Jack Hardaway
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The television news crew pulls up to the house with Ten Commandment signs up all over the front yard. The signs are in protest to the commandments being taken out of schools, and court houses.
They interview the homeowner, and in the course of the interview the homeowner is asked if he can name the Ten Commandments, he thinks about it and says that no, no he can’t. “But that isn’t the point”, he then adds.
There is an ironic silence.
The unspoken question is, “Then what is the point?
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Or, another way to say it, you shall not invoke with malice the Name of the Lord your God. The third word of the decalogue, the third word of being set free from the house of bondage.
This is the second week of a sermon series on the Decalogue, and we begin with that third word.
Usually, we think it simply means not to curse, not to call God’s damnation onto whatever difficult situation that accosts us. Such as calling God’s wrath down upon a car door which slams on your thumb, or calling fire and brimstone down upon a hot iron that someone hands you, as you hear the sizzle of the skin before the pain reaches the brain.
Or, when someone is brutalized.
This commandment isn’t about that. Those moments of trauma are worthy of intense devotional protest.
Taking the Lord’s name in vain is something much more insidious and deadly.
It is using God for my own personal advantage. Using God as an excuse to hurt and control someone else. Using the Bible as a weapon against someone else, to build myself up and to hurt and control someone else.
It is pure spiritual poison.
God is setting us free from that.
The Bible has killed, mauled and abused more people than fire arms ever have.
We don’t even know how to speak the Lord’s name, or to use scripture except as how to control and hurt others.
We have to start over.
How do we speak God’s name as blessing?
How do we use scripture as grace?
That is the third word of the decalogue, it reveals God as blessing, it reveals the word as grace and gift.
Christianity, and American Christianity especially, has to start all over again, and relearn to speak God’s name as blessing, and to use scripture as pure unconditional grace.
We are disarmed and moved to ironic silence.
I feel like I have been in a twelve step recovery for using the Lord’s name in vain for the past 15 years, I have had to relearn the faith, I have had to reread scripture.
How do I live and proclaim the Gospel that really is good news, all the time, for everyone?
The road to freedom is humbling.
The fourth word of the decalogue is “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” It is the fourth word of being set free from the house of bondage.
The last day of creation, the seventh day, the Lord rested.
The pinnacle of creation is God’s Sabbath rest. The other six days build up to it.
And so the other six days of the week for the people of faith are to be days of preparation to enter into that rest.
One day that is different, set apart, that we prepare for.
To let things… rest, to lie fallow, to heal and start over. All the cuts and bruises of life and relationships have a day to recover. Give things space, some room, to reconsider, to step back and regain perspective, to let go.
To let the mind and body rest. Giving up the frantic, giving up on getting things done, giving up on distraction and entertainment. What restores us? What restoreth my soul?
This is the commandment that got Jesus crucified. He turned the Sabbath upside down. It was no longer the pinnacle of creation that all things uphold.
Jesus said that the sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath.
Humanity became the pinnacle of creation.
Jesus literally turned creation upside down, or as Deacon Mary like to say, “right side up.”
That is why he was crucified.
The Sabbath became a gift to humanity, the gift of being restored, born again, all the world grows young again in the Lord’s sabbath rest.
Sabbath is sacrament, not commandment. It is the eternal invitation into communion.
This is where I disagree with our catechism, it makes the Sabbath another busy day, another day to be productive, another day for spiritual achievement, “To set aside regular times for worship, prayer and the study of God’s ways.” Those are all good things, and part of a living breathing faith. But that is not Sabbath. It is not another day to get things done.
Barbara Scott, one of Grace Church’s eccentric saints who has entered into the Lord’s eternal Sabbath rest, had a saying, she told it to me many times.
“I’ve retired from being the general manager of the Universe.”
It was not a statement of apathy and indifference, but a statement of relinquishing control, and taking up trust and faith.
Relinquish suspicion, relinquishing fear, relinquishing control, and taking up trust that God really can be trusted.
It is a fearless and belligerent way to live.
It is to choose to believe.
Take a day, to rest, trusting God with the details, one day a week.
I double dog dare you.
Sabbath is the sacrament, the gift, of trust.
Be set free.
Next week the fifth and sixth words. Honor thy father and thy mother, and Thou shalt do no murder.
Speak the word that sets the world free.