Ten Words on Love

​Ten Words on Love
A Sermon for The Eliot Church of Newton, UCC
Rev. Reebee Girash
October 22, 2017
 
THE WORD                    Exodus 20:1-17; Matthew 22:36-40
 
Introduction: Let me say at the outset: as we read the Ten Commandments, I acknowledge there are other rules in the Hebrew Bible we no longer affirm: the treatment of women, the institution of slavery, the condemnation of gay folks. But the Ten Commandments, in the moment, were a key part of the Liberation of the Israelites - and today, too, they offer us a liberating framework.
Exodus:
1 Then God spoke all these words:
2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;
3 you shall have no other gods before me.
4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,
6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
8Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.
9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work.
10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord 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.
11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 You shall not murder.
14 You shall not commit adultery.
15 You shall not steal.
16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Matthew:
One of them asked Jesus,
36 "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"
37 He said to him, " "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'
38 This is the greatest and first commandment.
39 And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
--
 
Legend has it, there was a little town, maybe not even big enough to call a town, maybe it was a village, down a holler in east Tennessee that didn’t have much contact with the rest of the country in the 19th century.
 
Now there was a little church tucked away under the trees beside a crick in this little Tennessee town. And these church folks, which was pretty much the whole town in the back then, these folks knew their Ten Commandments. They knew them in that way that people who spend a lot time with their Bible know them. They knew more than thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain, they knew that it was okay to say dang it but not okay to say dern it. They knew more than just to keep the Sabbath, they knew it was wrong to touch a deck of cards on a Sunday. They knew the rule about having no idols so they didn’t put a statue of the Ten Commandments up in the center of town. They knew not just the commandments but the subtleties of all the rules.
 
Folks in this town mostly grew up, lived, and died within a mile or two. But every once in a while, someone would venture out to the big city, head over to Knoxville and spend a few days. And one time, a young man from the town took a trip away and encountered something extraordinary in the big city.
 
An ice making machine.  
 
They were brand new back then.
 
He brought back tales of ice cream in July, and lemonade served cold.

And it divided the little town down the holler in two. There were those who dreamed of bringing an ice maker down into the valley. And there were those who said, surely, it must violate at least three of the Ten Commandments. Particularly, they were concerned about coveting. Surely, if they decided to get one, it would reveal that they coveted what the folks in Knoxville had.  But maybe also, it would turn iced tea into an idol. Pretty soon there were two churches in the holler: the congregation that drank cold lemonade, and the Church of the Commandments. And pretty soon there were two towns, they split the holler right down to one side of the crick and the other. And then there were families who stopped speaking to each other, sons who wouldn’t speak to their mothers any more because their mothers drank iced tea. Neighbors that would sneak into each other’s kitchens to steal an elusive ice cube.
--
This is of course a completely made up story.  Except the parts that are true.  
--
Now, here’s a story that comes straight from the Bible, and there’s some truth in it, too.
 
Our children have been walking through the beginning of the Bible. We want them to see the narrative ark this year, from Creation to Pentecost - how it holds together. Today, they’re in the same place we are - the 10 Commandments.
 
They have followed the story from the beginning, when God’s creative power was at work, when, “God called the worlds into being and created humankind in the divine image...” (from the UCC Statement of Faith) God created...and it was good.  It was very, very good.
 
And then the children learned about Noah’s Ark, a scary story but one that ended with God recommitting to love people. There was a covenant promise with everyone who survived, a rainbow in the clouds.
 
God had a new relationship with Creation. There was a new beginning. The very world was resurrected.
 
God loved God’s people. And time went on, and Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel….and Joseph, the beloved son. There came a day when there was drought and famine, and the people of God fled to a land where they could thrive: Egypt. But then a King rose who did not know Joseph, and the people of God were enslaved. For hundreds of years, they labored as brick makers and builders and when they thrived, Pharoah made the work even harder. Until….Moses cried out:  “Let my people GO!” And the people escaped and the sea parted, and Miriam, the prophet, danced and sang! And God, sent water in the desert, and manna from heaven, and the people walked and walked. For 40 years, they walked. Along the way they stopped at Mt. Sinai.
 
They had been in Egypt for hundreds of years, slaves for hundreds of year.  God’s people in the wilderness did not know how to be the people of God. They were liberated, set free, sent forth to look for a promised land but they did not know how to be the people of God.   
 
God knew how to love the people with her whole heart….later she would give her only son. But the people did not know how to love God.
 
So God made a promise to them: “5 Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6 but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19:5-6) God spoke ten words.   
 
That’s what the Hebrew says, it does not say ten commandments, it says ten words.  
 
What I hope our kids see today is why God chose this moment to teach the people how to live. What I hope our kids see are these were ten words on love. Ten words of covenant. Ten words to set the character and the boundaries of a liberated people who were only then learning how to be free. These were ten words to outline a new kind of community, an alternative to empire.
 
Because you see, they were establishing a new nation distinct from the way things were in Egypt.
 
2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;
3 you shall have no other gods before me.

I love you, I liberated you.  Do not be taken in by earthly rulers, do not return to Pharoah’s oppression.  And do not set yourselves as gods over others.

4 You shall not make for yourself an idol
You will be tempted to worship the land, you will be tempted to worship power, you will be tempted to worship gold and you will even be tempted by a golden calf.  
 
But God says: I am your God.  The God of freedom, justice, love. I am committed to you.  Worship me, not worldly things.  Pray to me, not to a flag.  Remember who you are: my beloved children.  
 
Remember the Sabbath  (Don’t panic, I’m not going to touch all ten.) In Egypt you worked your fingers to the bone because they only valued you for work. Your value is in the way you reveal the divine image and when you take sabbath you honor me. Constant work is not the way of abundant life for you, or for anyone else.  Set the rhythm of your days.
 
And then God says, now, if you can’t figure out how to love me, just look at the people around you. I created them in my image. When you love them, you love me.  
 
Create loving families. Do not harm each other because if you murder, you are destroying my image. Be just in your dealings with each other.
 
Now, some folks have been taught, that when Jesus came along, he set aside the law. No. Rather than discounting the law, he said every rule comes out of these two:
 
Love God. Love your neighbor.
 
And he was quoting, Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19... his two greatest commandments come right from those forty years in the wilderness. The Hebrew people were taught ten words that each trace back to, Love God, love your neighbor. And as they walked on toward the promised land, yes they sure did get a lot more concrete instructions - but over and again, they heard: these are the most important things, as you establish a nation that is an alternative to empire. Love God. Love your neighbor.
 
In the desert, God said:
Live differently from slavery to Pharaoh in the empire of Egypt.
 
In Jerusalem, Jesus said:
Love differently from servitude to Caesar, in the empire of Rome.
 
These ten words -
These two greatest commandments-
They still apply.
 
Walter Brueggemann says,
“We are the ones who have been offered a liberation from the empire.” (“The Commandments and Liberated, Liberating Bonding”)
 
I do think we are in the wilderness.
The false Gods of money and power shine like golden calves.
We are expected to idolize a flag rather than upholding the values it symbolizes.
Our work week never pauses.
We fail to see the divine image in the faces of neighbors and strangers.
And we all covet our neighbors’ stuff.
 
What does God want us to be liberated from, today?
What is the empire we are to live alternatively from, today?
 
Live differently, from empire - this is the way of living alternative to money, power, nationalism, inequality, racism, and domination.
 
You know who our emperor is, but we are called to love God and our neighbor, not to bow to any idol.  
 
The outlines of this life are clear:
Love the God of life, of justice, of love.
 
Love God’s people, every one of whom - mother, father, neighbor, stranger - is just as much made in the image of God as you are.
 
We are not children of empire.
We are children of God.
 
Amen.