St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church

Rev. Gary Paterson

October 26, 2008

Many years ago, when I was a child in Sunday School, memory work was still one of the preferred ways of making sure that we got our Bible. Stars were distributed lavishly – a red one of the Lord’s Prayer – pretty easy because you said it every day in school; a blue one for the Beatitudes, a green one for the 23rd Psalm; and best of all, a great big shiny gold star for reciting the Ten Commandments, word perfect, in proper order, in the King James Version. The Big Ten...

Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Honour thy father and they mother.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet they neighbour’s wife nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

I was proud of my gold star; and you can see that the memory has stuck. Mind you, I’m not sure that I ever really understood them. I was pretty vague on the “graven image” stuff; and whenever I asked my Mum to explain adultery, she always replied, “Not now dear; when you’re older you’ll understand.” But when I pointed out to her, about the last one, about coveting… that I didn’t covet my best friend, Charlie Cornfield’s, house, and even if he had an ox or an ass, I wouldn’t be wanting one, no way. That’s when my Mum gave me my first lesson in biblical hermeneutics, a fancy word I learned years later, which simply means figuring out how to get from back there to right here; figuring out how the Bible could talk in our language. My Mum said, “You want to know what coveting is all about, you just think about how you feel every time you see Brian Maule’s new bike.” And I interrupted her, “You mean the blue racer; the first and only three-speeder in the neighbourhood; the bike that is soooooo different from my own second-hand clunker….. Oh, I get it.” I’ve never forgotten number ten… don’t covet.

Some years ago a colleague of mine offered a new rendition of the Ten Commandments, good hermeneutics; I’ve forgotten the rest of the sermon, but I’ve remembered the update. (from a sermon preached by Rev. Bari Castle, Jan. 10, 1999 at Ryerson United Church; no other source attributed.)

One: “You shall have no other gods before me. In the first place, because I am the One God. In the second place, because any gods you invent can’t do anything for you. Give nothing else my place in your hearts.”

Two: “No more golden calves. You look silly bowing down to little statues that you yourselves have made, and besides, you don’t need them. You have me.”

Three: “Don’t throw my name around. A name is a very personal thing, and the fact that you know mine is a sign of our closeness.”

Four: “Keep the Sabbath, not for my sake but for yours. One day a week, stop working and remember that you are more than what you do.”

Five: “Honour your father and mother. Whatever kind of job they did on you, they are still your roots. Lose them and you lose your place in the story.”

Six: “Don’t murder. However dubious it may seem to you, all life is precious to me, including yours.”

Seven: “Don’t mess around with marriage vows, your own or anyone else’s. Working to keep your promises is the best chance you have of growing up. If you make a mistake, end it honourably, and then start new.”

Eight: “Don’t take what doesn’t belong to you. Life may not be fair, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be.”

Nine: “Don’t give your word on things you know aren’t true. Your word is as much a part of you as your arm or your leg. Twist it, and you will limp. Why would you dod that to yourself?”

Ten: “Don’t fondle other people’s things in your mind as if they were your own. You’ll not only resent them for having things, you’ll soon resent yourself for not having them too.”

You know, we need laws. Oh I know, it’s always a bit fashionable to buck against the system, and I’m sure we all know one or two lawyer jokes. But laws like the Big Ten… they’re important; we need them. As Orwell once said, “On the whole, human beings want to be good…. but not too good… and not all the time.” Exactly! Sounds similar to that truism about putting locks on doors… it’s not to keep thieves out, but to keep honest people honest. Not too good, not all the time. Not those times when coveting gets the better of me, and greed glides around my feet. When elbows are sharp; when conscience gets muted. Throw in a little lust, a good war, clever advertising… No I don’t trust my own inclinations, not completely. I am grateful that there is a structure of meaning… the Ten Best Ways to live as the commandments get parsed in our children’s Sunday School experience with Godly Play….that informs and shapes my life, no, my daily living.

Law functions as a restraint… a list of “thou-shalt-nots” marks certain actions and behaviours as off-bounds; it forces us to carefully consider our choices, especially if they appear to contradict a larger wisdom. It means, “Be careful of rationalizations when making ethical decisions.”

Makes me think of a story… a true one, I’ve been told. Young captain, so proud of his new battleship; stands on the bridge 24/7, it seems. Such a ship… so big, so powerful. So when a light is seen flashing on the portside, the captain has no hesitation in having his signal man send off, “Alter your course 10 degrees to the north.” Imagine his chagrin when a message came back, “Alter your course 10 degrees to the south.” Well, he was swift to respond, “Attention! Alter your course 10 degrees to the north, immediately. This is the captain.” To his intense annoyance came back the reply. “Alter your course 10 degrees to the south; I am Seaman, Third Order, Jones.” The captain’s final message was brief, “Move. Now. This is a battleship.” But then he received a final message, “Have it your way, then. This is a lighthouse.”

The Big Ten as a lighthouse… signaling danger; saying, you break these laws, these ten best ways to live, and you’re probably going to be in big trouble. So watch out; pay attention; travel in this area knowing you might be in danger of losing your soul, losing sight of who you really are, at your best. Like medieval maps which made liberal use of “Here be Dragons” to keep all travelers informed and aware, the commandments point to the hard questions; they mark the rocks on which we might founder.

Just the other day someone sent me a new set of commandments, designed for the world of bloggers on the net. Now, the internet is prized for its freedom and near anarchy, but sometimes… well … listen:

One: You shall not put your blog before your integrity.

Three: You shall not misuse your screen name by using your anonymity to sin.

Five: Honour your fellow-bloggers above yourself, and do not give undue significance to their mistakes.

Six: You shall not murder someone else’ honour, reputation or feelings.

Ten: You shall not covet your neighbour’s blog ranking. Be content with your own content.

Restraint; warning signs… the kind of thing I think Mr. Greenspan could have used, and all the other Wall Street folk and their political allies who cried, “Deregulation. Trust the market. Trust me.” Greed, and the drive for more and more and more, were somehow sanitized; where was a good prophet when you needed one?! Hadn’t they heard about sin? About our human inclination to want it all, and then some; and to heck with the other guy when push comes to shove. We have ignored the lighthouse and crashed onto the rocks. Enough of this bull and bear stuff; we have a huge dragon on our hands!

But, you know, there’s a lot more to the Big Ten, to law, than just saying no, pointing out the rules that you break at your own peril. I like the Jewish word for law, “Torah”, because it actually means “Teaching.” The Law, the Teaching, helps us understand ourselves, to be honest about our mixture of motives; to develop a way of living that is congruent with holy values… ways of acting that enhance life, make it richer, more just, more compassionate, more loving. Torah, Law, is a gift; a lamp unto our feet, a light that not only warns of the looming rocks, but one that actually illuminates the path, that shows us the way.

I remember finishing last week’s sermon, where the focus was on our encounter with holiness… remember, “The Backside of Glory”? I found myself thinking that it was really Part One of a two-part sermon. We begin with an experience of the presence of God; some sense of awe, or wonder, of connectedness, small but included. But then… after… ordinary life. And the key question there is, “How then shall we live?” What impact does our belief in God have, our memory of encounter, our conviction of holy presence? How do we live differently, in congruence with that experienced reality? Isn’t that always the Monday morning question, when the Sabbath is over? When the law is struggling to respond to those very real and lived questions, then that’s law at its best.

Which isn’t always the case. Because like any gift, the Law can be misused. And frequently is; perhaps inevitably is. The deep underlying spiritual wisdom underlying the law gets forgotten, lost. And then it’s just a rule for its own sake. Law suddenly becomes a weapon with which to hurt other people; to seek to control others; all of a sudden it’s about power-games; and political, religious correctness; obedience enforced. And no questions please.

I’ve been told that Calvin’s perfect city of Geneva sure wasn’t perfect for everyone; people were tripping over too many rules. Or remember the Puritans’ reliance on their Blue Laws to enforce proper behaviour? -- I remember reading about a Captain Kemble of Boston, who, in 1656, spent time in the public stocks. The reason? The law he had broken? Well, he was convicted of “lewd and unlawful behaviour: -- seemed he had dared to kiss his wife, in public, on the doorstep of his house, on the Sabbath. He had just returned that morning from three years at sea, and, unfortunately, and illegally, got carried away.

Which means that the law, the Big Ten, always need to be held up to the light – what’s really happening here? Are changes needed to uphold the original, underlying intent of a particular law? Does the tradition need to be challenged, even reformed? Which seems like what Hu Jia is doing, a Chinese citizen who this week was awarded, by the European Union, the Sakharov Prize for Human Rights Work – even as he remains in jail in China, for being an enemy of the State. And perhaps this a good Sunday for a denominational tradition like ours, that traces its roots to the Protestant Reformation, to remember the truth that the law is always needing to be reformed. For almost exactly 491 years ago, on the last Sunday of October, 1517, Martin Luther marched into the city square of Wittenberg, and nailed his 95 challenges to Catholic Church Law, and the Reformation was launched. Ever since, that “Protesting Principle” has remained at the centre of our tradition – the willingness to change statements of faith, to reshape elements of doctrine – not for the sake of change, or to accommodate the self-indulgence of any given society or culture – but rather, to try and get back to the heart of the matter. What were the underlying principles of the Big Ten, and how do we live that purpose now, today?

I would suggest that Jesus was a classic Reformer – someone who loved the Torah so much that he challenged all interpretations which limited abundant, faithful living. One day, when his religious opponents were trying to catch him out, they demanded that he name the most important of the ten commandments – sort of like a David Letterman arrangement…. And Number One is…. No matter what Jesus chose, he would have opened himself up to endless criticism about the nine he didn’t choose. But rather than play the game, Jesus moved right to the centre of the issue, and suddenly the Big Ten became the Two: love God; love your neighbour – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind; love your neighbour as yourself.” Jesus took a verse from Deuteronomy and another from Leviticus, yoked them together, and offered a way of life, a way to holiness, to wholeness.

It involves some pretty radical freedom, as we “law of love” people try to figure out exactly what it means to love God and neighbour. But the problem isn’t new. According to the gospel of Luke, the scribe who actually asked Jesus the original question was the first to raise the issue with his follow-up question, “But who is my neighbour?” And you will remember Jesus’ answer – not a more detailed, case-specific law, but a story – the Good Samaritan; your neighbour is whoever is hurting, whoever is in need right in front of you; the person you stumble over here and now. The apostle Paul ran into problems in the early church, as these new communities struggled to live into these two laws. Seems it can be pretty hard to always love your neighbour, especially that so and so who is breaking the law; or the one who is just plain irritating. Hold on said Paul; remember, “Love is patient; love is kind; love not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way… it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.” And then there’s James’ letter, where he tears a strip off a church that was so deeply in love with God that they didn’t see the need to offer food to hungry neighbours. “You’re missing the whole idea,” yelled James. Yes, there have been protestors and reformers from the beginning.

They recognized that living the law of love had to be rooted in commitment and action. It wasn’t a question of feelings, which come and go, and depend on the vagaries of time and personality. No, it was all about doing love – hands, feet, heart, pocketbook, time…. the daily, the concrete, the specific. I spent a couple of days with grandchildren this past week – and once again discovered how nitty-gritty love is – twelve-thirty at night; Abby wets the bed… new place, new conditions; perfectly understandable, and okay, almost. But not for her; she is so upset, inconsolable… screaming; non-stop; for a long, long time – long enough to wake her younger brother, and rouse him to an all out, lengthy fit of screaming. Do you love these two little humans? Of course… but you have to think about it for a moment; to remind yourself. It isn’t the first feeling that you have. And then you do what needs to be done, no matter how sleep-deprived you may be; I learn a lot about love by watching my daughter, this mother of two.

Clearly loving involves an awful lot of doing. And it takes a lot of “practice, preparation and perspiration” (a phrase used by Brian Stoffregen in his blog, quoting Dudley’s Dog Days: Joining Faith to Life by Harley G. Rusch). It takes commitment and work. As the folksinger Si Kahn has said,

It’s not just what you’re born with,

it’s what you choose to bear.

It’s not how large your share is,

but how much you can share.

It’s not the fights you dream of,

but those you really fought.

It’s not just what you’re given,

it’s what you do with what you’ve got.

For what’s the use of two strong legs,

if you only run away?

What good is the finest voice,

if you’ve nothing good to say?

What good are strength and muscles,

if you only push and shove?

What’s the use of two good ears,

if you can’t hear those you love?

What if we were to live a life rooted in and shaped by this two-fold Law of Love: love God, and love your neighbour as yourself? What if the question we brought to every situation was, “What is the most loving thing to do here?” If that were our primary perspective… when we are with family, friends; at work; in church; in our pleasures; our interactions with the natural world… what is the most loving action in this situation? It won’t result in predictable black and white answers; it might move from a reconciling hug to something like tough love. It won’t make life easier… but it will change your life; it offers a path, a way into a new creation, a holiness that you can scarce imagine. And how that impacts the world, maybe only God can imagine. An old song that remains close to my heart:

We will work with each other,

we will work side by side.

We will walk with each other,

we will walk hand in hand.

And together we’ll spread the news

that God is in our land.

And they’ll know we are Christians

by our love, by our love,

yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

May it be so. Amen.