Sermon text - Invited into Blessedness

Exodus 20:1-20

Invited into Blessedness

James Sledge                          World Communion-October 2, 2011

Even in a world where less and less people attend church or participate in any sort of religious community, most people know about the 10 Commandments.  They may not be able to name them, but they’ve heard about them, seen pictures of tablets with Roman numerals on them, perhaps with Moses holding them.  And they've likely heard of the court cases over whether or not the commandments can be displayed on public buildings. 

Now I have no interest in talking about the proper boundaries between church and state, but I do think that dragging the 10 Commandments into our culture wars both trivializes and misunderstands them.  I hear people say that placing the 10 Commandments on a courthouse wall is appropriate because they’re the basis for our civil law, but that only makes me wonder if they’ve have actually read them.  Only three of the ten correspond to laws that we enforce.  And our culture is grounded on violating some of them.

24/7 is a big catchphrase in our society.  Factories run 24/7 because it’s inefficient to shut down.  Some stores and restaurants stay open 24/7, and those that do generally advertise that fact proudly.  And even those who do attempt to keep Sabbath still expect stores, movies, gas stations, and places to eat to stay open for them.  We can’t even imagine a society where everyone stopped and rested for a full 24 hours.

And if we have subverted Sabbath with our 24/7 culture, we have actually made coveting a cornerstone of our economy. 

Every day we are bombarded with advertising, much of it designed to make us covet.  Our economy depends on convincing enough of us that we need more and more, that if our neighbor has newer and better stuff, we should want it.  And we should be willing to go into debt, worry constantly about money, work more hours, and become stressed out so that we can have it.

The fact is that the 10 Commandments are not primarily a set of rules for a well run society.  That societies need laws against stealing and murder, and to insure that justice is based on the truth is so obvious that all sorts of folks have figured this out.  Cultures that never heard of the 10 Commandments had rules against murder, theft, and false witness.

No, what is distinct about the 10 Commandments is not a few commonsense laws.  It is the different sort of society envisioned in those other commandments.  Like the Kingdom Jesus proclaims, the 10 Commandments describe an alternative community very different from the world that we live in.

This radically alternative community is perhaps best seen in those opening commands about other gods, idols, and misusing God’s name.  These commands do not form the basis for any civil law.  Rather, they stand as an alternative to the distorted cultures and societies that we humans construct.

“God bless America.”  The phrase is spoken regularly by politicians left and right.  It was a hugely popular song during World War II and still is today.  On the face of it, asking God’s blessings on our nation seems perfectly appropriate.  But while I do hope God blesses America, I’m sure that in our asking, we frequently transgress some of those opening commandments, perhaps all of them.

If that startles you, I’m not surprised.  Many of us assume that the first few commandments are not that hard to keep.  After all, we don’t live in a world where there are that many god choices.  No temple to Baal or Zeus or Artemis down the street, and the only idols many of us have seen are in museums.  And while language has gotten a lot coarser in recent years, many of us try not to take God’s name in vain.

But in fact, these opening commandments are about where our ultimate trust and loyalties lie, and who we think is really in charge.  In the world where the 10 Commandments are given, “other gods” were about hedging your bets, insurance.  Many Israelites thought they could worship Yahweh, and still offer a little something to the local fertility god just to be on the safe side, to insure that the grain would produce.  We don't put much stock in fertility gods, but we know all about hedging bets and insurance.

For ancient Israel, idols were often a part of this insurance, but the prohibition against idols isn’t just about other gods.  It prohibits images of any kind, including ones of Yahweh.  Yahweh is not like other gods.  Yahweh will not be managed or used.  Yahweh will not be packaged and brought out when needed.  Yahweh remains mysterious, unpictureable, undomesticated, wild and free.  Israel can only conform to Yahweh, not the other way round. 

Taking Yahweh’s name in vain emphasizes this.  Our translation gets much closer to what the Hebrew actually says.  “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of Yahweh your God.”  This issue here isn’t foul language.  It is seeking to enlist God in our causes.  But this God will not be enlisted.  Yahweh will not bless Israel or curse her enemies to suit Israel’s plans, nor will Yahweh bless America or curse our enemies to suit our plans.  Yahweh is not on call.  Rather Yahweh calls Israel to find new life according to God’s plans.

In the same way, Jesus does not follow along with us, promising to bless us or make things go well for us because we believe in him.  Rather, Jesus invites us to follow him along a way that the world thinks foolish, a way of self-giving that loves the neighbor, even when that neighbor is our enemy.  He invites us to join him in the way of the cross. 

I think I’ve shared with you before something my wife has posted on our refrigerator door.  It’s a quote the singer Bono used at a Washington, DC prayer breakfast some years ago.  "Stop asking God to bless what you are doing.  Get involved in what God is doing because it is already blessed.”

In the 10 Commandments, in the call of Jesus, we are invited into the blessedness that God is already doing.  It is not a blessedness that easily conforms to our plans or desires.  It is a blessedness experienced in Sabbath, in the realization that the world is safely in God’s hands and will not spin out of control if we stop and truly rest, if we disconnect, if we become quiet and still.  It is a blessedness that comes in aligning our lives with God's promised new day, with the hope of a new, restored world, a world we enact at the table. 

At the Lord’s table, all are invited: the well, the sick, the poor, the stranger, the American, the foreigner, every race, family, and tribe.  At the table, all are one; all are guests; all are welcome.  At the table, Jesus is our host, and he does not honor the divisions of the broken world that we construct.  At the table, all boundaries between us and them disappear. 

This table is the promise that God will not leave the world to our foolishness nor be drawn into our petty schemes.  Instead God graciously invites us into something wonderfully new, a transformed world governed by love, a world where the Holy Spirit reshapes us so that we become like Christ.  Come to the table; come from east and west, north and south, from every land, race, and culture.  Come to the feast.  Come and be made one in Christ.