Exodus 20:1-17 Introduction

Exodus 20:1-17 (NRSV)
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. ⁸ Remember 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.

Going Deeper Philosophical Context: The Ten Commandments as the Lens for Torah and the Theological History of Israel

Introduction

Exodus 20:2-17 with a re-telling in Deuteronomy 5:7-21, form the Ten Commandments. Sometimes, I think people who have at least heard about these commandments the initial response is something like, Oh no, not this again. It feels more like someone is nagging or nit picking us to death. Yet, I am going to look at the commandments from a variety of perspective. The basic one, however, is that they continue to provide inspiration for reflecting upon a meaningful and whole life. A full discussion of this area of theology would include a discussion of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. It would include a full discussion of what it means to love God and neighbor. It would mean a reflecting upon the household rules of Paul. It would mean reflecting upon the virtue and vice lists that we find in the New Testament. In other words, the Ten Commandments are not the only source of our Christian reflection upon ethics, but they are a significant source. Thus, I mildly disagree that anyone who knows the Ten Commandments perfectly knows the entire scriptures, even while I understand the sentiment.[1]

G. K. Chesterton referred to these commandments as "tremendous trifles." Life, Chesterton observed, does not usually present us with big temptations or grandiose sins. Instead, we constantly encounter little temptations that can easily slip under the threshold of our levels of acceptance and tolerance. These little, apparently insignificant temptations nibble away at us‑‑gradually compromising our integrity with each tiny bite.  Human moral failure does not usually come from enormous, glaring misdeeds‑‑ things like murdering, stealing or cheating on a spouse. We do not rip out our ethical standards by the roots. Instead, we are far more likely to experience the gradual decay of our human moral fiber through the insidious work of "tremendous trifles"‑‑such as holding onto our anger, backbiting, small‑mindedness or selfishness. Eventually our standards of acceptable behavior slip lower and lower, until we can talk ourselves into almost anything, as long as it is to our own benefit. 

The gift of creation shows the love of God for what God has created. God values the diversity of the things God has created. Humanity holds a special place in creation, simply because humanity reflects the image of God. Human beings are children of God, part of the same family, and deserving of respect, worth, and dignity. Far more unites us as a human family than divides us.

Of course, humanity has failed to honor the God who brought forth life, and has therefore failed to honor the things and people God has made. Human beings have great glory because of what God has made us to be, and great misery because of the rebellion that exists in us all against what God desires. God has taken the time to work with a family (Abraham) and a nation (Israel); thereby demonstrating that God has the patience to work with humanity. God has revealed the way to begin the healing, liberating, and learning process to become the people God intended us to be.

God established a covenant with Israel, and through it, desired to bring humanity into this covenant. The nation struggled with this God. As such, the nation represents the struggle of humanity with God. Humanity has one God, to whom it owes exclusive loyalty, and who forbids honoring any created thing as if it were god. God forbids dishonoring God with our speech. God wants us to set aside the work that so often consumes us and find genuine Sabbath rest. If we can honor God in these ways, we will also honor our neighbors with the respect they deserve. We will do so by honoring parents throughout our lives, respecting human life, respecting the property of others, protecting the reputation of others, and not allowing envy to work its way into our hearts.

In sum, we are to love God with all that we are and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. If we want the healing, liberation, and learning that God wants to bring into our lives, we will show forth the virtues of a Spirit-filled life.

When I write it like this, it seems so simple. Yet, humanity continues its struggle. We continue our struggle.

Scholars call the Ten Commandments "apodictic." They do not argue or reason. They simply state. Luther once said that when God speaks to humanity, God talks "baby talk." God, gathering now liberated Israel free from Egyptian slavery, speaks to Israel as a parent speaks to a young child: Baby talk. Direct, succinct, apodictic. You do not kill. You do not steal.        Abraham Lincoln once asked his advisors, "If you call a sheep's tail a leg, how many legs would the sheep have?" "Five?" they guessed. "No," said Lincoln, "because calling a tail a leg won't make it one." Many people, maybe some of us in this sanctuary or listening on television, discovered the shipwreck we make of our lives when we call a wrong a right, as if that would make it right.

G. K. Chesterton said that, if people are walking and come to a cliff, and keep on walking off the edge of the cliff, they would not break the law of gravity; they would prove it!

When we freedom-loving Americans hear the word law, we tend to think of restriction, unfair, externally imposed limitation. Who has the right to tell us what to do with these "laws"? You have probably heard of the allegedly "legalistic" religion of Israel whereas Christians have the good news of freedom in Christ. No law for us!

Many of us need direct, succinct, straightforward speech about our lives. The chaotic, confused, sad state of many of our lives are sad testimonial to our need for some direct, simple, straightforward talk about the way things are in the world. Israel testified that God loved the people enough to teach them, to show them the way in simple, straightforward, direct ways that people could understand.

That is the Ten Commandments - God's straightforward explication of the facts of life. This way leads to life. All other wanderings and moral complexity leads to death.

Fidelity in your marriage is not a limitation; rather, it is a happy way to live. Peacefulness, honesty in our dealings with others, honoring our elders, and not taking what is not ours, are not ends in themselves; they are our means toward happiness.

The love of God for us reaches toward us within our history to invite people on a walk with God. God chose the Jews, of all the peoples of the world, to receive the gift of God's commandments. God was doing through Jesus what God was doing through the Ten Commandments: loving us and showing us the way.

Those Ten Commandments are not some set of harshly imposed, unrealistic divine demands. They are God's gift to show us the way. What we call "the law," Israel called "Torah." Torah means literally "the way," or even more literally "the finger pointing the way."

These laws are not the opposite of God's grace; they are tangible, continuing proof of God's grace. These laws are not an unfair, restrictive limitation of the good life; they are the steps that lead to the good life. They are, in themselves, a gift of God, which is the very definition of "grace." God has not left us to wander, to discover the way of life on our own. God graciously shows us the way, points the way to life through these Ten Commandments. God has given us, through the Jewish people, a great gift in these simple commandments, showing a way that leads to life.   

 Today, we need laws motivated by a kind spirit, by care about the welfare of other people. We need guidelines by which to know what will accomplish such worthy ends. Here are six rules for moral decision making which follow from the basic law of love.

We often speak of breaking the Ten Commandments. I have done so. Yet, if we think about it, the commandments are fine. They are solid and strong. What we do is break ourselves against these commandments. We crash into them and hurt those we love as well as ourselves. If we collide with the commandments, we are going to get hurt. Think of it this way. We lead lives that do not flourish when we do not do the following.  

·         We do not give God proper honor through our allegiance to God,

·         We present our interests as identical with God’s interest, placing political or economic ideology ahead of God

·         We dishonor God with our speech.

·         We work 24/7, demonstrating our devotion to consumerism and materialism.

·         We fail to honor and respect our elders.

·         We carry hatred and resentments in our hearts against others.

·         We are unfaithful to our wedding vows.

·         We take for ourselves what belongs to others.

·         We pass on gossip, rumors and innuendo against a neighbor.

·         We are torn up inside because of our inability to match the success of others.

I find in these commandments a wonderful opportunity to discuss the theological history of the Mosaic period (Torah), the Tribal Federation period and the period of sacral kingship. We should also gain some insight into how the J document in particular incorporated the concerns of the commandments into its account of the history of the Patriarchs. The intellectual leaders of Israel in exile wrestled with what God wanted of them, given the reality of exile. The kingship of the line of David is gone, having had behind it the promise of God. They are no longer in the land promised to the Patriarchs and to the twelve tribes. They are no longer in the city, Jerusalem, which seemed impregnable. The temple is gone. Who are the people of God now, in this changed situation? The Torah and the theological history of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings will show how Israel deserved the punishment of the exile because it steadily and regularly broke its side of the covenant. These commandments also provide a wonderful opportunity to show how the New Testament offers its own interpretation of the commandments. We can see this particularly in Matthew 5, where Jesus ascends the mountain and utter his words, even as Moses will do. Jesus begins with the beatitudes and a reinterpretation of the commandments around the theme of love of God and neighbor.

            The passage begins with God speaking “all these words.” The passage begins with the Lord (Yahweh) self-identifying as their God (Elohim), the one who brought them out of Egypt and their houses of slavery.

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[1] Martin Luther, The Large Catechism