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How the Church Lives:  The Ten Commandments (Week 2)
Exodus 20: 1-17

     Torah - Jews call the first five books of Scripture “Torah,” which means “guidance or help”; since the Ten Commandments are found twice in the Torah, we know they are God’s guidance.  I loved discovering that for many centuries, devout Jewish rabbis agreed there are 613 laws in what we call the Old Testament; 365 of them are “thou shalt nots” and 248 are “thou shalts”.   These experts in the law also determined that all 613 laws can be traced back and find their origin in the Ten Commandments.
        Isn’t that amazing and profound?  The condensing of the whole into concise commandments reminds me of the art of stenography.  Those trained in this can communicate a lengthy message with the smallest marks, abbreviating a huge amount of content into a tighter script.  I think God did that brilliantly through the Ten Commandments.  The first four summarize the relationship all believers are meant to have with God; in 5-10 we’re guided in our relationships with others.  

Honor your father and your mother,
 so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

      Today we begin with the 5th commandment.  Have you ever heard someone say to their kids “Obey your parents, it says so in the Bible?” But does it?  Is God speaking directly to children, telling them they are required to always obey, or follow parents’ rules and instructions?   If kids had to do that, can you see how that could have some awful consequences?   Not all parents have maturity or insight into parenting well; others just don’t much care.  Let me set the record straight: what the Bible actually says is, “Honor your parents.”   We all have parents, so this commandment is one we’re all expected to follow.   We may have birth parents, adoptive parents, or guardians who fed, clothed, and sheltered us.  Some may have been loving and gave us good guidance in raising us.  Other parents may have been absent or abusive, and perhaps they gave us poor guidance in becoming a responsible adult.
      Whatever our upbringing, the 5th commandment instructs us to show basic respect to those who were our caretakers.  We can listen to our parents, but we don’t have to agree with their opinions.  We can see how they live and accept that as a good model for us; we can reject it, but we should never shame or condemn our parents.      
      Whether it’s easy or incredibly difficult for you to show basic respect to your parents, God is reminding us to be unconditionally kind.  But I’m convinced there’s a much larger purpose at work.  I think God’s calling us to be role models for our parents and the wider world. The manner in which we show self-control matters.  Being courteous, even if that isn’t returned, matters.  We’re setting an example for children, for their peers and our neighbors and friends with   our example.  This is also the only commandment with a promise: the Israelites were told they would live a long life if they honored their parents.

You shall not murder
     The 6th commandment is broken often.  We hear about it all too frequently in the news.  Someone was murdered.  In our legal system that is the “unlawful, premeditated killing of one person by another.”  We know that God, who values every human being, sees us all as people of sacred worth.  His clear and potent word for us is, “Do not murder.”       
      But some people don’t believe in God - when angered they may take matters into their own hands and end someone’s life.  This profoundly grieves God because He’s the only One who should not only give life but determine when it should naturally end.  Anyone who interferes with that wrongfully steals time from another human being.  Their violent actions also cause great grief for family members and friends of the victim.
      Anyone who murders, killing another person in a pre-meditated way, has either rejected or never known the Christian faith.  Chances are they also went against the good example and teachings of some of their loved ones and friends.  They have knowingly broken the law and, if caught, the legal system will pass judgment on them, perhaps taking time from their life by locking them in prison.  God also takes murder seriously and will rightfully judge every heart. 
     This tremendously serious offense has some similarities, for me, with the 8th commandment: “You shall not steal.”  Robbing someone of their belongings, intentionally taking their personal property, is not God’s will, and in our legal system it is classified as a crime.  What I see in common with murder is that both violate a person.  If you’ve ever been robbed, you can lose your sense of feeling safe and secure.  If that vulnerability continues, you may struggle with anxiety or suffer from insomnia.  Depression can set in.  One who robs another’s possessions steals so much more from them than they may ever realize.

You shall not steal
      I want to expand on this 8th commandment, because I think we can limit its scope to maybe a “break-in” at our home or place of work.  Have you ever thought about plagiarism, secretly copying someone else’s hard work?  That’s a form of theft.  You’re taking their ideas, their “intellectual property”.  The same is true if we use or record music or movies; the law and God prohibit us from stealing from others.   Shoplifting is another example of theft; it’s recently become so organized Walgreens and other companies are closing some of their stores.  And what about our workplaces? Are there times we or others shorten our work hours by taking longer breaks than allowed, leaving early, or just wasting time instead of doing our assigned work?  Those are ways an employer can be cheated.  If you’ve ever been a supervisor or owned your own business, you’ve probably felt this frustration in a personal way.
      The Bible names one other way we can cheat.  In the book of Malachi, it says we’re to bring our full tithes to the Lord.  The principle back then was to give 10% of your year’s harvest or wages to God.  There’s no place in the Bible that says otherwise; you may only be exempt if you’re in true poverty.  While most of us aren’t farmers, with some intentionality lots of us can probably live on 90% of our income.  Is it eye-opening, even jarring, to think about how giving less than 10% of our income is considered stealing from God? If you feel uncertain, look in the Bible for yourself.  And if God is nudging you, at all, to change I hope you’ll listen. I do think it’s OK to increase our giving gradually.  I’ve seen positive results from people who tried this; their faith has grown as they have seen God providing for them, and there’s increased joy in their life.  The dividends of following this 8th commandment are faith and joy.   

You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor
    The three remaining commandments are “Do not lie,” “Don’t commit adultery,” and “Don’t covet (or greedily long for) what your neighbor has in their life.”  A common denominator in these is falsehood, being deceptive. God’s teaching us through these commandments that there are lines we may not cross as believers.     
      For example, if you’ve ever told someone a “half-truth”, it’s partially honest but also misleading.  It’s like the drunk driver who’s pulled over by the police.  He steps out of his car, unsteady on his feet.  He says “Officer, I’ve only had two beers.  I swear that’s the truth.”  That was a factual statement, but he was omitting that he’d also consumed a quart of vodka.  If the police officer had believed him, he would have come to that false conclusion because he believed the driver’ half- truth was the whole truth.    
      Another way we can break this commandment is by keeping silent when we’ve seen or heard about a wrong.  If we remain mute, people can be harmed or their reputation tarnished. Staying quiet makes us complicit, part of the wrongdoing itself.  History past and present has revealed the steep cost of keeping something a secret that should have been reported.  It allows a false narrative to thrive, and truth to be buried. Christians should not lie, tell half-truths, or be complicit through our silence.      

You shall not commit adultery

     Adultery, prohibited by the 7th commandment, is also one that involves falsehood.  When one partner in a marriage breaks the vows they’ve made before God and others, becoming sexually intimate with another, they break the bonds of trust and love for a couple.  This may be a spur-of-the-moment decision, but most often has been considered well ahead of time.     Aren’t there underlying conditions that can weaken a couple’s relationship, making “someone else” seem alluring?  Do marriages become dull?  Can too much business in daily life fray a solid relationship?  If someone feels neglected, or unattractive to their spouse, can that lead to insecurity or loneliness?  I believe two people can be together in a relationship but feel all alone.  There are many reasons people go astray, their eyes and hearts roaming, looking for someone who’ll give them undivided attention, compliments, fresh excitement.  
       Temptations are with us always, but the Bible says that when that happens there is always a way out.  The time to repair something is while it still has some stability.  An ounce of prevention, through good maintenance, is worth a pound of cure later!  If any of this applies to your life, push through any denial you may have, find someone you can be accountable to, pray and don’t give up.  U-turns are possible.    

​You shall not covet
 your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor      
       Finally, there is the 10th commandment, “Do not covet.”  This actually applies to some of the earlier commandments.   We may steal because we are greedy for what others have and we lack.   We can tell a lie to cover up how jealous or needy we may feel about what others have and we don’t.  We can fake being happy in a marriage, so we can keep an illicit liaison with someone we’re not married to.   These are all cases where we want something in our lives, but we’re going about getting it in wrong ways.  God tells us we must each work if we want certain “nice” possessions.  We must tell the whole truth even if it embarrasses us in the short term.   We also need to devote regular attention to a marriage, so it isn’t shattered by infidelity.  Again, these are all about preventive maintenance!
     The Ten Commandments, a total of 286 words in the English language, are God’s guidance, his condensed wisdom, first shared with the Israelites by Moses. Jesus, our Lord, kept all these commandments. May we today follow in their footsteps. May it be so – amen.

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