The Rev. Kathi Johnson
Lent 3, Year B – 8 March 2015
Text: Exodus 20:1-17
Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas
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Today’s first lesson might seem
familiar to you – the lesson from Exodus contains what we call the Ten
Commandments. These words from God are spoken to Moses, who’s been summoned to
the top of Mount Sinai by God. The Israelites are waiting below – the
Israelites, who’ve just been freed from slavery in Egypt – and are waiting for
whatever it is that God has for them next. They’ve followed God’s pillar of
fire by night and the pillar of cloud by day, leaving behind their familiar
lives.
Even though their days of slavery
were filled with harsh labor, at least those days had become familiar. Now they
are at the base of a mountain, not even allowed to look at the mountain that Moses has just climbed to meet with God.
And so, before these words were
carved into marble monuments to be mounted in American courtrooms and placed in
public squares – before they were studied and analyzed and written about by
theologians – before all that, these commandments were words spoken by God, given to a people who were leaving one life to
begin a new life.
These are words that “have to do
with the shape of daily life on the part of those already in relationship with
God” (as one commentator notes).[1]
God speaks these words in love; God speaks these words in order that the people
of God will honor God and their neighbor each and every day of their lives. If
the word, “vocation,” is how we care for what God has given to us, then these commandments
are most definitely words about vocation.
One thing to note: Lutherans divide
up the commandments differently than some other Christians do. This can come up
if you are, for example, trying to discuss the commandments with someone from a
different religious background.
In Luther’s catechisms, the first
three commandments are all about our relationship with God, and the other seven
are all about our relationships with other people. The important word there is
“relationship” – these are words spoken by God about our relationships – both with God, and with others.
So, for example, look at Luther’s
explanation to the First Commandment: “We are to fear, love, and trust God
above all things” - above all things, we are to fear, love, and trust God.
Above our fear of the unknown, we are to trust God. Above our love of that
which is familiar, we are to trust God. Above our trust in money, or in our own
health, or in another person, we are to trust God. Our relationship with God is
to be over-arching and all-encompassing.
Each of Luther’s explanations go
from there to cover the different parts of our daily lives: how we speak to
God, how we speak to others, how we spend our time, how we honor and respect
those in authority, how we offer our support and care to our neighbor, how we
speak about others (which, by the way, extends to social media – what do we
post about others, such as a particular group of people, or someone who is famous?).
Covering all of our lives - every choice we make in our relationships with
others: every word we say, every action, Luther says that “we are to fear and
love God.”
Lutheran scholar Timothy Wengert
says this: “The chief function of the law is not to show us an easy way to
heaven…but to show us our sin—how infinitely far we are from heaven, God, and
our neighbor (who is Christ in our midst!).”[2]
Many of you know that I walk
regularly – in fact, I exercise more regularly now than I ever have before in
my life. When I used to walk, I used to look for shortcuts on my routes - “If I
cut across this parking lot, I can shave off this whole corner!”) Problem is,
the shortcuts weren’t helping me, and in fact, by shortening my walks, the
shortcuts were, ultimately, doing me some harm.
When I walk now, I actually think
about ways to add distance to my route – “If I turn right instead of left, I’ll
add another half-mile.” Somewhere along the way (maybe it’s come with age), I
figured out that what I need is not a bunch of shortcuts – but what I need is
to cover more territory, not less.
Sometimes I see that people think
of the commandments as a kind of shortcut. “If I just follow these rules, I’ll
get to heaven!” But if all we do is view the commandments as a checklist to be
followed, then we will realize that we never check every box every day. Even
when we view them from the simple standpoint of guiding our relationship with
God and our relationships with others, we realize how short we fall on a
regular basis. “We are to fear and love God,” Luther says, realizing that it is
God’s grace that covers us when we fail, and then, when we turn to God in
sorrow for our sin.
God’s grace comes to us in many
other ways, too: in nature, in conversations, in quiet moments and in times of
boisterous joy. The holiness of God is not contained only within the hours we
spend here at church together. The holiness of God winds its way through our
moments and our days. These commandments help us to see each day as holy, and every
moment as holy, and then, they call us to praise God for the grace that
surrounds us.
Let us pray: All our meals and all
our living make as sacraments of you, O God, that by caring, helping, and
giving, we may be your true disciples. Renew our faith, that we may better
serve you and others.[3]
Amen.
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[1] Terence E. Fretheim at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2368
[2] In his book, Martin
Luther’s Catechisms: Forming the Faith, published by Fortress Press, p. 40.
[3] This prayer refers to Evangelical Lutheran Worship Hymn 470, “Draw Us In the Spirit’s
Tether,” stanza 3.
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