive?)
And
if you want to I have my own opinions on what kind of language is acceptable, as
well as what is good and proper for a person who calls themselves a Christian
to use, I do not believe any of these things are actually what this commandment
is about.
This
commandment is about misusing the name of God. Saying, “Thus says the, Lord.” Claiming
that something is the word of God, are the words of God to the people of God,
to the world, when in fact they are not. To be clear, to use the Lord’s name in
vain is when Pat Robertson says that God has cursed Haiti because they made a
pact with the devil, declaring that the economic difficulties and natural disasters
that have befallen this country are the actions of God punishing this country. Using the Lord’s name in vain is saying standing
on the corner with a sign speaking of God’s hatred of homosexuals in language I
could not even bring myself to quote in this sermon. And I hope that all of us
here know better than to misuse God’s name in this way. I think we all know
that declaring God’s hatred of anybody is blasphemy and in direct violation of
this commandment.
Those
are the easy ways to avoid misusing God’s name. Whenever we say, “Thus says the
Lord,” we better be certain it is. This is why we end our scripture readings
with “This is the Word of the Lord,” and not my sermons. Even still each time I
stand here in the pulpit I do so carefully and prayerfully, no wanting to speak
to in such a way that says, “Thus says the Lord,” when in fact it is not. Each week
when I stand here, it is my hope and my desire that nothing I say ever misuses
God’s name. But I am not the only one who can regularly stand up and speak for
God when God is not speaking, thus misusing God’s name. I would guess most of
the times a young person turns to their boyfriend or girlfriend and says, “God
told me to break up with you,” they are misusing God’s name. It sounds like the
spiritual way to break up with another person, and saying God told me to do X
or God want me to not do Y and most especially God told me to tell you Z, sounds
holy and gives a certain about amount of gravity to your words and your
actions, but unless you God really came to you and told you to do this thing
specifically then you better had not say that God told you this thing. It may
be the right thing, it may be a good thing, it may be the best thing for you to
do, but do not mix God’s name up in it.
God told Elijah to cook his dinner over some dung, but God did not tell
me to break up with my long term high school, so I could date someone else. I
fully and whole heartedly believe that God called me to this congregation to be
your Pastor, but I do not believe the God called me to go on vacation to South
Carolina at the end of the month. We do not use God’s name to make something we
are doing more holy, we do not use God’s name to make what we are doing sound
more serious or more important and when we do so, we are misusing God’s name.
When we do so we are breaking THIS commandment.
This
brings us to the final commandment that we have before us this morning,
remembering the Sabbath day, taking one day out of our week and setting is
aside for rest and for worship. In January, our congregation celebrates Sabbath
month; one whole month of cutting back and refocusing, a month during which we
focus on rest and we talk a lot about the value of rest and God’s call on our
lives to pause. Our need for rest our need to stop doing one day a week, so can
remember that it God is ultimately in control. Stopping our rush and our busy,
our need to work and complete, so we can remember God is the one actually at
work in this world and that the work of the creation, the work of the world can
go on without us.
And
although it is right and good to focus on rest, we must also remember that the
call to Sabbath is two pronged; a call to rest and a call to worship. This God
that wants to stand face to face with us, that wants to be the only one before
us, that does not allow not only anything to stand between us, but also does
not wish to stand alongside of anything else. This God, who sets into command
the intimacy of our relationship, calls for us to stop, to set aside one day
out of every seven, to spend on that relationship, strengthening it, nurturing
it and helping it grow. God wants to spend time with us. Because this thing we
are doing together with God is a relationship, the most intimate of
relationships, the most exclusive of relationships and because God loves us and
wants our love in return, wants to us to spend one day, on that love, set aside
to nurture that love, to help that love grow and God does not desire for us to
do that in seclusion, alone on a mountaintop, or deep in a cave, but God want
not only to be in relationship with you or me, but God wants to be in relationship
with US, this commandment (and in fact all of them, if you think about it and
look at them closely) are just as much about God’s relationship with US, the
body of Christ, the gathered people of God, the community of Faith, as it is
about God and you, or God and me.
God
want to be your God, God wants to be my God, first and alone, but God also
wants to be OUR God, first and alone. The people of God, the Church, the Body
of Christ, can have nothing that stands between them and God, nothing that
hinders our view of God that distracts us from OUR relationship with God. The Body
of Christ cannot have anything that matters so much to us that is stands alongside
of God or distracts us from the heart of what it means to be the people of God,
called by God. Nothing is more important than the kingdom work or making new
disciples and growing together in our faith, NOTHING, no matter how important,
no matter how good, not matter how much it needs to be done, or should be done,
Nothing can distract us from loving God, loving one another and loving our
world, so that we can make and be disciples in this world.
We
cannot as the Church, as Christians ever misuse God’s name. We cannot say God
says things, when God does not. We cannot say, “God hates you to anyone.” We cannot
tell women that God tells them to stay in abusive marriages or relationships.
We cannot declare that God’s will is for a people to suffer, for anyone to be
systematically used and abused by a society in anyway. We cannot declare the
will of God over anyone lightly and only do so with fear and trepidation. We
need to stand for what God stands for in all things at all times and when we fail to do so, we need to admit
it, we need to ask for forgiveness, work to make it right and work to do
better. Just as we would expect a person to do individually, we should do so communally.
No comments:
Post a Comment