The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
March 23, 2003

Ten Concerns for a World in Chaos
Exodus 20:1-17

Once upon a time, you could confidently speak of the Ten Commandments as the core teaching anyone in the western world at least would agree upon. No matter what else one might believe it was likely that a person would hold the Ten Commandments to be definitive statements of right and wrong. We once had a society governed by Judeo-Christian principles and there was nothing more central to that understanding than the Ten Commandments.  

However, as the video clip so clearly shows, we know longer operate from such a rock solid base. To claim to have one truth above all others sounds like oppression. The general line of reasoning goes something like this: Your truth only seeks to put me in my place and to keep me there. Who are you to tell me how to act anyway? I don’t need you to put your standards on me. I should be able to do what is right in my own eyes.  

Yet, like one man said in the video, no matter what culture you come from, you know it’s wrong to push the old lady down the stairs. Maybe there is some common ground after all. Certainly, it is easier to find common ground with the last five commandments, which all deal with relations with our fellow humans.  

Going from greater concern to the lesser, the last five of the Ten Commandments tell us not to take a person’s life, not to take the extension of the person’s life—their spouse, not to take another person’s material possessions or their honor and good name. These four commandments would seem to be covered under the umbrella of the Golden Rule—Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.  

Then the last commandment gets broader, heading into territory more difficult when looking for general agreement. The tenth commandment declares that we shall not covet anything belonging to a neighbor. The Hebrew here for “covet” is Chamad, which means inordinate, ungoverned selfish desire. While not everyone will agree with this, experience does teach us that when someone gets an inordinate, ungoverned selfish desire for something someone else has, breaking another command often follows. Inordinate selfish desire can lead to murder, adultery, stealing or being a false witness against someone. God basically says, “Don’t even go there.” 

That takes care of the last half of the list. However, I think the real problem in finding common ground with persons who see that there is no one standard for right and wrong comes with the first five commandments. These commands relate to our relationship with God, which is difficult for people who are not yet convinced that there is a God. That’s OK, the first five commandments are the ones we often ignore or run roughshod over anyway. 

The first command is to have no other gods and the second is to worship no idols. These seem easy enough. We are monotheistic—believing in one God—and we don’t worship any golden calves and the like. Yet, if we are honest, it is easy to give over the God spot in your life to other things or other people. If how we spend our time, energy, and money are indications of our commitments, then God usually comes well behind other concerns. Even if you factor out the basic needs of food, shelter and transportation which are required these days, then we still spend far less time, energy and money on our relationship with God than we do on other activities or things. 

Let’s set those first two aside and pick up the third command to not invoke the Name of the Lord Your God in malice. Taking God’s name in vain is a habit of speech that can be easy to pick up and hard to rid yourself of. I have never damned someone in God’s name. I just never picked up the habit. But, somewhere along the way, I picked up using the word “Jesus” as an exclamation and had trouble ridding myself of doing so. 

Then there’s the fourth commandment. This is the biggest problem in America that treats busy-ness as a value. We are told to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. This was no small commandment for Hebrews. The Sabbath is applied in Exodus to not only the Jews, but to their slaves and the aliens living in their land. God left no loopholes. You don’t get the day off while your servant works. Everyone gets the day off.  

Breaking the Sabbath was punishable by death in ancient Israel. Think of that compared to our own day. Being a workaholic was a capital crime in Israel. That makes me nervous. I work seven days most weeks and feel good about it. After all, I work for God. Yet the Bible leaves loopholes for no one. God knows that we need rest. Human bodies require it and so God commanded it. God says, “Take it easy. Do less. Back down the hectic pace of life a bit and rest in me.” 

OK. One more commandment—the fifth, which states Honor your Father and your Mother. Furthermore God promised that if they would honor their father and their mother, the Hebrews would live long in the land God was giving them. Interestingly, traditional Jewish teaching calls this a command of how to live in relationship with God. Honoring your father and your mother is a way to say that you must honor where you come from and for Jews this means that honoring your father and your mother is a way of honoring God who gave you to them. Honor your father and mother and in so doing you remember that it was your father, your mother, and your God who all took part in forming you.  

Keeping this command is difficult for persons whose parents are abusive. What about parents who are physically or emotionally abusive in the extreme? How do we honor them? The Jewish teaching that honoring your father and mother is a means of honoring God is helpful. You may honor your creator God’s love for you by removing yourself from abuse. Staying in abuse would bring honor to neither your parents nor God. 

So much for a tour through the Ten Commandments. Jesus gave us the Cliff Notes version summarizing these commands in saying the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and the second is like it, that you should love your neighbor as yourself. It’s that simple. The way to please God is to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself.  

These are not the demanding commands of a tough taskmaster, but words of caution from a loving creator. The heart of understanding these commandments is to see them as a gift from God. The Hebrew does not call these ten sayings commandments at all. The Hebrew word is davareem, meaning words, things, or matters. The best I translation is “matters,” as in “concerns.” Just in case you wanted to know what pleases God, God tells you right up front, “Here are ten things you can keep in mind when deciding whether something is a good idea or a bad idea. Want to know if something is right or wrong, consider these ten concerns of mine.” This is very different from seeing these as harsh commands of a judgmental God who is just itching for you to cross the line so that he can smite you upside the head. Instead, God says I have these ten concerns you should know about. Make no mistake, these are big concerns and there are consequences. Not following God’s desire in these matters leads to serious problems, whether God punishes you or not. 

We might not be able get everyone to agree on what is right or wrong or even if there is an absolute right and wrong. But this week, we have seen where ignoring these commandments can lead. The War in Iraq, like any and every war, would be unnecessary if everyone could live as God asks us to live. Going to war is one extreme result of humanity’s inability to follow God’s desires for our lives. Yet what are we to do? We can’t control Saddam Hussein. How can we? We can’t control our own families, much less our own government or the government of some out-of-control dictator. In the chaos of a world at war, we must begin at the only place where we have the power to make a change. We must begin within our own hearts.  

We can endeavor to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves. What would that look like in your life? Well there are ten concerns God has, but sharing them would be redundant at this point. Instead, I’ll just add that trusting God in time of war means going back to that first concern—the commandment to have no other gods. Don’t give that God-spot in your life over to America’s military might or anything else less than the one true God. Trust God by turning your anxiety over to God in prayer. Trust God by letting go of fear, resting in the assurance that all is in God’s hands. Trust God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.  

Amen.