Jack Hardaway
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Posted right there in the front yard, the Ten Commandments. I remember seeing an interview, someone was protesting the Ten Commandments being removed from public spaces, like schools and court rooms.
The reporter asked the man if he could remember all of the commandments, and the man could not, he then said, “But that’s not the point.” Which pretty much reveals the whole problem.
The decalogue, the ten words, the ten commandments, we have a hard time remembering them.
There is this story, a group of three clergy were on stage together, being interviewed by an auditorium full of people, for a Bishop election.
A young woman came to the microphone, she was a youth delegate, and she asked them if they could recite the Ten Commandments.
One priest stumbled his way through, leaving out several.
One priest said he preferred Jesus’ summary of the law, to love God and to love the neighbor. And he left it at that.
The third said all ten with some effort.
I don’t know which one was elected.
You always have to look out for those youth delegates!
Ever since I heard that story years ago, I have had anxiety dreams of being asked that question. I wake up in the middle of the night, and try to remember, usually I only get nine of them, a different nine every time. I’m not sure if that is what Psalm 1 means about meditating on the Law day and night…
I teach about the commandments two or three times a year in my Episcopal Christianity class, in fact today we start that part of the Catechism. At the end I usually try to recite all ten in the traditional order. I usually get them. I tell the class if they ever want to trip me up, just ask me off the cuff to recite them.
We forget. Or we recite without meditating on them, digging deep into what they mean, what they reveal.
That is why I like calling them the decalogue, the ten words, rather than commands.
They are the Word that reveals God, they are the Word speaking the world back together as it constantly falls apart. God speaking-holding us together.
That is something awesome and wonderful to meditate on day and night. They aren’t rules to follow to get God to like me. They are the divine breath revealing who God is keeping all creation, all humanity, our bodies, minds and souls all together, constantly recreating us as we erode and forget who we are.
They remind us who we are by showing us who God is.
We forget. But God remembers.
God speaks the word that reminds. As the Psalm this morning says, “it revives the soul.”
My first lent here as your priest, 16 years ago, I did a Lenten sermon series on the ten commandments, it was called Ten Words of freedom.
I’m not going to go over every command today.
I’ll just make three quick notes.
They are about freedom. That is how they start, with God revealing God’s self as the one who brought Israel out of the house of slavery.
The ten words are about how to be free.
The second note is that the first four commands are about loving God.
The third note is the last six are about loving the neighbor.
The Word speaking the freedom to love to a world that has forgotten how to be free.
Jesus is that Word speaking and living in the world, the consuming zeal of God.
Fierce and demanding, that we be free indeed, making a whip of cords, turning over our tables, driving out our sheep and cattle.
God has been revealed. That is our statement of faith. And God is revealed as the one who pulls our world back together even as it falls apart, over and over.
God speaks the Word and we rise from the dead, regathering our dust from the earth.
What word is God speaking to us today?
What have we forgotten today? What is God reminding us of this day?
What word will we speak? Is it the freedom that is love?
Meditate, day and night, on the Word that reminds our forgetfulness, the word that sets us free to love. That is the point.