Sermon - God's Daring Imagination

Exodus 20:1-17

God’s Daring Imagination

James Sledge                                                                           Lent 3 – March 11 2012

The Ohio House of Representatives is considering a bill to raise to the maximum speed limit on Interstate highways from 65 to 70 miles an hour, a bill that apparently has the somewhat rare distinction nowadays of enjoying bipartisan support.  Not that everyone thinks this is a good idea.  I’ve seen a number of letters to the editor complaining that such a move will reduce highway safety and lead to an increase in accidents and fatalities. 

This is certainly true, but of course speed limits are always an attempt to strike a balance between safety and convenience.  We could eliminate all traffic fatalities if we set the speed limit at 5 miles an hour.  But then what would be the point of driving?

But while there are tradeoffs in setting speed limits, we all know that some limits are too dangerous to cross.  We may bristle at the long, straight, four-lane  roadway with a 35 mile an hour limit and wonder whose idea that was.  But when we hear about the tragic accident where someone lost control of the car while trying to navigate a curve at over 100 miles an hour, we just shake our heads at the foolishness of it.  There are some things you just don’t do without the real likelihood that you’ll suffer the consequences.

We often think of laws as arbitrary restraints on our freedom.  Some folks of a more libertarian nature think we would do well with almost none.  In this election year we regularly hear from candidates who promise to reduce rules and regulations on business.  Most all of us have encountered regulations that seemed ridiculous, but few of us would want to live without any.  If our food makes us sick or our brand of car catches fire, we want to know how this happened, why it wasn’t caught.  We understand that for a society to function, there must be some sort of agreed upon patterns and customs that shape and insure a viable community.

That’s what the founding fathers of this nation tried to do when they wrote the constitution.  After America won its independence from Great Britain, the first attempt at a US government did not go so well.  Just a few years after the Revolutionary War ended, things were so bad and chaotic that they decided to start all over.  A constitutional convention was called, a convention that produced our current US Constitution.

The constitution was an attempt to give shape and form to the ideals that had led to the creation of the United States.  It is less a set of rules and regulations and more a framework, a foundation meant to create, support, and sustain a good and just society.  People don’t generally get emotional talking about how much they love laws and regulation, but they do about the Constitution, although sometimes without knowing what it actually says.

In a very real sense, what we call the 10 Commandments function similarly. 

They aren’t primarily a list of rules and regulations.  (If you want a long list of those, check out the book of Leviticus.)  These teachings from God, these instructions, are meant to lay out a foundation that  will create and sustain true community.  God seeks to mold former slaves into a people who will enjoy the fullness of life that God desires for everyone.

This often seems lost on many Christians.  Very often the 10 Commandments have become more symbol than framework or foundation.  If I hear someone mention the Commandments in conversation or in the news, there’s a pretty good chance the subject is displaying them on public buildings, on courthouses and such.  The argument over this can get pretty heated, pretty emotional, but often this emotion is about symbolism rather than function.  On more than one occasion I’ve seen fiery advocates of public displays fumble when asked actually to name the commandments, struggling to come up with more than a few.  And while proponents of such displays sometimes argue that the Commandments are the foundation of our civil laws, a cursory reading will show how few of the 10 make the jump to civil law.

Our psalm for today says, The law of Yahweh is perfect, reviving the soul... rejoicing the heart.  Not generally the way people talk about civil laws or rules and regulations.  And let me suggest that when the Yahweh speaks at Sinai, God is imagining a new and different world that does indeed lifts the soul and revives the heart.  And while the 10 commandments are certainly meant to be followed, more importantly, they imagine and describe a world very different from the one the Israelites lived in; for that matter, very different from the world we live in.

“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy (that is, different and set apart).  Six days you shall labor and do all your work.  But the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh 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.”  There’s no mention of worship or going to church; only of setting the day apart for rest.  And this rest is for all, regardless of faith or nationality.  It is even for animals.

This is not the world we live in.  Our world is filled with anxious activity, and many of us know almost nothing of true rest.  Our culture is on an endless quest for more efficiency and productivity.  We honor those who work long hours and go into the office on weekends.  I’ve heard many “successful” people brag about how little sleep they need.  But in the world God imagines, there is a rhythm of rest, of stopping, of true  re-creation.  This was a remarkably radical idea in a day before the invention of the weekend.  But it is just as radical a notion in our 24-7 world.

You shall not make wrongful uses of the name of Yahweh your God, for Yahweh will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.”  If this one sounds odd to you, that may be because it’s been popularized as “You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain,” which has been further trivialized into “No swearing.”  But this teaching imagines a world where religion does not seek to enlist God in its causes and agendas, a world where politicians do not invoke their faith to get elected or get a bill they like passed.  But we struggle to imagine such a world.  Maybe that’s why we changed this one to “No swearing.” 

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.  This does not say, “No lying.”  Its concern is with testimony that might unjustly harm one’s neighbor.  This commandment is about constructing a good and safe and just community.

Taken altogether these 10 commandments imagine a world that Jesus summed up this way.  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength…” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus refers to this world of God’s imagination as the “kingdom of God,” a new day where God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven, a world that Jesus says has drawn near, and that we can become a part of, although that will require repenting, turning, changing and living in new ways that conform more to God’s imagination and less to what we call reality.

Writer Henry Miller once said, “Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. (God) dared to imagine everything.”  And I would add that if we want to become more Christ-like, we must dare to imagine with God.

Jesus invites us to become part of the new thing God imagines.  Imagine the world God envisions in those words from Sinai, a world of true communion with God in true community with one another, something new born of total commitment to God and of love for all neighbors.  Follow me, Jesus beckons.  Repent, turn from the ways of this world, of never stopping, of self-serving religious institutions, of people as resources and commodities.  Join with me in imagining a new thing the world cannot yet see.  Come with me and help me live it and show it and share it with the world.