All these words

Exodus 20: 1-20, OT page 66 Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. 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. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. 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. Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it. Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 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. 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, and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” 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.” Sermon Most of these words I imagine that you’ve heard many times before. The 10 Commandments are as familiar as any other passage of Scripture. These words are not only here in Exodus chapter 20, but reoccur in Deuteronomy chapter 5, then you can see them outside or inside of courthouses all over this country, and religious groups will put up a fight should anyone threaten to move them. If you drive out near Zion School there are a yard signs with the 10 Commandments printed on them, and if you are anything like me, you’ve heard about these commandments for your whole life, but something that I’ve only recently noticed is how the people reacted the first time they heard them: “they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.”” God appeared to them with thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking – all of which are terrifying, but there are few things as terrifying as the voice of one who names the wrong that you embody. I had some blood work done for cholesterol. There were needles involved, which I don’t care for very much, but infinitely worse is the voice of a doctor affirming your fear; it’s in the case of your blood test results when you’d prefer a computer print-out that is impossible to discern rather than a color coded one that clearly defines your level of fitness by putting you right into the red. Do not let God speak to us – because God is too much like my little sister’s speech pathologist. She was six and had what we all thought was the cutest lisp that anyone ever heard. She wasn’t Elizabeth, but Elizabuth, and we all loved hearing her say it until the evaluation came home and all of a sudden what we called cute was a problem that needed to be corrected. There are so many things in life that I’d rather just leave in the gray, leave undefined, never really look at or address – my cholesterol, my body mass index, or my sin – but God spoke all these words and opened my eyes to what is broken. “I am the Lord your God,” we hear, which means that if the Lord is God than you are not and neither am I. There can be no more idols – no more ideologies or philosophies that govern my life – no goals that become more important to me than living in the righteousness defined by my Lord and God. The Lord’s name is not to be used flippantly, but with respect – not for manipulation but honored and set apart. The Sabbath day is to be a day of rest, for if our God could create all that there is – the sun and the moon and the stars in the sky in six days than what makes you think that you need to work on the seventh. Honor your father and your mother, for family, even with all its imperfections, is still flesh and blood. You shall not murder, nor commit adultery, nor shall you steal or accuse your neighbor falsely. With eyes tuned to what you don’t have in covetousness you’ll have no time left to be thankful, so yes – the television piping in commercials, the magazine adds, and the longing in your heart when you see something that you really want – the word isn’t wishful thinking or window shopping, it is coveting and it’s time to give it up. It’s time to name it – that’s what God is doing here – saying that it’s time to name the wrong, because all that is wrong will continue if it remains unaddressed and unnamed. But I for one will resist hearing such defining words as long as I possibly can. I can relate to the ones who cry, begging for God to stop with the words, because once the sin is named I fear it will name me. If you’re anything like me, than in such a circumstance of being in the wrong, knowing somewhere within you but not wanting the wrong named, then you’ll call on the friend who brings with him sympathy and understanding, rather than the friend who provides honesty and advice. Years ago, the day after a baptism went all wrong I had breakfast with my friend George. I told him that the mother had asked me to do the baptism, but that as I was the Associate Pastor, the Senior Pastor I worked with thought it would be better if she did the honors. I submitted to her request, but I never told the mother and no one else did either, so she tried to hand the baby to me at the baptismal font and her face dropped when the Senior Pastor stepped in. She should have been smiling, but her face went from an expression of disappointment to an expression of severe anger, all while her baby was being baptized, and when I recounted all of this to George I wanted sympathy. But instead, he looked at me squarely and said, “Well Joe, you messed up, and I mean you really messed up. But it’s OK, because you’re going to do better next time.” As soon as it has a name shame gets involved doesn’t it, but until it has a name, until you hear words like those, you can’t do anything about it and the sin persists. But worse than that, until your sin has a name, until the words are spoken and your sin stands boldly right defined right in front of you so you can’t deny it anymore, until you see yourself clearly in the wrong, it’s not so easy to see your Savior standing right there over it either. Paul said it as well as it can possibly be said, “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord… to be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based in faith.” When I hear the law, and more so, when I hear my violation of it named, I know so clearly my need and I know so clearly that there is no righteousness of my own – if there is any righteousness within me it comes from Christ. Too many of you will still cry to hear your sin named. You will still hide behind the good that you’ve done when confronted with the bad. But so long as you go on ignoring the sin that is in you, you will fail to see the righteousness that is in him. Too often we think that grace is a God who looks the other way; that forgetting is just as good if not a little bit better than forgiveness. But the more you know your need for a savior, the more the savior of our world will be yours. Amen.