HELLO!

I attended Sunday School and Youth Group in the United Church at a time of transition, as the church like the broader society was shifting from memorization to other methods of education. Many of the Elders who served the church when I was first ordained told me their Christian Education included memorizing the books of the Bible, the Lord’s Prayers and the Ten Commandments. Critics of this approach ask, “beyond knowing how to repeat details, how does this information change us, make us better people?” On the other hand, others ask, at the end of a Sunday School year, what do our young people retain and articulate as their identity as Christians? One reason I introduce The Lord’s Prayer as words we can use when times are tough, and words are hard to find is to connect a purpose to the memorization. Which brings us to our lectionary reading for Sunday, what do the Ten Commandments offer to us today?

When Exodus 20 opens, Israel has been liberated from slavery in Egypt and has set out into the wilderness. The people have encountered thirst and hunger. God has provided sweet water and bread from heaven. They have been attacked and have been victorious, and they have finally reached Sinai. In chapter 19, God makes a covenant with Israel: Israel will be God’s treasured possession, a holy nation, if people keep their end of the covenant. The laws are symbols. There is no punishment attached to them, they are not in the form “if X happens, then do Y.” Maintaining these boundaries was key to their identity and wellbeing. The first four instructions have to do with relationship with God; the last six with human relationships. Both relationships are necessary for a healthy faith, but the order of the instructions make it clear our relationship with humanity flow from our relationship with God. Walter Brueggemann writes, “It is important to get it right about God, in order to get it right about neighbour”. The call to treat humanity−all humanity−with respect, dignity and compassion is a direct outgrowth of the nature of God.

Jesus summed up the instructions of the Ten Commandments in answer to the Pharisees’ question about which is the greatest commandment. He replied to their question, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and will all your soul, and with all your mind…you shall love your neighbour as yourself…on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40). My own sense of the legacy of The Ten Commandments is how important it is to see “the other” as part of a covenantal relationship, that my inspiration to love my neighbour is to know my neighbour as kin. On this World Wide Communion Sunday we celebrate and hold ourselves accountable to this relationship. I visit thrift stores on a regular basis, and one of the most popular framed images available in the art sections is “Family First”. While this message may fill us with sentimental comfort it also has the potential to create a division between those we know by name and those we don’t. Who is “family”? This is where our relationship to God affects our relationship to each other. The Ten Commandments include, “I am your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.” No other gods, means to me we affirm our God called out of slavery and into kinship, we shall have no other gods who call us differently. Peace, Kevin