Sermon: God's Daring Imagination

Exodus 20:1-17
God’s Daring Imagination
James Sledge                                                                          Lent 3 - March 7, 2021

 

Moses receiving the Ten Commandments, 

6^th century mosaic, St. Catherine’s monastery, Mt. Sinai

from Art in the Christian Tradition, 

a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library

When a US representative or senator is sworn into office, when the president is inaugurated, or when an officer is commissioned in one of our military branches, they all take an oath to “…defend the Constitution of the United States." Clearly this does not refer to protecting the actual document but to protecting what that document envisions.

The Constitution intends to provide the framework for building a particular sort of society, one with a balance between individual liberties and a government that has the powers necessary to build and maintain a healthy, functioning republic. Of course not everyone agrees on exactly what the Constitution means, something we saw just recently in the arguments over whether or not a president could be impeached after leaving office.

That debate focused on what the Constitution says or doesn’t say. Judges and Supreme Court justices must wrestle with the meaning of the Constitution on a regular basis in order to decide the outcome of cases before them. But very often, the Constitution functions more as a symbol, and such symbols aren’t necessarily born of careful reflection on the document’s meaning.

Constitution as symbol can stand for democracy or freedom or limited government or states’ rights or the American way and so on. Often it is simply assumed to support whatever viewpoint is held by those wielding it as a symbol. I have little doubt that many of the insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol presumed that the Constitution was on their side.

When complex ideas get reduced to symbol, they struggle to produce what those ideas imagine and envision. Symbols are easily co-opted by whoever is using them, even if what they want is at odds with the ideas behind the symbol.

That is as true with religion as it is with politics. Jesus, the Bible, the cross, even Christianity itself can become symbols supporting causes at odds with what Jesus teaches, what is found in the Bible, or the basic tenets of Christianity.

The Ten Commandments that we heard read moments ago often suffer from being turned into a symbol wielded in our nation’s culture wars. Fights over displaying the Commandments at courthouses, government buildings, or public spaces almost never talk about what the commandments actually say or mean, and the claim that they form the basis for our civil laws requires ignoring many of the Commandments.

A bit like the US Constitution, the Ten Commandments are not primarily rules and regulations but rather a framework that imagines a particular sort of community, one that looked nothing like what the Israelites had known when they were slaves in Egypt. Taken together, the Commandments imagine a counter cultural community meant to show the world the shape of life as God intends it.

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. But when Yahweh speaks at Sinai, God imagines a new and different world that does indeed revive the soul and fill the heart with joy. 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, one 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 endlessly seeks 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 people do not seek to enlist God in their 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 Ten 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 just as it is in heaven. Jesus says this new day has drawn near, something that we can become a part of, although that requires repenting, turning, changing, 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 would 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, Jesus says, 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.