B Pentecost20 2015
October 11, 2015
Deuteronomy 5:1-21; 6:4-9
Readers: Narrator, Moses,
God 1, God 2
Narrator: Moses convened all Israel, and said to them:
Moses: Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances that I am addressing
to you today; you shall learn them and observe them diligently. The Lord our
God made a covenant with us at Horeb. Not with our ancestors did the Lord make
this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. The Lord spoke
with you face to face at the mountain, out of the fire. (At that time I was
standing between the Lord and you to declare to you the words of the Lord; for
you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he
said:
God 1: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.
God 2: You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of
anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is
in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity
of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but
showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and
keep my commandments.
God 1: You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God,
for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
God 2: Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God
commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh
day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your
son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey,
or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your
male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave
in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a
mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you
to keep the Sabbath day.
God 1: Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded
you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land
that the Lord your God is giving you.
God 2: You shall not murder.
God 1: Neither shall you commit adultery.
God 2: Neither shall you steal.
God 1: Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor.
God 2: Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife.
God 1: Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, or field, or male
or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Moses: Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with
all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.
Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when
you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your
hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts
of your house and on your gates.
+ + +
Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ.
Today we enter the sacred story at the end of Moses’
life. Moses, called to free God’s people
from slavery in Egypt, has become the spiritual and social leader of
Israel. The people, you will remember
from our story about Jacob two weeks ago, whose name means to Struggle With
God.
These Struggle-With-God people have struggled with Pharoah – with
God beside them. God who has responded
to their cries of oppression. God who
hits Pharoah hard on God’s own terms. The struggle began with God demanding
that Pharoah let the Israelites worship their true God. And Pharoah’s power-loving heart, just kept
growing hard.
God fought the oppressor on Israel’s behalf - through plague
after plague, 10 in all it took for Pharoah to finally let God’s people
go. The final one being the killing all
the first born sons of Egypt. This seems
cruel and heartless, and yet we remember that Moses bears witness to a whole
generation of baby boys killed by Pharoah’s command. Moses was the survivor of that genocide. …The people, with animal blood on their
doorframes to protect them from the death passing over them, saw their God
overcoming their Egyptian slave-owners, who suffered under the hand of a
righteous God. They had to wonder… what would it take for Pharoah to break the
bonds of slavery?
Ten horrible plagues, then a dramatic getaway through the Red
Sea, a narrow escape from Egyptian soldiers that Pharoah had sent after
them. He was still determined… could not
even the death of his son break Pharoah’s hard heart? But escape they did, the
whole nation of Israel taking exodus from Egypt. Leaving behind an existence of bondage and
death to enter new life by God’s hand parting the waters. And God led them, in a pillar of cloud by day
and a pillar of fire by night.
God led them into this new life with a whole new set of
expectations. A new way to live in the
world. Remember, with Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob, God walked and wrestled intimately, but these generations had
forgotten God and were just getting to know again God’s righteousness… that is,
the right way to live… the life-giving way of God.
And so God gave them an enclosure for their lives called the
ten commandments. A home. A structure to life that would define them as
a people for all they encountered. And
would define their very lives as lived for their neighbor. This is the kind of covenant God makes with
the people. One that will give them more
and more and more life… and that acknowledges the reality of harm that visits
us when we live in abuse: whether it is a publicly acknowledged system of
slavery, or a more subversive, hidden slavery… like today’s domestic violence
and human trafficking and the black-market sex trade.
God gives us these commandments to free us to live to the
fullest! The fullest life which, as
defined by God, is about living to free our neighbors.
We see this in the commandment about the Sabbath. Who is to take a weekly rest day? The upper class? Middle
class? Working class? Yes!
Even the donkeys and slaves! Now
that is a treatment of slaves that redefines a person’s worth, does it not? “Remember that you were a slave in the land
of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a might hand
and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath
day.” I have bought you for a price, God
says, I have wrapped you up in my arms and cradled you like a baby. You are my children again now. I have redeemed you from the pit of slavery
in which you found yourselves. Let us
begin again, and again, and again, and again…we find God saying this from the
moment of creating us – let us begin anew at creation, let us begin anew after
the fall, let us begin anew after the flood, let us begin anew with Abraham and
Sarah, let us begin anew with Jacob, let us begin anew in the wilderness… let
us begin anew, dear people of God – every time you forget your purpose in life,
every day you treat your neighbor with less than loving words, every moment you
want to have instead of want to give, you fall away from me, let us
begin anew in the daily waters of baptism that cover you and make you mine… God’s mercy and grace have no end.
Hear, O Israel: this is how you will have
new, abundant life… when The Lord is our
God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and
with all your soul, and with all your might.
Words echoed in our baptismal promises we renewed
last week with Sheila… when you bring yourself and your children to the meal
and to hear the Word, when you put God’s Holy Word in their hands, when you
teach all our children the Lord’s Prayer. These very commandments as a way of
life – by doing it, and saying it, you will learn it better yourselves. When you recite together the Creed in the
awesome mystery of God, when you pray together, showing one another how much
you trust God! Or you are acting out the
promises, you are letting God be God in your life, rather than you take over,
to try to save the world or yourself.
And so we receive the promises of new life along
with Israel today. We remember the grace
of God who has given us this free gift of being in relationship with God and we
listen to Moses words calling us to live into the promises…
Keep these words that I
am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk
about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and
when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your
forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Today you are invited to a worship station in the
back where you will actually tie on those words of life given to us in the 10
Commandments. Yes, it will feel strange. But do we care? Not when we do it together. Because together we are a strange bunch who
God has claimed as his very own children and given this great blessed gift of
life! Let us teach each other, be examples
for one another, church. Let us keep
these words in our hearts [CROSS], on our foreheads [CROSS], and on our hands
[CROSS]. These words of life: Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the
Lord alone.
Amen.
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