This morning we heard one of the most famous passages of scripture in the whole Bible.  We heard what is commonly known as “The Ten Commandments” – and most of us will conjure up a picture of Charlton Heston – or maybe even Cecil B. DeMille’s production when we think about Moses and the Ten Commandments.  In our church tradition, this passage is called the Decalogue – literally “ten words” from God because of references in Deuteronomy to the ten words or ten things that were written in stone on Sinai.  Moses reported hearing ten things from God on the Holy Mountain. 

      Today I want to interrupt what has been a preaching series on the Gospel of Matthew’s instructions for how to live in community because here is the oldest example in our scripture of just that – instruction for how to live in community.   I feel compelled this morning to tell you how I have learned to hear this passage of scripture that is so familiar.  The passage begins by telling us that God spoke all these words, reminding the people first that God brought the people out of the house of slavery.   God has brought the people out of the narrow place – mitzrayim – out of a very tight spot – also known as Egypt.  This is their new beginning – a fresh starting point for the community – another chance to live in an entirely new way.  And God is expressing God’s will – God’s desire for God’s people.  “Listen,” God is saying, “I have moved you out  from a place of dishonor and disrespect.  You are free.  You are no longer trapped.  You are no longer bound.  You are not enslaved.  I have redeemed you.  You are valuable.  You are precious to me.  And here’s how you, my beloved, will behave when you have no other gods more important than me.  Here’s how it will be when you know deep in your hearts that you are my people.”

      Now it’s hard NOT to think of these words as regulations – but there actually aren’t any provisions for what happens when they are not listened to.  They are not regulations.  (And by the way, there are not ten in the way they get depicted without doing some fancy editing work.)  These words of the Holy One are absolute proclamations.  The sense of the scripture is more of a teaching, and a description of a hoped for future.  With the exception of two, which I will get to in a minute, the verbs in these proclamations are all imperfect tense in Hebrew, indicating ongoing or incomplete action.  They’re not in a command form grammatically. 

      The sense of these words is something like this.  God is saying, “When you have no other gods before me, here’s how you will behave, here’s how it will look.”  Just listen to how different it sounds, “You shall not commit adultery.”  versus “When you have no other gods more important than me, you will not commit adultery – you will not violate your primary commitments in relationship”.  Or “When you have no other gods before me, you will not steal – indeed you will not even desire to steal.  You won’t covet.  You’re getting a fresh start – and here’s how I want it to be for you.  Here’s how I want it to be with you.”

      The two exceptions, where the verbs are in more of a command form, are remember as in remember the seventh day to be holy [infinitive absolute verb form].  And honor as in honor your father and your mother [command].  Now I know that some of you have already made a quick trip in your heads to the New Testament and are thinking, what about Jesus’ teaching about what work is permissible on the Sabbath and what about sayings about leaving family behind to follow him.  Those are great questions – and we have to save those explorations for another day.
For now, come back to this and notice that of all these words that Moses heard from the Holy One, only two are in command form.  I’ve often wondered if they are in command form because they are the most difficult – because they require our best attention.  I’m going to start with the second one first.  “Honor your father and your mother so that you can live long in the land God is giving you.”  Honor is not the same as submission – it’s much more sublime than that.  It has to do with dignity and integrity and respect.  The word literally means “weigh heavily.”  In other words, don’t take your father and your mother lightly.  Even if they did nothing else, they gave you your life.  And for most of us, our parents did much much more.

       Remember to keep the seventh day holy.  This is the most challenging of all.  Remember to rest and to pray a full 1/7th of your time.  That might be the most foolishly extravagant thing ever commanded in the history of the world – and the most necessary.  It’s not so much about a long list of dos and don’ts – it’s about a “disciplined and regular disengagement from the systems of productivity whereby the world uses people up to exhaustion.” (those are Walter Brueggeman’s words)  The primary purpose of Sabbath is to experience God’s pleasure in creation – to feel refreshment and joy.  And don’t we have such a deep thirst for refreshment and joy?

       It was sometime last June when I saw that this lesson from Exodus was going to coincide with Cantata 21.  My first reaction was that the texts seemed to have little to do with one another.  It wasn’t until this past week that it dawned on me that I would be preaching about extravagance and refreshment and joy on the day when we begin a new season of Cantatas with the biggest and longest – the most extravagant of Bach’s Cantatas.  The realization made me laugh out loud with delight.  Even if the music of Bach is not your primary reason for being here – and I know you’re out there, I invite you to smile when you hear the trumpets and the timpani take the last chorus way over the top.

       Although our New Revised Standard Version translation renders the ancient Hebrew, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God” a much better translation is “I the Lord your God am an impassioned God.”  The Lord our God is a fervent – zealous – passionate lover, inviting us, urging us to become fervent, zealous, passionate, joyful lovers in response.  I hear this scripture challenging us to remember that at the core of our beings, we delight in the law of the One who has freed us and who longs for us to live as if it is true.  May this new season be an opportunity for us to forsake whatever idols we have bowed down to, to examine what other gods we have made more important than the Holy One.   I pray that this time of new beginnings at Emmanuel Church be a time to claim our heritage as children of the Holy One and get in touch with our own passion – our own zeal for God’s creation – so that we can share it because God knows the world needs it.