Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
October 5, 2008

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Because I’m about to say some things about the Ten Commandments that some of you might not like, let me say right up front that if the Ten Commandments are important to you, that’s fine. I have no desire to take them away from you if you find them particularly meaningful. A lot of people do. Let me also say right up front, however, that I am not one of those people. I think that far too much is made of the Ten Commandments, especially by people who want to post them in courthouses, an act that my legal training convinces me is a clear violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. So when the Ten Commandments came up in the lectionary for this week my first thought was that there was no way I was going to preach on them. But then I thought maybe my resistance to them was telling me something. Maybe it was telling me that I needed to spend some time with them to see if I’ve been missing something all these years by dismissing them as flippantly as I usually do. So I did. I went over them again slowly, carefully, trying to draw out of them something of value, or at least to understand better why they seem so important to so many people and so unimportant to me. This sermon is the result of that time spent pondering the Ten Commandments anew.

The first thing to say about the Ten Commandments is that there is nothing wrong with them. At least, there is nothing much wrong with the parts of the full text of Ten Commandments that we heard this morning, other than the uncritical acceptance of slavery. They state some important moral principles. We should indeed not murder, steal, or commit adultery, although our definition of adultery is different than the ancients’ definition was. They, or at least some of them, are pithy statements easy to remember, easy to teach to children who are just learning right from wrong. They state some basic moral principles that some people at least still all too frequently ignore and violate. There is value in the Ten Commandments, and I don’t mean to suggest that there isn’t.

But here’s what struck me as I mused on the Ten Commandments this last week. When someone asked Jesus which of the commandments is the greatest, he quoted a couple of passages from Hebrew Scripture in giving his answer; but he didn’t quote the Ten Commandments. He didn’t even quote one of them, much less all ten. Rather, he quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. He said, in a passage we know as “the Great Commandment”:

'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Matthew 22:37-40

He said love God with all your being and love your neighbor as yourself. He said on these two hang all the law and the prophets, that is, on these two hang all of Scripture. These are the highest moral principles—love God with all your being and love your neighbor as yourself. Everything else is details. Everything else is commentary. The Ten Commandments don’t say the same thing. They say worship only Yahweh your God. They do not say love God with all your being. They say do not covet what your neighbor has. They do not say love your neighbor as yourself.

In the Great Commandment Jesus calls us to higher moral ground than the moral ground the Ten Commandments occupy. The Ten Commandments are rules. The Great Commandment is a call to love. The Ten Commandments are mostly negative. They are mostly prohibitions. The Great Commandment is positive. It is a call to a better life, a call to a better way. The Ten Commandments are specific and closed off. The Great Commandment is general and open-ended. The Ten Commandments are prescriptive and proscriptive. The Great Commandment is invitational. The Ten Commandments command. They tells us mostly what not to do. The Great Commandment calls. It calls us to creativity and to adventure as we seek new ways of living God’s call to love in our time and place. The Ten Commandments set a moral floor, as all law does. The Great Commandment calls us to higher ground, to a higher, grander, more faithful moral vision.

So there isn’t anything much wrong with the Ten Commandments. Some people may find them helpful reminders when their neighbor’s donkey, or wife, looks just too tempting and thoughts of larceny or adultery creep into their minds. We should keep them, even if we shouldn’t put them up in any courthouse. But let us always remember that Jesus Christ calls us to higher moral ground. Jesus calls us not to laws that provoke fear of violation but to love that conquers all fear. Jesus calls us to freedom in love, not to bondage in law. So obey the Ten Commandments by all means, but don’t stop there. Jesus calls us to higher ground. May God grant us wisdom and courage as we seek our way to that higher ground. Amen.