“The Homily”
Scripture Reading: Exodus 20:1-17
Sermon Transcript for October 1, 2006
By Pastor Nancy Blevins
I suppose we all have our Top Ten list. You’ve probably, as you’ve gotten to stay up late, heard of David Letterman’s Top Ten Reasons Why on more than one occasion. Well, this morning I’m not bringing to you the billboard top ten hits or Blockbuster’s top ten movies, even the top ten TV shows this fall. The Scripture this morning comes from the Book of Exodus. Exodus being in the Old Testament I know that someone here thought that I only knew about the New Testament because that’s all I’ve preached out of for the last three Sunday’s. Yes, I do know there is an Old Testament and I was hopeful that maybe this would help you in a quiz that you might get some day as to where the Ten Commandments are located. In case you forget, it is the second book of the Bible, Exodus, and it is also the 20th chapter of the Book of Exodus. And there is a man in there so you also know I can preach about men not just woman since we’ve been preaching about the nameless women of the Bible. I would encourage you now to realize that it is Moses that is the object of his folks that he has led out of Egypt that we will be speaking about this morning. Hear these words from Exodus, Chapter 20. There will not be a test.
“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. 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 is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them for I the Lord, your God, is a jealous God punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandment. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord, your God, for the Lord will not equip anyone who misuses his name. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is a Sabbath for 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. Honor your father and mother so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord, your God, is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or female or male slave or ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Amen.
Did you know that list is over 3500 years old? The list of David Letterman, the list of Billboard, the list of the Top Ten Movies—those almost change daily. Maybe even your own list of what you like to eat or to listen to changes frequently. But although that list is over 3500 years old, most Americans can only list four of those commandments. I like to think that it’s because we are too familiar and we’ve taken them for granted; we’ve had overexposure to them maybe.
The word there that says Lord puts it in a new light for me. It was capitalized. And I found out that means “the personal name of God”. Unlike ours when we are talking about someone personally, if we want to get personal, we don’t capitalize it. So why in His personal revelation are these things that most of us say are big negatives? I don’t know about you but I don’t like to be told what I should, could, and ought to do. There is something within us and I think that perhaps I’m not alone. How many of us like rules? And that’s how we view the law isn’t it, as rules? Things we shouldn’t or couldn’t or really can’t do. Now we can all squeeze a little more out of the miles per hour. And sometimes I’ve noticed that if it’s 65 we squeeze to 67 and if it’s 70 we squeeze to 72. This week we had to answer some questions as Methodist pastors for an insurance test. And they judge such things as, “Do you wear your seat belt all the time or almost all of the time? Now, what’s the difference? I mean, we are talking about one or two times you might forget. I must confess, when I go from here to there, the parsonage, I didn’t wear my seatbelt.
Nobody keeps track for us except ourselves of some of our indiscretions with regard to the law. But even in our self, we probably don’t go forth singing praises about “Oh, how wonderful those Ten Commandments are.” Except maybe when we were in Vacation Bible School and we learned a song about anything you can learn a song about it seems in Vacation Bible School. But you know that in the Psalms, in particularly Psalm 19, somebody is singing about how wonderful the law is. I found that out when I was thinking about the benediction that I often used as a child because we were taught this as our closing words of worship. Maybe some of you know it and if you do I invite you to say it with me. Is says, “Let the words of my mouth and meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer.” And after looking up that benediction, do you know where it is? It is the very last line of Psalm 19. The other part of that Psalm, the author, the poet, is speaking about how wonderful the law is. That’s not the way we usually feel about it, is it? To say, “No, don’t” automatically kind of shuts off any like jubilation. “Oh, boy I don’t need to do that!” How do you think that maybe the Egyptians felt when, “Oh, no, those Israelites, we don’t get to watch them be our leader any more.” Or about the Israelites as they left, “Oh, no, we don’t have to suffer under their hands any more.” I think there was jubilation there; it was a positive out of a negative.
But here are these red-tag Israelites and it’s been 90 days approximately that they’ve been on the road together. How many of you have ever traveled with somebody that you didn’t know that well overseas, or in their case through seas? After a while it’s not much fun because tempers start to flare up and family members even bother you let alone those you don’t know. And this was no vacation that they were on. So here are these rules that are given to them. This list actually, according to a lawyer friend that I know, says these were the framework not only in the American legal system, but they are the framework for many civilizations. Similar to these are rules of how to get along. See the last five commandments are about our relationships with one another; the first five, our relationship with God primarily.
So how and why would these Israelites want to listen to these words of instruction? And this was before they were carved in stone. Well, the Israelites had an understanding. Just as we come today to celebrate the new covenant that Jesus says, “I bring with me a new covenant, a new promise, a new relationship”, their attempted adherence to these was because they had an understanding that they didn’t have to keep these to get okay with God. They were already alright with God. God had already called them out of Egypt. He had already set them free from slavery. So these were not a pre-condition of God loving them.
See we sometimes look at these as rules that we’ve got to check off so that God will really like us. That’s not true. God already loves you. These are given; it says that your life may go well. Boy, does that change it, doesn’t it? This isn’t someone cracking down on you. It’s someone holding wide and welcoming you for a better way of life, to give you life direction. That’s what God is saying that “my grace, my salvation precedes your obedient response’. That’s the framework of the covenant that Moses knew. Our gratitude to God is what drives our response. God has acted on our behalf. That’s what we celebrate in communion every time that we celebrate it.
Particularly in world communion, what we remember are those hands that are joined together. Jesus’ hands as He tore the bread. Jesus’ hands as he blessed the disciples’ feet even that night. It wasn’t what they would do; it was what He was doing and what He would give.
Maybe you have been in a cardiac care unit; maybe you have been in the waiting room and have been called in for consultation for a spouse or a friend that is having a heart catherization. You get to see on TV that balloon instrument going in and expanding the arteries or maybe they are holding a pacemaker in their hand and the surgeon is trying to tell you how this is going to change things. It is going to be implanted into someone’s body and regulate the heart beat. Or perhaps you, yourself, has been in a physical therapy unit and you’ve been there and watched a loved one timidly trying just one more step as they put themselves between the bars. And there is a range that’s only possible, slightly, like Ellen Degenerous says, “Comfortable, uncomfortable, comfortable, uncomfortable”. This person is trying and they are taking a step that is a quarter of a step of what they used to take. And you watch or you do that and you realize that in that moment if someone had displayed that artificial hip or knee joint in a museum you wouldn’t have even taken a second notice, but because it is in your knee or your hip or your heart suddenly you are very grateful. And here is this thing of beauty, you might even say, because it has enabled me to have more life, to have new life or to have life in a different way. And you may not be the recipient, but you’ve seen it bless your loved one, this inanimate object, this artificial limb. And you’ve gained new respect for it. It’s gained a new status, and the person who put it in to your loved one as well.
Well, friends, just like the surgeon’s program of post-surgery instructions and the rehabilitation process, they are not intended to frustrate or harm us. Neither is God’s law. God’s law is an expression of divine love to enable us to block out what is destructive, to give us a framework for life. Paul says it’s not to make us holy but to show us holy. In essence, it’s the short list for shaping the life of faith that’s active in love. God gives us and God wants us not only to receive that love, to show that love, but to let that love flow toward others. See, as Christians we are like the Israelites. It is by the power of God’s love that we are allowed to come to freedom before we keep all the rules. It was while we were jet sinners that Christ died for us, the Scriptures say. Once, for all.
This weekend we have a celebration of the great thanksgiving. The One, who by stretching forth His very hands, broke bondages of sin and death, even guilt. This is a time when we can reflect upon what was done and what response that eternal love gets from us. How we behave toward God and toward one another. It’s a time to start anew. Start anew, pattern our life in response, living a life of remembrance, giving an offering of ourselves for the love shown by Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Savior. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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