Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 (NRSV)
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.
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.
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.
18 When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.”
Exodus 20:2-17 with a re-telling in Deuteronomy 5:7-21, form the Ten Commandments. We often pray for guidance. We want the Lord to lead us. Yet, some passages in the Bible quite direct guidance and leadership. If we approach them prayerfully, they become opportunities for confession. Too often, we do not even want to follow direction we receive from the word God has given us. The Ten Commandments are one of the places of clear direction. Properly understood, many of the problems in the world would dissolve if it followed this 3000-year-old prescription. They are all humanity needs to make this a beautiful world. As modern men and women, we think we have come up with new ideas to make a good world. The truth is, in this area of human life, there is nothing new to say. If people and countries lived by the Ten Commandments, the great moral problems would disappear. To put it another way, the great evils of the world involve the violation of one or more of these commandments. They provide the principles, the parameters, within which we live our lives and play this game of life in many different ways: the parameters within which we make sure we do not in the process defeat ourselves.
The first four commandments give further content to the love of God. They also give content to what it means to “hallow” the name of God in the Lord’s Prayer. The final six commandments help us give content to the love of neighbor. They also help us reflect upon the request that we do the will of God as we honor parents, life, truth, our word, and the property of others.
I have an extensive study of the passages in my study of the theological and spiritual insights we find in the Old Testament. I invite the reader to 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.
Are we following the Ten Commandments as they guide us in Loving God?
Commandments 1-4 deal with what it means to love the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. We find these words in Mark 12:29-30, referring to Deuteronomy 6:4-5.
The first commandment (Exodus 20: 3, Deuteronomy 5:7) 3 you shall have no other gods before me.This appears as a simple and direct command. However, when we read back to Genesis 3, the estrangement and alienation that humanity experiences in its relation with each other and with creation has its origin in forsaking the command of the Lord God. Even placed in a perfect spot, Eden, humanity has a tendency to listen to other voices. However, the key to the theological interpretation of biblical Israel begins in Exodus 31:18-32: 35. In Exodus 32:4, Aaron takes gold from the people and casts into the image of calf. “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” Already in the Mosaic period, the Israelites broke this commandment. Later, in the period sacral kingship, Solomon would build altars in the high places for his many wives who continued to serve foreign gods. Jeroboam would also build a calf.
The commandment seems to assume the existence of other gods. It connects with zeal as an expression of holiness. It relates to the transcendence and infinity of God. Such an explicit proclamation of only one God waits for the time of exile and Isaiah 40ff. Therefore, this commandment establishes that the covenant between Yahweh and these people involves an exclusive covenant.[1] We might say that in which we place our trust is our god. When we trust the temporary things of this world, we have constructed an idol.[2]The people of God are to exalt, worship, and adore the Lord alone. They are to rest in God and consider themselves as partners of God. Our lives are to be an offering of worship to God.[3] Israel rarely engaged in direct apostasy but rather, experimented with holding to Yahweh while also mixing the gods of Canaan and other surrounding peoples.[4] This commandment becomes the basis for the priority Jesus gives to the imminent rule of God over all other human duties and concerns. This commandment was the motivating force behind the development of the thought of the royal rule of Yahweh in ancient Israel, along with the associated concept of the holy jealousy of the God of Israel, which we find in Exodus 20:4, 34:14, and Deuteronomy 6:14-15.[5]
I offer a reflection on our priorities or that to which we give allegiance.
Here is the other side of things. God chooses us. In this commandment, we choose God. Having no other gods is our earnest response to the undivided grace of God. Faith is gratitude seeking its source. God is the one who initiates the conversation. If God had not loved enough to speak, no conversation would take place, no Israel would exist, no nation of priests, and no church. The command arises from the relationship of Israel to God as owned, called, and accountable. Although understandable in a pre-modern context, us modern persons have a difficult time with obedience to an external authority. Command and obedience create a submissive response to an external authority that to which many of us modern persons do not respond. Yet, if we view the commandments as the loving guidance of God, we may be able to respond with opens minds and hearts. God created us to love God, but we become slaves to wrong choices. We desire wrongly. Freedom is not so much choice but desire. God created us as passionate beings. We rightly desire. The problem is where our desires becomes disordered by desiring what results in slavery.
The biggest issue in life is priorities. We acknowledge it every day, dozens of times a day. We plan to do things, we make a budget, and we must decide if we will the creams or caramels first in the box of chocolates. A farmer who had just retrieved a lost sheep was asked how sheep wander away. The farmer responded, “They just nibble themselves lost.” They go from one tuft of grass to another, until at last they have lost their way. That is what happens with life. Unless we purposely establish a structure of priorities, we will nibble away at each inconsequential tuft of decision until life is gone, and we have little idea of what has happened to it.
In a sense, priority is another name for God. When we draw up our little list of the tings that matter most, that which we designate Number One is god, whether it is the true God or not. It is our governing principle, because, where we like it or not, we become like the god we worship. Some students of world religions say that people make gods in their own images. If so, the gods return the favor. We become like what we worship. We also allow this god to determine what kind of world we will have, what kind of government we will choose, what sorts of persons we will want to rule over us. We become like what we worship. That is why the ten commandments begin with our relationship to God. We would not prioritize them that way, of course. Ask the average person for the most important commandment, and he or she will likely choose the one forbidding murder, or adultery, or dishonesty. So, the commandments begin with God, not because the commandments are religious, but because we are. They begin with God because what we think about God will eventually determine what we think of ourselves of each other, and of life. All the other commandments rest upon this one. No wonder that when a thoughtful interrogator asked Jesus to name the most important commandment, Jesus answered,
Mark 12:29-30 (NRSV)
29 “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 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.’
Then, with convicting logic, Jesus continued, answering a question the interrogator did not ask,
Mark 12:31 (NRSV)
31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
If one accepts the first statement, one cannot escape the second. To love God is to be like God, and to be like God is to love our neighbor.
Jesus quoted Deuteronomy, a second statement of the law. The Lord our God is one and calls us to love. We might call this the magnificent obsession. If God be God, God should have all that we are. That is not only the essence of the first commandment; it also is its beauty and its glory. God shall have all of you.
The truth is that something will consume us. Something in us wants to live grandly, to give ourselves with abandonment. We had better choose passionately as to whom or what will consume us, because you and I are of such sublime importance. I am especially important to me, because I am the only that I have. After I have used up me, I have nothing left. Had better be sure that I choose wisely, when I give myself up to a grand obsession. Would it not be better if I parceled out myself, if I would give God some of my devotion, and give some to sex and success, and baseball, and collecting matchbooks? Well, that is how we fritter life away. We give it up in little pieces, some of them sad absurdities, and none f them worth mentioning in the same breath with God. If life has hundreds of points, it becomes pointless. If our lives are to have a piercing quality, they will need to have a single point, a classic directness.
God is jealous because God is passionate about involvement with us. The words from God tend to be passionate because so much is at stake. God has risked much to deliver and to choose Israel. God has risked the cross to make the church. Matters between God and us are rarely small or of little consequence. This God has a passionate commitment to Israel and the church and expects passionate obedience in return. The existence of Israel and the church is concrete, visible testimony to the world that it is possible for the desires of people to be formed not by the way the world gathers people, as in race, class, and gender, but on the basis of the word of God. The church gathers on Sunday as a result of the call of God.
The jealousy of God toward us is a product of the love of God for us. God demands all because we are never fulfilled until we give all to God. I think of Augustine’s trenchant words: “thou hast created us for thyself, and our heart cannot be quieted till it may find repose in thee.” He knew that it is our nature to have a grand passion; but unless that passion finds itself in God, it will not be satisfied. What a measure of what we are! We declare our worth by what we worship. Is it money? Is it physical gratification? What about the aesthetic, to give ourselves to beauty? What of family and friendship and great loyalties to school, village, or country? Such devotion is magnificent as an expression of our higher calling, but it is not enough to be our calling. If we give ourselves to anything less than God, we underestimate ourselves. The writer of Genesis said that we human creatures are made of the dust of the earth, but that we are inhabited by the breath of God. How pathetic and absurd for eternal creatures like us to pour ourselves into embracing that which passes away. Giving ourselves to God in such fashion will not diminish our capacity for persons or causes or aesthetics, or even fun. We are better equipped to engage ourselves with the harmonies of life when we have found the supreme chord. We are more able to become involved in friendship and love, in creativity and grand doing, if our basic commitment is in order. To love God is not to love life less, but to grasp it with a surer hand, a more sensitive one. With God at the center of our life and vision, we can see more clearly what is good and beautiful in all the rest of life. With God at the center, we are most surely what we are really meant to be.
That is not the end of the matter. The more we give ourselves to God, the more we become like God. The more of us that God has, the more we have of God. This is the nature of relationships; if I would have more of you, I must give you more of me. What is true of our human relationships is even more magnificently true of our relationship with God.
Modern poet Phyllis McGinley says that virtue is humanity’s Mount Everest, and that those who climb highest are worth admiring. Indeed so, and more than that, they are worth emulating. If one is going to climb Everest, one must be committed to the project. Everest is more than an afternoons’ stroll! However, godliness is not so nearly singular an adventure as is Everest. I see godly people everywhere. One thing godly people have in common is that God is the ultimate issue of their lives. God is their priority. Here is the genius of the first commandment.
Life must have a focus. If we live scattershot, we will hit nothing of consequence. Focus is not enough. The focus must be right, else we will invest our extraordinary potential in that which is, at best, trivial, and at worst, demonic. We are creatures of eternal worth, of so much worth that we can do business with the Lord God. If that is not breathtaking enough, the commandment insists that God desires out attention, because God knows how great our potential is, and how tragic it is if we invest such potential in anything less than the divine. Therefore, God gives us a commandment, that we shall have no other gods, not because God wishes to fence us in, but because God wishes to set us free, to give us opportunity to fulfill the capacity of our wondrous ordaining. God shall have all of you. You, in turn, shall be given yourself, and the wonder of fullness in God.
God knows that Israel, left to its own devices in the wilderness, is prone to reestablish the rule of Pharaoh in different forms. The question the Bible asks is, “Who is the God who is there?” Atheism is little more than the shrug of the shoulders that says something like, “I do not care what someone believes about God, as long as he is sincere.” “It does not matter so much what someone believes as long as that person lives a good life.” Disobeying the first commandment attempts to reduce God to a problem of belief rather than a call to worship.
The second commandment (Exodus 20: 4-6 and Deuteronomy 5:8-10, but also Leviticus 26:1 and Deuteronomy 27:15, and a discussion of the command in Deuteronomy 4:9-20) is 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. They shall not bow down to them or worship them, for the Lord is a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and fourth generations. In contrast to such brief punishment, the Lord will show steadfast love and mercy to those who love the Lord and keep the commandments to the thousandth generation. Martin Luther says that this warning shows us how angry God is with people who put their trust in anything other than God.[6] It prohibits making a physical representation of the Lord, which could lead to idolatry. The Old Testament is likely too extreme in its criticism, for the ancient world never identified deity with the image. They simply gave visibility to the divine.[7] The image is inappropriate because the manner of divine revelation is the word rather than a form discovered in nature. The image encroached upon the freedom of God to relate to the world. The self-revelation of God occurs in the ambiguity of history rather than the static form of nature. New revelation can come for new times in the word of the Lord, while the image remains static. This commandment protects the freedom of God to enter human history. Again, in the organization of the Torah and the history of Israel, we see the breaking of this commandment. We see it especially in Exodus 32:4, where the Israelites build an image of a calf, and proclaim it as the god who brought them out of Egypt. Joshua 24:14-24 invites the people to put away their gods. We see the breaking of this commandment in the sin of Jeroboam, who builds a similar image in I Kings 12:26-33. The Hebrew prophets focused intensely on the issue of idol worship. Jeremiah 10:3-5 speaks strongly. II Isaiah (44:12-20) did as well. Today, we are more likely to develop a worldview or a political ideology in such a way that it becomes an idol. When we do so, we resist the command not to make an idol and therefore escape the exclusive loyalty to which we owe God.[8] Jesus (Matthew 6:24) draws a sharp distinction between serving God and “mammon,” which one can interpret as property or wealth. In this case, Jesus argues for the interpretation of the first two commandments that makes it clear that any of us can have a god or image before God that claims our loyalty.
I offer a brief reflection on the God of no place.
This commandment suggests that God has no place of residence. The less disturbed a culture is by adversity or diversity, the more fixed and codified become its core values, beliefs, and symbols. Likenesses eventually cease merely to point to a reality; they become it. This is how images become idols.
Pure egalitarianism is certainly a myth. Distinctions of habit and history are unavoidable. Life is full of valuations and judgments. Nevertheless, when such valuations are set in stone, they close the future; oppress possibility. Emblems of truth become cast in falsehood. This is another way that images become idols.
We might also reflect on the difficulty with the exclusive identification of God with one Hebrew man in first-century Palestine. Jesus was a first century Jewish rabbi, and in one sense, any other portrait of Jesus is delusion. However, faith tends to recast regularly the image into one where Jesus reflects one’s own race and culture. We come face to face with the scandal of particularity: a Jewish man who died in 30 AD in Israel who yet, according to Christianity, has universal significance for humanity.
Not many people today worry about keeping this commandment, nor do many think it has anything to say to their way of life. Yet, the world is so good and humanity has such gifts that we can delude ourselves into thinking that we are self-sufficient. Modern persons value autonomy in determining meaning, rather than discovering meaning through trust in God.
Even modern culture has a tendency toward superstition. We do not have 13th floors in buildings. Sports figures have rituals they often develop. Superstition is a small matter. If idols were nothing more than the absurdities the prophets described, they would not have been an issue. Yet, they are a danger to our perception of god. Our autonomy, far from delivering us from God, has opened us to superstition, as people in the grip of fate or luck, bombs, veneration of sexual pleasure.
One thing is sure. This commandment was fearfully serious to the pious Jews, and to the prophets who sought passionately to keep them in life. Their wanderings usually began with a graven image. As a matter of fact, Israel broke this commandment before Moses had completed delivery of the tables of stone. It was while he was receiving the commandments at Sinai that his brother Aaron and the people got together to make golden calves to take God’s place. When Israel finally settled into the land that was to be their home, it was a violation of this commandment that signaled their spiritual unfaithfulness. They were soon bowing down to Baal and Astarte, as in Judges 2.
The Hebrew prophets focused intensely on the issue of idol worship. Jeremiah spoke strongly:
Jeremiah 10:3-5 (NRSV)
3 For the customs of the peoples are false:
a tree from the forest is cut down,
and worked with an ax by the hands of an artisan;
4 people deck it with silver and gold;
they fasten it with hammer and nails
so that it cannot move.
5 Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field,
and they cannot speak;
they have to be carried,
for they cannot walk.
Do not be afraid of them,
for they cannot do evil,
nor is it in them to do good.
Isaiah did as well.
Isaiah 44:12-20 (NRSV)
12 The ironsmith fashions it and works it over the coals, shaping it with hammers, and forging it with his strong arm; he becomes hungry and his strength fails, he drinks no water and is faint. 13 The carpenter stretches a line, marks it out with a stylus, fashions it with planes, and marks it with a compass; he makes it in human form, with human beauty, to be set up in a shrine. 14 He cuts down cedars or chooses a holm tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. 15 Then it can be used as fuel. Part of it he takes and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Then he makes a god and worships it, makes it a carved image and bows down before it. 16 Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he roasts meat, eats it and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Ah, I am warm, I can feel the fire!” 17 The rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, bows down to it and worships it; he prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god!”
18 They do not know, nor do they comprehend; for their eyes are shut, so that they cannot see, and their minds as well, so that they cannot understand. 19 No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals, I roasted meat and have eaten. Now shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” 20 He feeds on ashes; a deluded mind has led him astray, and he cannot save himself or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a fraud?”
The danger begins in that the image is something we can see. We know what God looks like. We will have a god that we can comprehend with our senses. Yet, the true God is more than we can picture. With idolatry, we restrict God so much that God becomes a lie. Michelangelo said that a finished form resided in the slab of marble already, awaiting the sculptor’s chisel to reveal it. To gaze upon his statue of David in Florence or the Pieta at the Vatican in Rome is to agree that an image is more than the stone or wood from which someone fashions it. It is to begin to imagine that the grain of the marble or the wood runs in the direction of truth, that carved symbols somehow participate in, perhaps even shape, the reality to which they point.
If idols were as helpless as the prophets said, we also must remember that idols are manageable, and we humans are always looking for a manageable god. We want a god who will always do our bidding. However, sometimes one gets the feeling that where some ancient peoples counted on their gods to increase their crops, their modern descendants expect touchdowns, home runs, and broken records. A salesperson bargains with God. When we make God nothing more than an instrument in our drive for success, we have reduced God to an image. It is easy to leave this kind of god for someone else if one gets a better offer elsewhere.
Idols make God smaller and manageable; they also make us smaller. If one bows before an image of an ox, one begins to take on that image in that the ox becomes the measure of my person. If we measure our lives by the abundance of our crops, the size of house our car, or the extent of our holdings, we are dismal creatures indeed.
Diana Eck, in Bozeman to Bararas (1993), says that the God of Israel and the church is far too exclusive in our contemporary situation. She defines God in this way: “God is our way of speaking of a Reality that cannot be encompassed by any one religious tradition, including our own.” For her, our experiences of the divine make God. The commandments are straightforward speech, basic, concrete demands. I find little esoteric, ineffable, obscure, or mystical about them. All we must do is worship in everything we say or do. Why is God so exclusive? What is a bit of idolatry among friends? Our sin is punishment in that it is painful not to be who we were created to be. False gods are so demanding. God has entrusted to us the means whereby we might faithfully worship the true God. If we fail, we also fail our children. Punishment is not a sign that God is weak. Punishment is the facts of life in lives lived without God. We are not punished for sin, but sin is punishment. When we cry out in the dark, in our lost condition, the one who answers is the one who longs to have us come home, the one whose worship is home.
Anselm said that God is that, the greater than which cannot be conceived. Just how would you make an image such a God? We may have our mental images, but God is always beyond our images. Athanasius, says Madeline L’Engle, wrote about God, it was as though he were trying to catch hold of the whirlwind. Where can we possibly find words to capture what we cannot really perceive?
To fill the place of God with an image is like blotting the sun out of the heavens and substituting a 15-watt bulb in its place. There is so much of God to be known, so much of the divine goodness to be released in our lives, that any limiting of God is unthinkable. The real horror of idols is not simply that they give us nothing, but that they take away even what we have.
Fundamentalists of every stripe condemn the images of others while missing the corrupting power of their own. Idolatry becomes the charge idolaters level against others in order to justify themselves. Our habit is to assign a power to images and symbols, especially those closely associated with our own lives. However, images do not make idols. Idols take shape in our minds whenever we confuse limited things with final truth. In the Sinai wilderness, Israel hid its images in fear, but they were not forgotten. Idolatry in various forms would remain Israel’s single greatest temptation.
The second commandment ends with the ominous threat of punishment for idolatry, “to the third and fourth generation.” It appears heartless on the part of God. Yet, in a world of mutual influence, we all experience the far-reaching, consequences of the actions of others in substance abuse, violent childhood, and the tyranny of fanaticism. However, God also has steadfast love to the thousandth generation. To take seriously the interconnectedness of all things is to be not only discouraged but also heartened. I do not presume to have conquered my idols, yet neither have they conquered me.
The third commandment (Exodus 20: 7 and Deuteronomy 5:11) is 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. The commandment protects the name of the Lord from harm. The people of God are to hold the name of the Lord sacred. The point was to prohibit the attempt to control God through the magical use of the name, which may explain the prohibition against images as well.[9] The final edition of the Torah and the theological history of Israel make it clear in dramatic fashion that already in the Mosaic period, Israel broke this commandment in Leviticus 24:10-16. The episode is terrifying to us as readers. The son of the Israelite woman Shelomith, in the midst of a fight with another Israelite, “blasphemed the Name in a curse.” Those who heard this brought him to Moses. The Lord told Moses to take him outside the camp and have the congregation stone him to death, for one who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall receive the punishment of death. Yahweh has entrusted the knowledge of this name to this people (Exodus 3:13-15 and 6:3), and therefore the name is to receive honor. While profanity (using such words as “God” inappropriately, as in a curse) would certainly violate this commandment, the commandment more broadly opposes using the name of God in any empty or meaningless way or exploiting the holy name of God in swearing falsely (Jeremiah 7:9, Hosea 4:2, Zechariah 5:4) an oath or in magical attempts to force God’s action. According to Matthew 26:57-68, opponents accused Jesus of blasphemy. The origin of this charge may be the claim of messiahship, but it could also have its origin in his statements against the Temple. In either case, if that were the accusation, it would be in accord with the Old Testament that such person must die.
I offer a reflection on naming life or the act of proper naming. James Russell Lowell, “Let us speak plain: there is more force in names than most people dream of.” Romeo and Juliet 2.2.43, “What’s in a name?”
The Hebrews already knew God by many names. Shaddai, means “the Mountain One,” and came from Mesopotamia. El means “the Mighty One,” and came from Canaan. El Shaddai means “God Almighty,” and became the name the Patriarchs used. The God of the Hebrews was a God of intimate relationship. God is a divine shepherd who leads the flock into plenitude and safety, as in Psalm 23. God is the hidden head of every household. God is a faithful partner in a binding covenant. In time, these attributes issued in a new name, Yahweh, “I am who I am.” The God who will not have an image refuses to be pinned down by a name. God is who God is, will be who God will be. The power in this name is God’s alone to wield. It is always a gift, never a possession, delivered on wings of grace. The Bible does not condemn the use of the name of God, only its abuse, in invocation to justify evil, which we find difficult to define. The mere mention of some names can strike fear: Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Jack the Ripper. The mention of other names bring gladness: Mother Teresa, Mohandas Gandhi, Saint Francis. Sometimes a name holds the power of life and death. Sometimes, that name is Jesus.
Many people use the name of God without thinking about God. “O God, was that embarrassing or what?” “God, did I ever feel silly! I will never forgive myself.” “I will never forgive him! God!” People carry on this conversation between this God and each other all the time. However, the true God knows us as we know ourselves, and then some more. The true God loves us anyway. The God who forgives what other cannot. The God who wipes tears way. When we use the name of God in this way in our common language, we do not have this God in mind. Careless talk of God is a strategy for skirting dealing with matters of meaning and purpose. The more we use the name of God in this common language way, the emptier of meaning God becomes. We can remain safe and alone, on an island.
Yet, the Hebrew literally means "do not carry" the name of the Lord in vain. In other words, we are forbidden from doing evil in God's name. Only when thus understood does the rest of the Commandment make sense -- that God will not "cleanse," or forgive -- the person who does this. Thus, the Islamist who slits an innocent's throat while shouting "Allahu Akbar" is the perfect example of the individual who carries God's name in vain and who cannot be forgiven. These people not only murder their victims, they murder God's name. For that reason, they do more evil than the atheist who murders.
The fourth commandment (Exodus: 20: 8-11 and Deuteronomy 5:12-15) says 8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord for their children, slaves, and livestock. In Exodus, the reason is that the Lord created in six days and rested on the seventh. In Deuteronomy, they are to remember that they were slaves in Egypt; the Lord delivered them with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. The fourth commandment is the positive command to remember the Sabbath, leaving one day undisturbed by any use for the benefit of people, for it belongs to God and sets a standard undefiled by any kind of human business. Sabbath allows identification with the Lord in worship and identification with those in society most in need of rest. Keeping the Sabbath upheld the original order of creation.[10] The Torah and the theological history of Israel make it clear in a dramatic little story that the Israelites in the Mosaic period in Numbers 15:32-36 broke this commandment. Some Israelites discovered a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath. They brought him to Moses, Aaron, and the congregation. The Lord told Moses to stone him to death outside the camp. Sabbath suggests that one day become undisturbed by any use for the benefit of people, for it belongs to God and sets a standard undefiled by any kind of human business. The text does not mention a cultic celebration of any sort on this day. One might assume that they celebrated by abstaining demonstratively from productive labor and symbolically handing the day back to God. Israel considered Sabbath a day of joy and pleasure, not a day of abstinence and asceticism, for which see Hosea 2:13, Isaiah 58:13. Sabbath is a time to identify with the creator and to identify with the slave and servant in need of rest. The commandment recognizes the need of the common people, who have worked hard during the week and now receive refreshment. We offer praise to God and receive instruction.[11] This commandment invites a reappraisal of work and leisure that is both theological and practical. To heed it is to be set free from the twin slavery of worshipping our own deeds and abusing the work of others, and set free for the joy of collective effort and shared success. It is to link arms with the creative impulse of the cosmos. The people of God should look upon it as a gift rather than a matter for controversy. Time is a gift of God, with the Sabbath demonstrating the holiness of time.
In one way of reading the New Testament, this commandment does not fare well. Mark tells us several stories that suggest Jesus had an issue with the leaders of his day regarding the Sabbath. Jesus heals the mother-in-law of Peter on the Sabbath (Mark 1:29-31), his disciples “work” on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28), he heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath (3:1-6). Further, Paul in Romans 14:1-12 discusses people who honor one day better than others do, while others honor all days the same. The point appears to be a discussion of Jewish holy days and possibly Sabbath days. It seems both Jesus and Paul were willing to treat this commandment in a different way than the commonly accepted practice in their day among their fellow Jews.
I offer a reflection: And the Beat Goes On. An old Hebrew saying says, “More than the Jews have kept Shabbat Shabbat has kept the Jews.”
Slowly, desert life takes on a rhythm. It is Shabbat, the Sabbath rest, which brings order to this wilderness. Every seventh day, the Hebrews hear again that they are precious in God’s sight. Keeping Shabbat, these former slaves resist thinking of themselves or others as objects, instruments, or means to other ends. On the Sabbath, the Hebrew ceases to be nomadic wanderers, blown about like bits of sand. Now they are a people, a priestly nation, the Israel of God. Keep the Sabbath because God does. The implication is powerful. It is in God’s deepest nature to rest, to bask in the loveliness of what is.
Sabbath law addresses our relationship with others in the world, specifically our penchant for treating God’s creatures as objects instead of subjects, to exploit their instrumental value for selfish ends. In answer to this tendency, Sabbath law asserts the intrinsic worth of all creation. “And God saw that it was good.”
This commandment invites a reappraisal of work and leisure that is both theological and practical. To heed it is to be set free from the twin slavery of worshipping our own deeds and abusing the work of others and set free for the joy of collective effort and shared success. It is to link arms with the creative impulse of the cosmos.
The New England Puritans, often cited for the distortion of the Sabbath through the strict enforcement of blue laws and the like, defined salvation as falling in love with God. Love of God, love of neighbor, love of music and beauty, love of life itself, these things touch the core of the meaning of Sabbath. They are what make us human. The Sabbath does not mean that all is complete and novelty ends. The word rest implies that work is normative in our lives.
The practice of Sabbath assumes many forms. Some of us attend public worship, eager to share with others a message of grace that never grows tiresome. Others kneel in prayer right where they are. Still others simply assume a posture of rest that invites thanksgiving for the gifts of a day, or a week, or a lifetime. Tying all these activities together is a spirit of gratitude that opens like a window to the awesome presence of God. Sabbath is a formative expression of love for God and for neighbor. It is a practiced belief in God’s goodness, a willingness to stop our busy acquisition of personal well-being in order to receive it from the Source.
Rest, relaxation, and release are not as natural as we think. “I will strive hard to relax,” we often say. We are scrappers, programmed to compete and prevail. The instinct of ceaseless hunting and gathering is embedded in our genes. Sociologists identify a hurried childhood as a problem in America. To keep Sabbath is to surrender, to fall back into loving arms, assured of their will to embrace you. Keeping Sabbath is acknowledging that those loving arms belong to God.
Are we following the Ten Commandments as they guide us in love of the neighbor?
Commandments 5-10 deal with what it would mean to love their neighbors as themselves as Jesus taught in Mark 12:31, drawing from Leviticus 19:18. Genesis 4 already shows the disruption in the relationship with the neighbor as Cain killed his brother Abel. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” was the first question addressed to God by a human being. The murderer Cain formulated the question, after God interrogated him concerning the whereabouts of his dead brother. It was not a question really, but rather a sarcastic retort by Cain, designed to distance himself from all responsibility for his heinous crime. Given the original context, the question reveals much about the nature of our fallen humanity and our persistent refusal to accept our God-given responsibilities toward our fellow human beings. The answer to the question has tremendous implications for how we live in community.
The fifth commandment (Exodus 20: 12 and Deuteronomy 5:16) is 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.
The Torah and the theological history of Israel in Deuteronomy 21:18-20, stubborn and rebellious children brought to the elders for the punishment of stoning to death, show that Israel broke this command as well. It receives attention in several places, such as Exodus 21:15, 17, Leviticus 20:9, and Leviticus 19:3. If the Decalogue arose from life in the clan, here is the biggest evidence for the theory. Parents represent divine authority. The extended family was the basic social unit in antiquity. They lived in settled community with their wives and children. In that setting, one could slight the authority of parents, especially of the aged ones. Antiquity considered filial responsibilities important for maintaining social order. The powerful story of Absalom in II Samuel 13-19 relates his disobedience to his father, David. It also shows the inability of David to parent Absalom. It has terrible ramifications for the kingdom of David. By extension, it suggests honor and respect toward all human authority.
Jesus honored his parents. Yet, he also talked of hating parents, leaving them, in order to follow him in Luke 14:26. He says his family is those who do the will of God in Luke 8:19-21. Luke 9:57-62, the kingdom of God is to have priority over family relationships. However, in saying this, Jesus was only saying what his Scripture taught him, that God is the final arbiter of life. Yet, Paul seems to extend this notion of honoring parents into the Hellenistic social network of the household cold. We see this in Colossians 3:18-4:1 and Ephesians 5:21-6:9. We need to remember that in the missionary situation of these first Christians, they often had to urge people to place priority on the kingdom of God rather than their obedience to their family. Sadly, people in our time often must do so as well. This commandment finds itself relativized, we would say today, when we give the kingdom of God priority.
We honor the honorable. For much of human history, the passing of power from one generation to the next has been problematic at best. Embedded in the human psyche is a sense of entitlement that accompanies one’s coming of age. To honor, kabed means to give weight to. It has less to do with obeying than with taking seriously. Children honor parents by entrusting to them their fundamental sense of security and well-being. There is no greater honor that one person can offer to another. When parents fail to be honorable, they violate that trust.
The family is not a sanctuary cut off from the rest of society, not a secluded preserve, but a training ground for life in community, in village or clan or tribe. If there is to be a vigorous community for children to join, the family must also provide the Practice Hall for adults as well, a place where men and women perform the ceremonies of mutual aid, amuse and challenge one another, share comfort and love. By all these measures, a good family is one that encourages the full flowering of parents; that cherishes grandparents as carriers of wisdom; that nourishes children in body and mind and soul, and prepares them to enter the world as responsible and competent adults.[12]
Woodrow Wilson said, "The use of the university is to make young men as unlike their fathers as possible." Especially with the rise of Marxism as an intellectual path toward alienation from the founding of America, capitalism, and the values of family, much of academic life at major universities has sought to fulfill the vision of President Wilson. One path tow3ard destroying a nation is to undermine respect for parents, respect for family values, and respect for the founding of the nation. An alienating critique of culture will lead to the struggle over the only thing that will matter – power.
The sixth commandment (Exodus 20: 13 and Deuteronomy 5:17, but also Exodus 21:12, Leviticus 24:17, Deuteronomy 27:24, and a prohibition to hate in Leviticus 17:17-18, Numbers 35:30-34, Deuteronomy 19:11-13, and sanctity of life in Genesis 9:6) is 13 You shall not murder.
Stated negatively, the commandment establishes a limit. Do not cross this line. However, let us consider putting the commandment in the form of the fifth commandment, had been “Honor life.” The effect is different, for now, it stimulates some creative thought as to how we will do that in our lives and culture. In any case, by the 8th century BC, the verb carried the meaning of intentional killing, murder, while earlier it could have included unintentional killing. It may refer to illegal killing inimical to the community. It protected the life of the Israelite from illegal and impermissible violence. The formulation in such an absolute manner includes any possible human being, including suicide. Clearly, this commandment had its restrictions within the Old Testament, as God authorized killing in warfare and in many judicial acts of stoning people to death. The Torah and the theological history of Israel finds the breaking of this commandment in the Tribal Federation period in the startling story in Judges 19-20 of the Levite and his concubine. In the period sacral kingship, the story of David includes his murder of Uriah, the husband of the woman with whom he committed adultery, in II Samuel 11-12. Further, Absalom would murder his half-brothers in II Samuel 13. One could argue that this commandment suggests that we are responsible for the safety of each other. God forbids all violence to the other. God calls us to defend the life of the other.[13] God grants us freedom for life. The living God has respect for and values life. We must not tire of life. We must battle sickness as a messenger of death. We must have joy and gratitude in life.[14]
The Hebrew slaves in Egypt live under a murderous cloud. Moses is already a murderer. Suffering and death set the people of God free. Following the directive from God, they practice holy war. No prisoners. No spoils. All must die. The slaves may not become the masters of others, nor may they grow fat on their bounty. The change of residency must be clean. Consequently, it is even more murderous. This contains an eerie logic that we will never puzzle out.
Old Testament law made wide provision for the death penalty. Capital punishment covered such offenses as kidnapping, blasphemy, idolatry, witchcraft, adultery, rape, incest, bearing false witness in death penalty cases, and cursing or striking a parent. Capital trials allowed no circumstantial evidence. They required at least two witnesses who had observed the premeditation of the crime and that the person carried it out in hate and that it involved a deadly weapon. If, after all this, the criminal received the punishment of death by stoning, these same witnesses were to cast the first stones.
We find Jesus offering that it is not enough not to murder. One must deal with the heart, the source of murderous acts. Matthew 5:21-26 contains sayings of Jesus concerning killing.
Humanity has not yet eradicated infanticide. In certain corners of the globe, unwanted babies are still sacrificed on altars of desperation, gender preference, misguided notions of family honor, or mere convenience. In the United States, babies are still beaten and burned, shaken and strangled. However, we at least concur that when such things happen, evil has been done.
One exception to this consensus is the question of the unborn. A fetus is a person because there is a mother to love it like a baby, to delight in its growth, to grieve its lose. And should there be no single person to cherish such a life, its value, actual or potential, would continue to reside in the heart of God. The question of the sanctity of a young life seems endlessly complex. Perhaps the myriad ways to honor life, from its first stirrings to its finished shape, in its quality and its quantity, its proper freedoms and obligations, might converge at one point. God is both creative and redemptive. Passions continue to divide, but God continues both to bring life into being and graciously to receive it home again.
History carries as many justifications for war as wars themselves. Francis Bacon thought war necessary for a nation to preserve its physical vitality. Hegel referred to the slaughter-bench of human history. Christian thinkers have tended to raise the bar of justification. Augustine insisted that war be waged to avenge wrong and win peace. Aquinas validated it only in the resistance of evil. Calvin saw in war the strategy of God deliver punishment for injustice. A distinction has often been made between wars of principle and wars of conquest. The trouble is, every party to a war claims to be on the side of God. Which sort of war you are waging seems to be open to interpretation. Rousseau viewed pacifism as the intelligent response. Quakers have found war irreconcilable with the core teachings of Jesus. Fine, but the Nazi death camps were liberated by soldiers whose job was to kill murderers, not by pacifists or "peace activists."
The seventh commandment (Exodus 20: 14 and Deuteronomy 5:18, but also Leviticus 18:20, 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:22, Numbers 5:11-30, Jeremiah 29:23, Ezekiel 16:32, Hosea 3:1, 4:13, Proverbs 6:32) is 14 You shall not commit adultery. The commandment occurs in the context of a conception of marriage that was not monogamous. A man was free to have sexual intercourse with the female slaves of his household.
In the final edition of the Torah and theological history of Israel we find startling examples of adultery, including Genesis 20:1-18 (Abraham and Sarah) Genesis 39 (Joseph), and II Samuel 11-12 (David and Bathsheba). The point is to protect marriage.[15] God wants us to have a partner in life, even if we can admit that celibacy is the plan of God for some.[16] In Canterbury Tales, the priest says that the commandment concerning adultery comes between the commandments on murder and theft because adultery is the greatest theft and the greatest murder, the theft of the body of the spouse and the murder of the one flesh union of spouses.
Jesus will refer to this commandment explicitly. While the sexual act of adultery may apply to many people, it will be a limited number. Jesus seems to broaden the command to apply to many more.[17] Matthew 5:27-30 are sayings regarding adultery. The new righteousness Jesus is explaining now touches upon the most personal of relationships, that of marriage. John 8:1-11 contains the response of Jesus to one caught in the act of adultery. Interestingly, he rejects the notion that the woman caught in adultery should receive the biblical penalty of stoning. My point here is that we can legitimately understand this as an abrogation of the death penalty for the other Ten Commandments as well. John 4 and the story of the woman at the well offer another story of Jesus with one who was clearly not sexually pure. Luke 7:36-50 tells the story of a woman with a bad reputation disturbing a dinner, at which Jesus offers her forgiveness. In this case, as a sentence of holy law (verses 27-28 from Matthew), Jesus again says that they have heard it said they should not commit adultery (the sixth commandment). However, Jesus says that anyone who looks at a woman to lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Such a statement is consistent with what Jews at the time taught concerning lust, as we see in the tenth commandment not to covet the wife of the neighbor. Even the ancient world in general would have agreed. Lust dehumanizes people into objects that we use for our own pleasure. We might be able to avoid the physical act of adultery and thus obey the law, but we forget that the emotional or psychological attachment of lust is just as destructive. Jesus here calls us not to merely avoid breaking the law but to avoid breaking the fidelity of marriage that supports community, trust and love. In an expansion (verses 29-30 from Mark 9:47), Jesus says that if the right (symbolic of good, precious, and important) eye causes sin, tear it out and throw it away. It would be better to lose a member of the body that for God to throw the whole body into hell. If the right hand causes sin, cut it off and throw it away. It would be better to lose a member than for God to throw the whole body into hell.
Jesus’ extended application of the commandment against adultery brings up several major issues. Notice the overlap between the seventh and eighth commandments and the tenth commandment. As Jesus observed, desire and acting on desire go hand in hand. This raises interpretive issues beyond that of the original separate commandments; but then again, so do most significant biblical texts when we try to interpret and apply them. The question is how far to go with this. The Ten Commandments inspire us to go well beyond their original statements, in that we use them as guiding principles (preferably principled) to use in deciding about wider behaviors in response to our covenant-making-and-keeping God, all in the light of Jesus Christ.
I offer a reflection on the notion of practicing high fidelity or matters of the heart. Every vice has its price.
The first task of interpreting this commandment is to free ourselves from its patriarchal baggage. The second is to embrace the wisdom that remains to guide us in right human relationships, to let the law awaken us to the possibility of binding covenantal love. If we ignore this wisdom, we risk wandering through life as lonely relational vagabonds. The chief purpo0se of sexuality, like all else in Hebrew faith, is to glorify God. To take the purpose of sexuality lightly is to forfeit its blessing. It is to play roulette with the future and watch it spin out of control.
Although the gospel narratives have several references to a saying of Jesus regarding divorce I will focus on the one contained in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. 31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Christians of every age have struggled to hear Jesus out and honor his wishes. Even today there remain those remarried divorcees willing to accept second-class church status as fair punishment for their sin, and pious eyes that still strain to look down or away whenever beauty draws near. Divorce, while still a wrenching experience, no longer carries the social stigma it once did. Few begrudge divorcees a second chance. A better understanding of abuse and mental cruelty has bolstered the prevailing view of divorce as an indispensable option, often even a salvation. While the dissolution of a marriage is still deemed a tragedy, especially where children are involved, subsequent remarriage is not labeled adultery. Jesus’ equation of a lustful heart with adultery is equally in jeopardy. Lust and beauty are woven into one seamless garment. Voyeurism is a trip to the mall or the grocery checkout line. Where does this leave Jesus’ teachings on adultery? Some view them as irrelevant to modern life; a few still wish to swallow them completely. Is there a middle ground, some means of appropriating their deeper wisdom without applying them prescriptively to the inscrutable world of human sexuality? The cost of severed covenant is always dear, exacting a price not only practical, but also spiritual. Perhaps, in our culture of casual sex, serial marriage, and multiple partnering, such a truth still speaks.
The covenant of marriage is more than a bond between two souls. It is a way of faithfulness that extends to all relationships, all realms of mutuality. While early, in love’s infancy, couples may stand face to face, in time, if love matures, they will turn cheek to cheek and face the world as one. Marriage finds its reason for being in a mission beyond itself.
Observance or even near-observance of this commandment alone would end the formation of the underclass. No amount of state aid can do what marriage and commitment to a spouse do to end poverty and almost all social pathologies.
The eighth commandment (Exodus 20: 15 and Deuteronomy 5:19, but also Exodus 21:16, Deuteronomy 24:7, Exodus 22:1-13) is 15 You shall not steal.
The Torah and the theological history of Israel present a strong case that Israel broke this commandment at deep levels, as in Joshua 7:1, 10-26 (Achan) and I Kings 21 (Ahab). The commandments have protected the person and spouse in the previous two commands, and they protect property. To steal is to acquire wrongfully the property of the neighbor. One can steal from one’s employer by not working properly. One can steal from customers by not providing the good or service that one indicated.[18] James 5:1-6 may well offer a Christian commentary upon this commandment.
I offer a brief reflection on robbing reputation.
The problem of sin is that it is profitable. – Walter Rauschenbusch
Who steals my purse, steals trash;
‘tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
--Othello, 3.3.157-161
The fallacy behind every act of robbery is the assumption of scarcity, the mind-set that there can never be enough stuff to go around. For us to have, we must take from others. Also false is the idea that in order to keep, we are not free to share. Both ways, generosity loses out. Only a faith in the plenitude of existence can teach us not to steal. Only a belief in the abundance of creation can convince us not to withhold what others need.
Adherence to this commandment would have made the evil form of slavery that took place in America impossible. Riots have the character of disrespect for the property of others. Smashing the property of others inevitably leads to the smashing of heads of persons.
The ninth commandment (Exodus 20: 16 and Deuteronomy 5:20, but also Exodus 23:1, Deuteronomy 19:16-19, Leviticus 19:16, Hosea 4:2, Jeremiah 7:9) is 16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Such truth telling in court can be a matter of life or death. Psalms often has complaints about false witness. We can see a relationship with the third and eighth commandments. Ancient Israel attached great value to the testimony of the witness. Note the disastrous effect of false testimony in the story concerning Naboth’s vineyard in I Kings 21. Legal proceedings placed the burden of proof on the accused. One had to prove innocence in the face of the accusation. In that sense, the whole world is a courtroom. We have moved from protection of body, to spouse, to property, and now to protection of our name or honor. Rather than spreading idle talk, follow what Jesus said in Matthew 18:15 and go to the person first. If you do, you have done a “precious and excellent” thing.[19] God hates falsehood, so we must cultivate truthfulness toward each other. Human beings tend to delight in sharing the faults of others. This commandment forbids listening to gossip and slander.[20]
Jesus offered a different perspective on this theme of false witness. Matthew 5:33-37 are sayings around oaths. The source is Matthew but with a relationship with James 5:12 as well. The point is that they are to let their word be yes or no. They are to be honest and truthful in all they do. Anything more than this comes from the evil one.
I offer a reflection on telling the truth and on cost of lying and truth telling. “We do not talk to say something, but to gain a certain effect.” – Joseph Goebbels
The abode of lies is the privacy of the heart. Their goal is to remain hidden. Although many falsehoods eventually get exposed, others go to the grace with their perpetrators. God alone knows for sure. The original setting of this commandment is the courtroom, where the stakes for truth telling are high and the penalties for crime are stiff.
In the biblical narrative, the first creature human beings encounter is a serpent, who introduces itself with a lie. “It will be okay to eat the forbidden fruit,” it tells us. So, she and Adam do. When later God seeks out the couple in the garden, they hide themselves, where we find deception number two. By the time God finds the underlying cause of it, Adam and Eve are prevaricating like there is no tomorrow. Human beings have been lying ever since. Yet, something in us does not like to lie. You may be an excellent liar, convincing in every way, but your own body will sell you down the river. The science of lie detection has long supposed this. Polygraphs bank on basic physiology. When we lie, we generate an automatic electrical and hormonal response. Deep in the recesses of the brain, we betray ourselves. The purpose of this internal lie detector is difficult to identify. Social interaction depends upon some degree of truth-telling, so we need to detect the lie within before we can detect it in others.
Sam Harris believes that we should never lie. In a short book called Lying, this neuroscientist makes the case that we can "radically simplify our lives and improve society by merely telling the truth in situations where others often lie." This is true even with white lies, which we tell for the purpose of sparing people discomfort. These are the lies that most often tempt us, because they seduce us into thinking that we are being good people when we tell them. He will make the case that most forms of private and public evil are rooted in lying. Adultery, financial fraud, government corruption -- all are connected to a willingness to lie. Lying is the intentional misleading of others when they expect honest communication. It always takes a toll on relationships, even when the deceptions are minor. Harris reports on research that suggests "that all forms of lying -- including white lies meant to spare the feelings of others -- are associated with less satisfying relationships." So, if you want a good relationship with your spouse, your children, your colleagues, your neighbors and your friends, then do one simple thing: Tell them the truth. Do not hide information that would help them to make changes and improve their lives. Don't encourage them to keep walking in directions that are going to hurt or disappoint them. "One of the greatest problems for the liar is that he must keep track of his lies," says Harris. "This can require an extraordinary amount of work -- all of which comes at the expense of communication." In short, the truth is easy. Lies are a lot of work. If you want to relax and feel comfortable with the people around you, tell the truth.[21]
Lying is the root of nearly all major evils. All totalitarian states are based on lies. Had the Nazis not lied about Jews, there would not have been a Holocaust. Only people who believed that all Jews, including babies, were vermin, could, for example, lock hundreds of Jews into a synagogue and burn them alive. That similar lies are told about Jews today by Arab governments and by the Iranian state should awaken people to the Nazi-like threat that anti-Semitism still poses. One can same about the ideological flavor of political discourse in the West. Classes of people, whether white people, white men, or the rich, have been at the receiving end of lies.
The tenth commandment (Exodus 20: 17 and Deuteronomy 5:21) is 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. The commandment suggests an emotional element that often leads to commensurate action. It suggests seizing objects for oneself. It suggests a wish for the appropriation of the property of another person for personal use. It suggests lust and inner desire for wealth. The final edition of the Torah and the theological history of Israel offer some prime examples of coveting. Genesis 3 is the story of the entry of sin and death into the world that disrupts the intimacy humanity had with God and with each other. We find coveting in the story of Achan (Joshua 7:1, 10-26), David coveted Bathsheba (II Samuel 11:1-12:15), King Ahab (I Kings 21: 1-20, 23-24) coveted the property of his neighbor. Deception is a reminder that we are good at hiding the rascal that resides in us. Dealing with the heart as it does, if we deal with this commandment, we will set aside reason for the other commandments.[22] We are to desire the best for the neighbor.[23]
I offer a reflection on the world of desire and desiring God.
He takes what he covets, and he covets what he sees. – From Silence of the Lamb
My son, better is to die than to be poor; for now Money is the world’s god. – Henry Peacham
I pay MasterCard with Visa. – Car bumper sticker
You made us for yourself, and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you. – Augustine
Eden is a place not only of great bounty but also of immense beauty. God goes to pains to make its fruits pleasant to the eye as well as satisfying to the stomach. This divine virtuosity in creation is a blessing in what might otherwise have been a very bleak cosmos. It is often argued that the loveliness of creation is ultimately what makes life worth living. God fills the world with things of beauty. Where there is beauty, there is majesty, or charm, and where neither of those, then at least interest. To covet is to want what is pleasant. Desire for what is pleasing is not itself bad; it is as natural as breathing. The world is a veritable smorgasbord of pleasantness. At issue in this commandment is whether and how we nurture and act upon our desires. Do not covet means do not crave that which is inappropriate to one’s relations with God and neighbor. Unchecked desire is the seedbed from which other violations of the law arise. Evil deeds plunder the world; covetousness plunders the heart.
The tree of knowledge sits in the middle of the garden. It is like all the others, pleasant to look upon and good for food. It is different as well. God has set it off limits, has forbidden the garden guests to draw near. They shall eat of its fruit only at the forfeit of their lives. The question we have about this story is always Why? Why put it there in plain view, where it can haunt us and taunt us and drive us insane? In the world God made, there are things we can see that we must not seize. To keep at arm’s length from the tree is really to embrace our own limits, to accept the parameters proper to being human. It is also to lave some room for blessing, to believe that, with due patience, goodness will come as a grace, without grasping. Meanwhile, there sits the tree. Adam and Even cannot take their eyes off it. Indeed, coveting is all about eyes. Long before the fruit touches their lips, they have already devoured it visually. Desire soon runs through every blood vessel to every corpuscle in ever far-flung recess of their beings. Adam and Eve have not yet eaten, but already the fruit has swallowed them whole, all because of a pair of staring eyes. This is how coveting works. It is a cruel affair, and we all know it. The tree lives in the middle of our lives as well, and we have tasted its fruit many times. In this way, we are all the offspring of Adam and Eve.
None of us is immune to this tendency of our time. We are bombarded with images of the rich and famous, of the over privileged few, and this has a corrosive effect on our hearts. We are so titillated by the desire to share their rare good fortune, or at least to live it vicariously, that we lose the capacity for empathy. This squabbling of the haves over the earth’s spoils is salt poured in the gaping wound of the true have-nots. I have resorted to shaming my children back from the brink of envy by contrasting their life situation with that of starving children all over the world. Such abstract comparisons rarely work. Covetousness is conquered not through guilt but through gratitude, less out of compunction than compassion. By experiencing life as trustworthy and good, children learn generosity. There is no substitute for the human encounter with grace.
America is awash in consumer household debt, as of 2000 it stood at $6.5 trillion. Many factors fuel such a trend. Some point a finger at inflation and the common sense that rising prices of products made saving to pay for things in cash lacking in sense. Ben Franklin’s admonition, “A penny saved is a penny earned,” joined the junk heap of history along with the layaway plan. After that, it took only a dash of deregulation and a touch of high tech innovation to birth the brave new world of revolving credit. Suddenly it was possible to have your heart’s desire, however large or small, years before you had to pay for it. The great democratization of credit promised more prosperous living for everyone. The young could join the ranks of the middle class before ever graduating from college. The newly unemployed could maintain accustomed levels of consumption right through an economic downturn. Even the poor could live rich by leveraging an endless future. The democratization of credit has been exposed as a myth. While the convenience of credit comes free for those who can pay off credit card debt in full each month, others have a different experience.
With this commandment’s prohibition of coveting, the commands come full circle. They have progressed from God to neighbor and back again. Coveting itself arises from desire turned askance from God. The Psalmist understood that we thirst for God, for to deny it is to deny a requirement for life and to shrivel. To turn in faith to God means to live without fear in the presence of people, things, and earthly desire. It is to know as the deer does, the source of living water. We continue to clutch at meaning and fulfillment in a close-fisted, cynical culture. Into this predicament is made an astonishing claim, old as Israel. No matter how far afield we wander, God is there to greet us and fill our deepest longing. More than we desire God, God desires us. The steadfast love of the Lord, ground of the universe, refuses to abandon us, but prods us gently, relentlessly back to itself.
The cultivation of class warfare -- i.e., the cultivation of coveting what richer citizens legitimately own -- inevitably leads to violating the other commandments, most particularly the ones that prohibit stealing and murdering.
Conclusion
This code is ancient and contemporary at the same time.
The way toward a reasonably healthy (not perfect) society is toward the cultivation of citizens who have regard for the Ten Commandments. A society that undermines these commandments will break itself. Properly understood, many of the problems in the world would dissolve if it followed this 3000 year old prescription. They are all humanity needs to make this a beautiful world. As modern men and women, we think we have come up with new ideas to make a good world. The truth is, in this area of human life, there is nothing new to say. If people and countries lived by the Ten Commandments, the great moral problems would disappear. To put it another way, the great evils of the world involve the violation of one or more of these commandments.
The discussion of each commandment supports the above paragraph. Broadly speaking, a social and political order that respects what religions are trying to do in directing people to consider that which ultimately concerns them is moving toward health. Such an ordering of society can be largely secular, in that it does not support any religious institution, but it recognizes and respects the need to have institutions that do such things. Providing an environment in which people can make their decisions in this regard, including the decision of atheism, is a step toward health. Broadly speaking, a society that respects the foundational role of family in honoring parents and honoring the marriage bond, as well as respecting property, life, and truth-telling, and discourages envy and coveting what others have gained in life, is a society moving toward health, wholeness, and goodness. Such a society is not perfect. It will still have crime. Some people will always feel alienated from the basic institutions of society. Others will develop an intellectual alienation that will be difficult to overcome, no matter how much goodness is available through participation in society. Yet, it will provide the basics necessary for healthy participation in the institutions of society.
I do not want to lose the point of these reflections. The Ten Commandments are a good way to read a large portion of the Old Testament. They help us understand the Torah and the theological history of Israel we find in Joshua, Samuel, and Kings. The central stories illustrate ways in which Israel was not faithful to the covenant the Lord made with them. When scholars break down the various levels of the Old Testament, whether with J (900s), E (800s), or the history itself (600s), we find the Ten Commandments a helpful interpretive tool. Israel broke the covenant in significant ways. The prophets themselves continually called the people and its kings back to this covenant. This story, which is not just history in the modern sense, but also a theological history, accomplishes three things. The first is that in exile, Jewish scholars conclude that they are to people of the Torah, as symbolized dramatically in the Ten Commandments. The Torah would become the way they identify themselves as the people of God. The second is that the Torah and the history demonstrate that God was just in bringing judgment upon Israel. God took away what God had promised – land, city, temple, and Davidic king. Third, we learn in the post-exilic period that their learning from all of this was that they were to restore to themselves the land, the city, the Temple, and a king. They learned quickly that a Davidic king would not be a possibility. However, they did not get their city back, and would build a wall around the city. They rebuilt the Temple. Their learning from the judgment of exile was that they needed an increasingly strict interpretation of Torah and obey it.
All of this will set up two things important for the New Testament. First, one can see that Jesus and Paul will run up against the Torah as interpreted in the first century Judaism. The New Testament is suggesting that the Jewish people of the exile, while learning some important things about themselves and God, made a mistake in focusing so much on the minute details of the Law. One could say that the way the Law became a hedge around the Jewish people brought shame to the name of the Lord among the nations. Thus, second, we see the New Testament embarking upon re-interpretation of the Old Testament. For Jesus, the Torah receives interpretation through the lens of the two great commandments, to love God with all the heart, and to love the neighbor as oneself. For Paul, what it will mean is that salvation is now by the grace of God shown in Christ, and by turning to that act of God by faith in what God has done in Christ, and therefore, significantly, apart from the Law. As we have seen, Jesus is already re-interpreting the Ten Commandments. This will lead to the New Testament re-thinking the entire Old Testament. It will do so by looking again at significant passages like Psalm 2, 22, and 118, as well as Isaiah 53. They will interpret the life of Jesus as a fulfillment in the sense that he is the Son who is the suffering servant of the Lord. They will interpret the mission of Israel to be a light to the nations as impossible as long as the Law is the center. The Law could only separate Israel from Gentiles. In this separation, Israel did not fulfill its God-giving mission to the nations. Instead, God set up a new covenant in Jesus Christ, a covenant that opens up the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and the prophets to the nations.
All of this has significant implications for scriptural interpretation and authority. What I would emphasize is that the New Testament opens the door for a conversation about what the people of God are to look like today. For example, when Jesus said that his disciples are to love their enemies, it might mean that the imprecatory Psalms that call for curses upon enemies might not be appropriate upon their lips, at least as written. It certainly means that the death penalty for disobedience to the covenant is not binding on the people of God today (John 8:1-11). The food limitations on the Jewish people are no longer binding upon the people of God. The death of Christ means that the one sacrifice necessary is one God has made, as Father and Son worked together for the one offering necessary for a sinful humanity. The resurrection of Jesus means many things for Christians, but one thing it means is that his approach to the Old Testament finds its justification in God raising him from the dead. The judgment of him by Jewish leaders and Roman alike is not the truth concerning him. Such a reality also means looking upon the appearance of the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament in a different way, as if pre-figuring the appearance of Jesus as the Son.
My suggestion is that the New Testament already does a critical reading of the Old. We need to read the New Testament carefully to see its use of the Old Testament. This will also keep us away from purely subjective judgments concerning passages that we simply do not like. Rather, we will have a solid basis for making such judgments, not so much in our preferences, but grounded in a reading of the Old Testament through the lens of the New.
JE combine in Exodus 19:1-25 and Exodus 20:18-21 to tell the story of the Sinai theophany. Neither Deuteronomy 26 nor Joshua 24 have a relation to a journey to the “mountain of God, whether Horeb or Sinai. The laws contained in the Book of the Covenant in 20:22-23:33 seem designed for the Tribal Federation. “Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain.” The Lord noted how “I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” If they obey and “keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” Moses tells the people what the Lord commanded him. The people respond that they will do what the Lord requires. The Lord comes to Moses in a dense cloud. Moses is to consecrate the people, and on the third day, “the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai.” They are not to get too close to the mountain under penalty of death. Only when the trumpet sounds can they come up the mountain. On the third day, there was thunder and lightning as well as the thick cloud. Moses brought the people out of the camp “to meet God.” Further, “the Lord” descended upon it in fire. The mountain shook violently. ‘Moses would speak and God would answer him in thunder.” Further, “the Lord descended upon Mount Sinai,” and summoned Moses to come up. However, “the Lord” then told Moses to go back down and warn the people not to break through to the Lord, or they would perish. Even the priests need consecration “or the Lord will break out against them.” Moses thinks they understand this, but the Lord wants him to go down and bring Aaron back with him. If others try to come, the Lord will break out against them. Von Rad has stressed that the point of the cultic separation of what is holy, of what is dedicated to God or related to God, and especially of the deity and the places and times of divine presence, is not just protect the holy against defilement by contact with the profane. It above all is to protect the world of the profane from the threat of the holy.[24] Otto in his work The Idea of the Holy will also stress this dimension of the separation of the holy from the profane. Pannenberg concludes that one can therefore see the holiness of God as primarily in divine judgment. He stresses that the holy threatens the profane world because God does not remain a totally otherworldly God, but manifests deity in the human world. Therefore, cultic times and places must be separate from the profane reality of life. The power of the holy, which is a threat to life in its destructive force, invades the human world in order to incorporate it into its own sphere. Incorporation into the divine sphere also means separation.[25]
Although today often identified with Jebel Musa in the southern Sinai Peninsula, Mount Sinai’s exact location is not known, and other peaks in the region (e.g., Jebel Serbal, Jebel Katharina) have been proposed in the past. In some strands of Jewish tradition, God deliberately concealed Mount Sinai’s location, for the region of the pre-eminent revelatory meeting of the human and divine was meant to remain terra incognita. Mountains have functioned as loci of divine-human encounters in many of the world’s religions, and they likewise figured prominently in the history of Israel’s religion, also. With their bases perceived to be reaching far into the earth and their peaks disappearing into the clouds/heavens/realm of the divine, such mountains as Mount Gerizim, Mount Ebal, Mount Hermon, Mount Nebo and Mount Tabor served as the topological links between heaven and earth. Even such artificial mountains as the ziggurats of Mesopotamia were understood to play an important intermediary role between the world of the gods and mundane reality. Mount Sinai played a particularly important part in the history of Israel’s religion, with only Mount Zion attaining comparable status. Whereas Mount Zion came to be identified with the end-time events of Israel’s eschatological future (especially in the book of Isaiah and later prophets), Mount Sinai represented the terminus a quo — the point from which Israel’s religious revelation flowed. Both, however, were understood to be the focus of divine blessing, not only for Israel but, through Israel, to all the nations of the earth. In that capacity, they served analogous functions, linking the beginning of time with the end of time or, in the formulation derived from Hermann Gunkel, “Endzeit gleich Urzeit” (end-time resembles primeval time). The mountain that Moses ascends and descends is usually called Mount Sinai in the literary traditions preserved by the Yahwist and Priestly writers, and it is sometimes called Mount Horeb in the Elohist and Deuteronomist traditions. Scholars have debated whether the earliest biblical traditions about a sacred mountain centered on Mount Horeb and were later transferred to (Mount) Sinai because of the tradition of wandering in the wilderness of Sinai. Alternatively, scholars wonder the Sinai traditions themselves were original; there is also some debate as to whether the names refer to the same location or to different mountains. Such questions cannot be decided definitively with the data presently available.
[1]
[2] Martin Luther, The Large Catechism, 2-29.
[3] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book Two, Chapter 8, section 16.
[4]
[5]
[6] Martin Luther, The Large Catechism, 32.
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11] Martin Luther, The Larger Catechism, 78-102.
[12] —Scott Russell Sanders, Hunting for Hope: A Father's Journeys (Beacon Press, 1998), 69.
[13] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book Two, Chapter 8, sections 39-40.
[14]
[15] Martin Luther, The Larger Catechism, 199-221.
[16] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book Two, Chapter 8, section 41-44.
[17]
[18] Martin Luther, The Larger Catechism, 222-253.
[19] Martin Luther, The Larger Catechism, 254-290.
[20] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book Two, Chapter 8, 47-48.
[21] Harris, Sam. Lying. Four Elephants Press, 2013. 4, 8, 16, 29-30, 33-34, 40.
[22] Martin Luther, The Larger Catechism, 292-
[23] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book Two, Chapter 8, section 49-59.
[24] Old Testament Theology, I, 204ff. In addition, one can read O. Procksch in TDNT, I, 88ff, but especially in 91ff.
[25] Systematic Theology, I, 398.
No comments:
Post a Comment