In the current issue of The Christian Century, Tom Long, who
teaches preaching at Candler Seminary in Atlanta writes about our
lesson.(1) He says, "Something's missing in the current culture
war over the Ten Commandments. I knew about Judge Roy Moore, the
now-removed chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who waged
and lost a stubborn fight to keep a Ten Commandments monument in
his courthouse. What slipped past me is just how much this
monument of his weighs: 5,280 pounds, or just over 500 pounds per
commandment."
"Judge Moore has been lugging this hefty monster around from
one public appearance to another on the back of a flatbed truck.
Joshua Green, writing in the Atlantic Monthly, notes that
whenever the truck returns to Alabama, 'a 57-foot yellow I-beam
crane that spans the ceiling of the Clark Memorials warehouse
drops down to retrieve the Rock from its chariot, and even this
one - a five-ton crane! - buckles visibly under the weight.' I
know that Jesus once scolded the Pharisees for neglecting the
weightier matters of the law, but somehow this I-beam-bending
version of the Decalogue seems way out of proportion."
Tom is looking to make a serious point, of course. In the
popular religious consciousness, the Ten Commandments have
somehow become burdens, weights and heavy obligations. We
remember when that incredible "Mouth of the South," Ted Turner,
the creator of the Cable News Network, declared some years ago
that the Ten Commandments were obsolete. He told members of the
National Newspaper Association in Atlanta that they do not relate
to current global problems, such as overpopulation and the arms
race. "We're living with outmoded rules," Turner said. "The
rules we're living under are the Ten Commandments, and I bet
nobody here even pays much attention to 'em, because they are too
old. When Moses went up on the mountain, there were no nuclear
weapons, there was no poverty. Today, the commandments wouldn't
go over. Nobody around likes to be commanded. Commandments are
out."
Well, nobody talks much about Ted Turner anymore, but the
Ten Commandments? That's another story. You have those
billboards that have popped up next to major thoroughfares that
say things like, "If you keep taking my name in vain, I'll make
rush hour longer," or "What part of 'Thou shalt not' don't you
understand?" and they are signed simply GOD. Granted, most
surveys that ask about the Ten Commandments find that the vast
majority of folks say that the Decalogue is still valid for
today, even though the majority of those who say that cannot name
even five of the ten.
One wag has said, "Everybody looks for different things in
the Ten Commandments. Some look for Divine guidance, some look
for a code to live by, but most of us are looking for
loopholes."(2) Perhaps. It is true that many folks think of the
commandments as rules for on personal behavior. "THOU SHALT
NOT..." Others consider them shackles placed on a rebellious
society. For both groups, a two-and-a-half-ton rock sitting on
the bed of a truck is a perfect symbol. Have we forgotten that
the gods of Babylon were heavy idols that had to be trucked
around? "These things you carry," the prophet Isaiah jabbed,
"are loaded as burdens on weary animals."(3)
Understanding the Ten Commandments as a set of burdens
overlooks something essential, namely that they are prefaced not
by an order - "Here are ten rules. Obey them!" - but instead by
a wonderful announcement of freedom: "I am the LORD your God, who
brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery." We will
probably always refer to the verses that follow as the "Ten
Commandments," but we can also think of them as descriptions of
the kind of life that is typical when we have been truly
liberated. These are not really LAWS - they have no penalties
attached for breaking them. In the Hebrew Bible, they are known
simply as the TEN WORDS - God's words describing a way of life
that guarantees, to coin a phrase, "liberty and justice for all."
Go through the list. The first commandment: "You shall have
no other gods before me." On it's face, that sounds like the
plaintive cry of a god who is afraid of being ignored or
supplanted, like a teenage boy who is terrified that his girl
friend might dump him - a pretty wimpy god. But this is not
about God; this is about US. "I am the Lord your God, the one
who freed you to live life to the fullest. You do not need any
other." You do not need the great god MONEY that has caused so
much dissatisfaction in life because of the mad dash to acquire
more and more, to keep up with the Joneses and never quite making
it. You do not need the great god BUSINESS with family, friends,
church, loving relationships all lost because too much time and
effort has to be expended to keep up with the competition. Nor
do you need good old Bacchus - the ancient god of PLEASURE - who
ends up accepting the sacrifice of how many dead on America's
highways because of drunk drivers, how many hooked on drugs, how
many afflicted in the world-wide AIDS epidemic? No, you need no
other gods than the one who has given you freedom, certainly not
those gods who would take it all away.
The second command: no idols. You do not need them. The
god who has liberated you is not about to abandon you when you
are in need. You do not need to carve a hunk of wood to show off
to your neighbors what a neat God you have. You do not even need
to carve a 5000-pound chunk of granite, because, quite frankly,
some people will end up worshiping THAT and doing themselves and
their neighbors more harm than good. No. No idols.
Commandment #3: "You shall not misuse the name of the Lord
your God." Or in the language of the King James Version, "Thou
shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God IN VAIN." Be careful
of misunderstanding this one. Despite what your grandmother told
you and that billboard to which we referred earlier, this is not
a rule about not using God's name as an expletive. This is one
more description of a truly liberated life. You see, in bygone
days, people would, in the conduct of normal business, swear by
the name of God that they would do this or not do that. Such
swearing was the equivalent of a guarantee that this verbal
contract would be carried out. Unfortunately, people being
people...and egregious sinners at that...folks would be tempted
to engage in such promises knowing full well that they had no
intention of following through. Fraud. God says NO. People
knowingly defrauding one another is not part of a truly liberated
life. The command could have just as easily read DO NOT DEFRAUD
as DO NOT MISUSE MY NAME.
Number 4: "Remember the sabbath day by keeping it holy."
No, this has nothing to do with being in synagogue on Saturday or
church on Sunday. It does not mean no ball games, no picnics, no
fun, as some of us were taught. This is not an insecure deity's
way of insisting that we set aside some "God" time. Instead,
this is one more word of freedom. The God who has liberated you
is the same one who wants to give you and yours a break. "Six
days you shall labor and do all your work." Then TAKE A BREAK!
And not only you, but everyone who works for you - your children,
your slaves, your day laborers, even your livestock. Freedom!
Commandment #5: "Honor your father and your mother." Does
that mean be nice to them? Don't talk back? Keep your room
clean? Never let them have reason to complain, "You never write;
you never call?" As you scholars know, the ancient world
understood children to be the basic providers of social security.
When parents got too old to manage, the children (who were all
living there anyway - several generations would be under the same
tent) would provide the care. If that system broke down, a
crucial underpinning of a liberated society would be removed and
ALL generations would be at risk.
Number 6: "You shall not murder." This one is difficult to
misunderstand. No decent society, liberated or captive, can
tolerate the willy-nilly taking of life.
Number 7: "You shall not commit adultery." Each week a New
York youngster would bring home from Sunday School an illustrated
card that dramatized one of the Ten Commandments. The first week
showed people worshiping at church. Another week, to illustrate
"Thou shalt not kill," the picture showed Cain in the act of
slaying Abel. The child's father reports: "I was waiting with
considerable alarm for the seventh week. But fortunately, tact
and delicacy prevailed. Under the caption, "Thou shalt not
commit adultery" was a picture of a dairyman, leering
villainously, as he poured a huge pail of water into a can of
milk.(4)
That's good because, perhaps surprisingly, illicit sex is
not the primary concern here. You see, the biblical definition
of adultery is very narrow - it does not paint with the broad
brush of meaning any sex outside of wedlock. The biblical
concept of adultery refers to a man having sexual intercourse
with another man's wife. The problem comes from subsequent
children this woman might have: who's your Daddy? That becomes a
major concern when passing on property from one generation to the
next: it is harder to keep the property in the family when there
are conflicting claims about who fathered the heir. The word is
DO NOT ADULTERATE THIS FAMILY UNIT (just as an unscrupulous
dairyman might adulterate the milk) by introducing some "foreign"
element into it, and creating a mess in determining who is family
and who is not.
Number 8: "You shall not steal." Another no-brainer. Under
the category of the things I learned in kindergarten. The God
who has given you freedom has given your neighbor freedom as
well, so a truly liberated life will find people respecting one
another's property.
Nine: "You shall not give false testimony against your
neighbor." No, this has nothing to do with simply telling lies
about someone or gossiping across the back fence. This one is
about the court system. Even in a liberated society, disputes
will arise. If you go into court, God says tell the truth. A
decent and just society is dependant upon a trustworthy legal
system to resolve conflicts.
And finally, Number 10: "You shall not covet." This is
another one that is wildly misunderstood, and the reason it is is
because folks do not read the whole thing. Read the rest...and
note the specifics...house, wife, slaves, ox, donkey, property in
general (and, yes, back in those days, wives were considered
property). The prohibition is not all-inclusive. It does not
say that we are not to want things - food for our babies, a
decent home for ourselves, the money to pay for school for our
kids. It is FINE and even NOBLE to want all that, but it is NOT
fine, and certainly not noble, to set our hearts on what
rightfully belongs to someone else. That is why I have such
problems with a federal budget that cuts funds for medical
research, health care, education, anti-poverty programs, and
takes away the food stamps from 300,000 kids while taking that
money and giving it plus billions more to the one-percent of the
American people who make above $400,000 per year. This Robin
Hood-in-reverse approach of taking from the poor and giving to
the rich is nothing less than immoral. The word about not
coveting is an affirmation that the things that sustain life
belong to all, not only a favored few.
It was Boxing Day, December 26, 1989. Romania was in
turmoil. The previous day, President Nicolae Ceausescu, unable
to quell the tide of dissent in Bucharest, had been tried and
executed. Now no one was in charge. Western reporters flooded
into the country from the south, searching for someone who could
speak English. Finally they found someone, and in one sentence
she summed up not only Romania's predicament, but the human
condition: "We have freedom," she said, "but we don't know what
to do with it."(5) That was God's gracious purpose in giving the
Ten Commandments to Israel - they were free now. This would be
how to handle the freedom.
Tom Long says, "If we want to symbolize the presence of the
Ten Commandments among us, we would do well to hold a dance. The
good news of the God who set people free is the music; the
commandments are the DANCE STEPS of those who hear it playing.
The commandments are not weights, but wings that enable our
hearts to catch the wind of God's Spirit and to soar."(6) Listen
and live.
Amen!
1. "Living by the Word," The Christian Century, March 7, 2006, p. 17
2. James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited, (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc,
1988), p. 456
3. Isaiah 46:1
4. Hewett, p. 457
5. David F. Wells, "God Spoke These Words," The Christian Century, 3/15/00, p. 301
6. loc. cit.
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