Exodus 20: 1-20 (links validated 2/15/24)

Turning on the television, waiting for another show to come on; an episode of Friends was just finishing. In this particular episode, this beautiful, Italian-born actress named Isabella Rossellini was a guest star. I instantly remembered the whole episode and the premise when I saw her. Rossellini stops at the coffee shop, where much of the show takes place. Earlier in the episode, the group of friends (Ross, Chandler, Joey, Monica, Phoebe and Rachel) had discussed celebrities that they could have a one-time fling with, and their boyfriends/girlfriends wouldn’t or couldn’t be upset with them – they had, for all intents and purposes, given them a “pass.” Should they meet any of the celebrities on their list and somehow were so charming that this famous individual found them irresistible – they were allowed to go and have a fling with them. The one guy, Ross, initially had Isabella as one of his 5 but had been talked out of her occupying a spot by his friend Chandler since she was out of the country so often, which lessened the possibility for the guy ever to run into her. So when she walks into their neighborhood coffee shop, he is so shocked that even though the rules had stated that they only had 5 on their list, his girlfriend Rachel allows for the exception and encourages him to go over and hit on her. As Ross goes over, explains the whole situation to her, and shows her the printed, laminated card he had made and placed in his wallet, a list, remember, she was not on, but was supposed to have been and would have been had it not been because of Chandler. Ross’ friends watch this most awkward interaction play out and end comically as the actress completely rejects him. This is one of those scenes that is a highlight on reels of “classic moments” of this still-popular-after-almost-30-years sitcom. My own group of friends and I watched it only a year after we had graduated from college back in 1996 – and I can remember laughing along with it, as well as the discussions that followed of lists that my friends (both guys and gals, I would add) were making up of celebrities they could have flings with...

Any devotee of the romantic comedy genre will recognize these two words: Make-over Montage. From George Bernard Shaw’s play adapted into musical form – My Fair Lady – or Anne Hathaway’s Princess Diaries, we delight in new hair styles, the right make-up properly applied, trading in those coke-bottle glasses for contacts. Even our super hero/action fans understand this trope as Clark Kent morphs into Superman with what seem like only the most minimal, shallow cosmetic differences. But, of course, the shift is far more than skin deep. Eliza Doolittle spends months on elocution lessons, marbles in her mouth, “the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain” and all that. We love to watch Anne Hathaway’s posture and etiquette transform under the tutelage of Julie Andrews’ “princess lessons.” Though we may delight in watching movie scenes of ordinary women becoming royalty, we find it much harder to be ordinary people, made in the image of God, being remade in the image of God-made-flesh in Jesus Christ. The whole of the Christian life is a make-over montage and maybe, just maybe, seeing it that way might infuse our diligent obedience with a bit more delight.

Roy Moore, the one time candidate from Alabama for U.S. Senate, first developed a national reputation by placing a 5,280 pound monument to the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the Alabama state judicial building. The placement of the monument was quickly challenged by the ACLU and other groups and eventually Moore was ordered to remove it. Not to be deterred, Moore began to take the monument with him to rallies and speaking events around the country, carried on the back of a flatbed truck. When it would return to Alabama, a 57 foot I-beam crane would bend as it removed the granite monument for storage. Though Moore intended his grandiose defense of the 10 commandments to be an embodiment of the moral underpinnings of the law, his monument actually captured how many people feel about the ten commandments—that they are a heavy burden, ready to crush us for any misstep. As the preacher Thomas Long puts it, “Most people cannot name all ten [commandments], but they are persuaded that at the center of each one is a finger-wagging ‘thou shalt not.’” I was struck, then, by the actions of Michael T. Reed back in 2017, when he crashed his Dodge Dart into the 6,000 pound Ten Commandments monument on the State Capitol grounds of Arkansas, less than 24 hours after the monument had been installed. In a video posted on his Facebook page, he drove his car toward the stone tablet while exclaiming: “Freedom!”...

A dentist had extracted EMT Jack Casey’s tooth under general anesthetic when he was a child. The procedure had terrified him. However, a nurse told Jack, “Don’t worry; I’ll be right here beside you no matter what happens.” When he awoke from surgery he found her still standing right next to him. Nearly twenty years later people called Jack’s ambulance crew to the scene of a terrible accident. Jack crawled inside the flipped pick-up’s cab to pull the driver out of the wreckage. Since gasoline was dripping all over the place, there was a real danger of fire. The driver kept telling Jack how afraid he was. So Jack told him, “Look, don’t worry. I’m not going to abandon you.” After Jack had rescued him, the shocked driver told him, “You were an idiot. My truck could have exploded and burned up both of us.” Jack answered that he felt he just couldn’t leave him, just as his nurse had earlier felt she couldn’t leave him. When we lovingly care for our neighbors, we also imitate God. Jack Casey’s faithfulness gave the accident victim, his ambulance crew and others a glimpse of the God who stays right beside God’s people to the very end of measured time and beyond.

The one scene in To Kill a Mockingbird that always makes tears leap to my eyes comes after the unjust guilty verdict is handed down by the all-white jury. The trial is over and so the main floor of the courtroom has emptied out. But the balcony, where the black people of the segregated community had to sit, is still packed and with every single person up there standing silently and as if standing at attention. The only white person up there—and the only one still sitting—is Atticus’ daughter, Scout. While Atticus silently packs up his briefcase at the defense table, one black man nudges Scout and says, “Stand up, Miss Scout, stand up!” The child asks, “How come?” And the answer comes back, “Your father’s passing by.” And as Atticus Finch exits the courtroom, every black person in the balcony stands reverently before this white man whom they have come to respect and adore.

Once there was a man named Milton, who was born in Derry Church, Pennsylvania to two very proud parents in Philadelphia in the mid 1800’s. His father was an energetic entrepreneur, who always had his eye on the next big opportunity, but who did not seem to have a strong enough work ethic to stick with anything very long. His mother finally grew tired of her husband’s failed attempts and separated from him, taking their son, Milton, and leaving to be with her family...

("One of my favorite scenes in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy comes in the first film The Fellowship of the Ring. Gandalf the wizard had just fallen in the mines of Moria, felled by the terrible Balrog, a fiery and demonic creature of the ancient world that had been attracted to the Fellowship by the powerful Ring of Power that Frodo carried...")

There are several good, contemporary paraphrases of the 10 Commandments for different audiences, for example, this one focused on school-age kids. God is God – even at school! God is more important than anything – even grades or friends \ Always say God’s name respectfully and represent God carefully. Don’t get too busy for church and rest Speak to and about those in charge with respect. Don’t hurt anyone watch where you sling your book bag and Look out for the younger kids Be a loyal friend Respect your body and other people’s bodies too. Do not steal either other people’s stuff or the answers on their work Don’t tell lies about other people either to get them in trouble or make yourself look good Don’t get jealous of what others have or what they can do. Consider including this in the worship service or at the end of the sermon, with an encouragement/prompt for church members to take time to reflect on “where the rubber hits the road” for them regarding each of these commands.

One of the shows I try to catch several times a week is “The Big Bang Theory,” now in re-runs. One of the main characters, Dr. Sheldon Cooper, a theoretical physicist, child prodigy, self- centred hypochondriac, and, by far, the oddest of the bunch, puts a lot of stock in his multi-page “room mate agreement” - outlining what others could and could not do if they lived in “his” apartment and this document was certainly crafted to his advantage. His frustrated friends seem to just put up with his eccentric ways...Since I can’t possibly do justice to the 10 Commandments in one sermon, all I want to do is to give you something to think about, in regard to these familiar rules, this “roommate agreement for living in God’s house.”...

("'Stop making my Father's house a market place' says Jesus, but the Greek word for house which he uses here isn't a word that simply refers to a physical building. It is the word oikos, and it would perhaps better be translated household than house. It encompassed not just the bricks and mortar, but the people who lived in the building, family members, servants, hangers-on. The word oikos gives us a wealth of words in English, basically anything that starts with eco-. Economics, ecology, ecosystems; they all derive from oikos...")

When he was just a toddler, our youngest grandson had no sense of danger. He careened around the house wildly with no regard for potential harm to his person. He had a particular fascination with the steps going down to the basement. He would charge up to the brink and peer down with a delighted grin on his face. We babysitting grandparents would sternly say, “No, no!” But he continued to court danger. So, his parents put up a gate that barred his entrance. He would stand on his tiptoes to gaze over it. He would shake it. Try to open it. Sometimes shout at it in frustration. He hated that gate. Then one day, we forgot to close the gate and before we knew it, he had taken one wild step into the void. We heard him bounce down those stairs and found him unconscious at the bottom. He came to and was fine, after we nearly died in fear. Were our stern “No’s’” and that annoying gate intended to ruin his life? No, exactly the opposite. So it is with God’s Law.

The notion that a law can help us be free goes against the lawless instincts of those who live by the motto of “if it feels good, do it.” But that notion is at the heart of my country, “the land of the free, the home of the brave.” (My apologies to all the citizens of other great countries.) The beloved anthem, “America the Beautiful,” expresses that in these words that seem to echo our text: “Oh, beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern impassioned stress a thoroughfare of freedom beat across the wilderness! American! America! God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.”

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. But we rarely see it. It used to be slightly more common. The two examples below are from previous centuries, so in them God is depicted as a bearded man. On the left is a Creation icon from Russia focusing on the seventh day and God's resting from work. In the version here, God has abandoned his throne for his bed and is literally napping, though his right hand is making a gesture, apparently of blessing.

In “The Good Place,” Arizona dirtbag Eleanor Shellstrop is a selfish, condescending, self-absorbed bench who finds herself embarking upon the project of becoming a “good” person in the afterlife (spoiler alert). Bespectacled and insufferable moral philosopher (everyone hates moral philosophy professors) Chidi Anagonya provides a litany of texts and thinkers to help Eleanor become a better person–including Aristotle, Immanual Kant, Tim Scanlon, and Jonathan Dancy. In the second season, Eleanor tries to become a “good” person by following rules and engaging in “moral” action only to fail. It is only when her moral journey is based in relationship with the rest of Team Cockroach that she begins to make progress. Without commentary or judgment upon the accuracy of this TV show’s vision of the afterlife, or it’s moral foundations, what The Good Place can illustrate is the limits of good behavior. It’s not enough to follow the rules, one must be shaped in relationship. This is what Jesus concluded in Matthew 22: The Greatest Commandments encourage right relationship with God and with others...

In Mel Brooks' 1981 film History of the World-Part 1, Moses strides down the mountain with three stone tablets. "God gave us fifteen" Oops! Moses (played of course by Brooks) dropped one. It shattered. Hmmm? "God gives us ten commandments." Charlton Heston, surely closer to Moses' appearance than Mel Brooks, witnessed the commandments being created, word-by-word, phrase-by-phrase. A holy fire blazed and cut each rock-bound letter. How many people are more familiar with Cecille B. DeMille's 1956 The Ten Commandments than the Bible's top ten list? I mean, isn't DeMille's film really a documentary?...

My lawyer friend, Dan, teaches kindergarten kids every Sunday morning. One week he was all primed to unload the doctrine of creation on his eager five-year-old jury. He would bait them with the question, “How did God create the world?” They would answer wrongly. He would exhaust their guesses and then reveal the correct answer. So he began, “Hey, kids! How did God create the world?” Kaitlyn’s hand shot up and she blurted out, “By spoking it.”...

With the Israelites’ history as people who have just emerged from slavery in the background, Brian McLaren paraphrases the commandments in this way: 1. Put the God of liberation first, not the gods of slavery. 2. Don’t reduce God to the manageable size of an idol – certainly not one made of wood and stone by human hands, and not one made by human minds of rituals and words, either, and certainly not one in whose name people are enslaved, dehumanized, or killed! 3. Do not use God for your own agendas by throwing around God’s holy name. 4. Honor the God of liberation by taking and giving everyone a day off. Don’t keep the old 24/7 slave economy going. 5. Turn from self-centeredness by honoring your parents. (After all, honor is the basis of freedom.) 6. Don’t kill people, and don’t do the things that frequently incite violence, including: 7. Don’t cheat with others’ spouses, 8. Don’t steal others’ possessions, and 9. Don’t lie about others’ behaviors or characters. 10. In fact, if you really want to avoid the violence of the old slave economy, deal with its root source – in the drama of desire. Don’t let the competitive desire to acquire tempt you off the road of freedom. I like McLaren’s version of the commandments because they remind us that these are rules for living in community...

I remember the exchange vividly. American theologian Mary Hunt had been outlining her thoughts about social justice to 20 theological field educators. It was an engaging, inspiring and energizing session. But not for a more conservative participant who was offended by her liberal sentiments. Suddenly, he was on his feet, red in the face, loudly demanding, 'Madam. What. Are. Your. Theological. Presuppositions?' Immediately, Mary Hunt answered: 'Forgiveness is possible. Hope is warranted, Justice is demanded.'...

("One of my favorite movies of all time is an out-of-the-way South African comedy from 1980 called The Gods Must Be Crazy. What happens in the film is that an airplane is flying over Africa's Kalahari desert, and the pilot has just finished drinking a bottle of Coca-Cola - you know, one of those old-fashioned, curvy green bottles you don't see anymore. In an act of high-tech littering, he opens the window of the cockpit and just drops the empty bottle out..." and other illustrations)

("Today I want remind you of two important four syllable words - imperative and indicative. They are words we all know even if we don't use them every day. And their meanings are very straight-forward. Imperative means something that is absolutely necessary or required, as in, 'It is imperative that we leave.'...")

("The third commandment about the name of God warns us not only about our casual presumptions. It reminds us of the limits of our language when we speak about the Wholly Other God. CS Lewis captures the practical implications of this in his Footnote to All Prayers. 'He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou, And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art...")

("There is a story that one night Martin Luther went to sleep troubled about his sin. In a dream, he saw an angel standing by a blackboard and at the top of the board was Luther's name. The angel, chalk in hand, was listing all of Luther's sins, and the list filled the blackboard. Luther shuddered in despair, feeling that his sins were so many that he could never be forgiven...")

("Some years back the American Film Institute conducted a big survey to determine the top 100 heroes in cinematic history. Happily, and somewhat surprisingly, the number one movie hero was not some gun-toting, violent figure but instead the character of Atticus Finch from the film To Kill a Mockingbird....")

("As Roger Shattuck notes in his book Forbidden Knowledge, it seems that nothing is any longer considered taboo. In older societies the things that were deemed taboo or off-limits usually were places where holiness and pollution were not yet differentiated...")

(includes several quotes)

("Because Mr Zehaf-Bibeau was a member of an identifiable minority group, one or more people in Cold Lake, Alberta, targeted the local mosque with ant-Muslim graffiti. The words 'go home' and 'Canada' were spray painted on the mosque. Early in the morning a group of more thinking people, including military personnel from the local base in uniform arrived to clean up the grafitti and replace the words with posters indicating that these folks were home and were welcome...")

"The Gallup organization regularly conducts polls to determine the religious beliefs and practices of modern Americans. Despite new attitudes about morality, fluctuations in church membership, higher levels of education, and so on, there have been remarkably few changes in responses in recent years..."

("There's a running gag on Comedy Central's Colbert Report in which the fake-bluster, windbag host, Stephen Colbert, interviews members of Congress in a segment called Better Know a District"...)

("In 2003's The Pirates of the Caribbean, the pirate Barbossa explained to Elizabeth, 'First, your return to shore was not part of our negotiations nor our agreement so I must do nothing. And secondly, you must be a pirate for the pirate's code to apply and you're not. And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules.'...")

("How do I best honor my parents? My 95-year old father has dementia. My mother is often overwhelmed with caregiving and decision-making, along with her own health concerns. As a child, wasn't doing what they told me to do - most of the time - sufficient for parental honor? The commandment remains; how I interpret it changes...")

("The Ten Commandments have widespread respect in North America, even among some Atheists, Agnostics, and other non-Christians. However, many of the individual commandments are currently ignored...")

["The last word is aptly spoken by Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who was shot at the altar by those who considered him a rebellious tenant of the land: It is very easy to be servants of the word without disturbing the world: a very spiritualized word, a word without any commitment to history, a word that can sound in any part of the world because it belongs to no part of the world...."]

("There's a scene in C.S. Lewis' The Horse and His Boy when a mare by the name of Hwin is meeting Aslan, the lion, for the first time. Aslan, of course, is the character in those novels who symbolizes Jesus Christ. 'Please,' she says to him — observing this mighty lion in all his terrifying power. 'You're so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.'..." and another illustration)

A favorite author of mine, Chris Hedges, recently published a book about the Decalogue, Losing Moses On The Freeway; The 10 Commandments In America (New York: Free Press, 2005). As an award-winning war correspondent in 50 countries over 20 years, Hedges brings a remarkable life story and passion to his story-telling about these most famous Ten Words—mystery, idols, lying, sabbath, family, murder, adultery, theft, envy, greed and, in an epilogue, love. Hedges grew up in rural upstate New York, where his father was a Presbyterian pastor. Five years at an elite boarding school, the loneliness of his childhood, left him with "a deep hostility to authority and a visceral distaste for the snobbery of the 'well-born.'" Six days after graduating from Colgate University he began a two year stint as a pastor in the violent ghetto of Roxbury in metro Boston, an experience so unsettling that it provoked him to leave both church and seminary. After a year in South America he completed his divinity degree at Harvard...

Mark Twain once told of a conversation with a notoriously ruthless businessman, who said to him in passing, “Before I die I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land where I will climb Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud at the top.” Mark Twain replied, “I have a better idea; you could stay home and keep them.”...

A gifted and thoughtful physician was talking about the effects of exhaustion on the quality of work. Physicians are trained to work when they are exhausted, to perform when they are sleep deprived, hurried, overloaded. "I discovered in medical school," this doctor said, "that if I saw a patient when I was tired or overworked, I would order a lot of tests. I was so exhausted, I couldn't tell exactly what was going on. I could see the symptoms, I could recognize the possible diagnoses, but I couldn't really hear how it all fit together. So I got in the habit of ordering a battery of tests, hoping they would tell me what I was missing. "But when I was rested — if I had an opportunity to get some sleep, or go for a quiet walk — when I saw the next patient, I could rely on my intuition and experience to give me a pretty accurate reading of what was happening. If there was uncertainty about my diagnosis, I would order a single, specific test to confirm or deny it. But when I could take the time to listen and be present with the patient and the illness, I was almost always right."...

("Not so long ago one of the radicals of the nineteen sixties was arrested and brought to court on a charge of murder. She had been the lockout in a robbery carried on her friends in which a policeman was killed...")

("In a gospel context, knowing and following the law and other legal and moral prescriptions is a good thing. But it must always be conjoined with and driven by love above all. For instance, shortly after World War II the World Council of Churches dispatched Rev. John Mackie, president of the Church of Scotland, to go the Balkan peninsula to see how the churches were doing in remote areas following the war...")

Mother Teresa was a holy person. In the middle of the poverty, illness, and hopelessness of Calcutta, she exuded joy. Here is something she wrote called Anyway. People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered; Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, others may be jealous; Be happy anyway. The good you do today, people often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway. If you give the world the best you have, it may never be enough; Give the world the best you have anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and other people anyway...

("If Haydn's Creation deals with the sublime, the Grateful Dead's Truckin' deals with the mundane, but one stanza captures a sense of wonder, and even confusion, that everyone feels from time to time. In fact, if Jesus had been familiar with the lyrics, they might have been running through his mind as he stumbled along the Via Dolorosa carrying the cross...")

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Early one Saturday morning, my friend’s Jewish neighbor peered out and saw him struggling with a ladder, planning wash the upstairs windows on their two-story home. The neighbor – whose windows were of the same make – called out to him, “Why don’t you do that from the inside?” These were the sort of windows which, by flipping a lever, you can pull into the house for easy cleaning. “I can’t figure it out,” my friend responded, apparently too proud to admit he was so mechanically klutzy he even needed to hire out such a simple task. The neighbor, resting at home on Saturday, his religious sabbath, called out again, “I could come over tomorrow and show you. What would be a good time?” “You know what I do tomorrow!?” my pastor friend responded. There is little time for washing windows on a Sunday for most pastors! “Hmmm,” said the sabbath-observant Jewish next-door neighbor, perhaps recalling for whom God created the sabbath in the first place, “wait there a minute and I’ll be over.” Jesus said that the sabbath was made for humanity and not humanity for the sabbath...

A gifted and thoughtful physician was talking about the effects of exhaustion on the quality of work. Physicians are trained to work when they are exhausted, to perform when they are sleep deprived, hurried, overloaded. "I discovered in medical school," this doctor said, "that if I saw a patient when I was tired or overworked, I would order a lot of tests. I was so exhausted, I couldn't tell exactly what was going on. I could see the symptoms, I could recognize the possible diagnoses, but I couldn't really hear how it all fit together. So I got in the habit of ordering a battery of tests, hoping they would tell me what I was missing. "But when I was rested — if I had an opportunity to get some sleep, or go for a quiet walk — when I saw the next patient, I could rely on my intuition and experience to give me a pretty accurate reading of what was happening. If there was uncertainty about my diagnosis, I would order a single, specific test to confirm or deny it. But when I could take the time to listen and be present with the patient and the illness, I was almost always right."...

The personal-productivity expert Stephen Covey, in his bestseller, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, teaches a sort of secular Sabbath discipline he calls “sharpening the saw.”Covey tells a little parable of two lumberjacks who are laboring hard to cut down a mighty tree, using one of those old-fashioned cross-cut saws. Back and forth they pull their saw, their motions synchronized with each other in perfect rhythm. Yet the longer they work, the less effective their labors appear to be. Each stroke of the saw seems to be taking less of a bite out of the tree trunk. But still the men keep sawing.What they need to do, Covey points out, is to stop and sharpen the saw. But there’s something hypnotic about the rhythm of their work. The more exhausted they become, the more easy it is to imagine that if they just keep working harder,they’ll finish the job. “Who’s got time to stop and sharpen the saw?” they think:“There’s work to be done!”The irony, of course, is that if they would stop and perform this essential maintenance, they’d be done their work in half the time: and without the agony of aching muscles and shortness of breath. That’s what Sabbath is for: to sharpen the saw...

("How do I best honor my parents? My 95-year old father has dementia. My mother is often overwhelmed with caregiving and decision-making, along with her own health concerns. As a child, wasn't doing what they told me to do - most of the time - sufficient for parental honor? The commandment remains; how I interpret it changes...")

The way of Jesus is the way of peace: but there’s an alternative narrative in our culture that says peace can be achieved in another way: by means of force. You can see that alternative narrative in the name of one of the most famous guns in American history: the Colt 45 revolver, better known as “The Peacemaker.” Its full name is the Colt 45-caliber Single Action Army revolver. It was first manufactured in 1873. It’s also been called “the Gun that Won the West.” If you’ve ever watched an old-time Western movie — and I’m sure you have — this is the gun the cowboys have in their holsters. This is the gun both the good guy and the bad guy reach for, as they face off in the middle of Main Street...