Reflection on Exodus 20:8-11 and Luke 6:1-11

 

It is summer now, and I imagine that there are any number of places that you wish you could be vacationing right about now.  One of those places might be a beautiful beach in a beautiful house overlooking the sea.  Now, imagine that you actually get to build a house right on the beach.  You are building it yourself, of course.  You want it to be just right. 

As you plan, you make sure that it faces the right direction, so that the windows get light. 

As you set the footers, you make sure that the house will be high enough to remain dry, even in a surging storm.

You make sure to leave space around the house for plants and palm trees.

You put up walls and install big windows in order to let the sun in during the day and the moon and stars during the night.

Of course, you do all the plumbing and electrical work, as well as the drywall, the painting, and the placement of furniture.  But, such a house would not be complete (it would not be a home) without some pets.  So, you get a dog to run with you on the beach, and some tropical birds in a large cage to complete the scene.

And, after all of that hard work it is time to just focus on you.  You bring in your own personal items, and then you stop.  You lie on the couch and settle in for a nice long rest, staring at the ocean waves through the sliding glass doors.

But, it still does not feel right.  Would it not be great to have some friends stop what they are doing, come over, and enjoy some time together at the beach?  So, on the weekend, to your beach house they come in order to enjoy some good food, conversation, and of course, the beach.

Now, I want you to imagine that this whole story is not about you building a house, but it is about God building a universe.  And, that after all the hard work of creating night and day, and sun, moon, and stars, and plants, and animals, God stops all of God’s work, and invites you to stop your work.  God invites you to come to God’s house, and settle into the comfy furniture across from God so that you can rest deeply in God’s presence.  That is what those who enjoy each other’s company do after-all.

Remember the Sabbath day and keeping it holy.  Taking the Hebrew literally here, we could say, “Remember the ‘stopping’ day so that you can rest in God’s presence.”  The Sabbath is a day of rest for a weary people.  The Sabbath day is a chance to be in God’s presence, trusting in God for everything once again.  The Sabbath day is a gift from our holy creator so that we can rest deeply in God’s presence and learn to trust God completely for it all.

Bible nerd time; if you were to read through the days of creation in Genesis, you would discover a very distinct pattern going on.  After God creates something, if you remember, the text then almost always finishes, “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day,” or “the third day,” or “the fifth day.”  This is likely nothing new to you.  You have heard these words a million times.  But, what you may not have noticed is that this phrase is not spoken on the seventh day.  The seventh day, the day when God stops, the day that is set aside for rest and settling in, does not have an end in the text.

That is strange.  It makes you wonder, “What is going on?”  Well, I will tell you what is going on!  The very next story then is the second creation account, where things are created in a little different order, but the focus of this story is Adam and Eve.  It is about their time in the garden where they are granted the gift of walking around and talking with the Lord.  In other words, the authors were really smart in how they put these stories together here: Adam and Eve are enjoying the seventh day.  They are enjoying this perpetual Sabbath day when they can be with God, tend to the abundant garden, and generally just enjoy the Lord’s abundance and the Lord’s presence. 

Is that not cool?  I warned you that it was a Bible nerd thing, but it means something really big.  It means that the Sabbath is a gift from God that provides two very needed things in our very busy and chaotic world.

First, it offers the gift of rest.  Notice that this gift of rest is for everyone.  Not even “your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns” are asked to engage in any work.  It is a day of rest for everyone.  It is a day in which the CEOs of the world do not get to dictate to you that the company is more important.  It is a gift of rest and quiet in a world of productivity and efficiency.  It is a gift that is hard to accept.  After-all, many of us do work when we should rest.

And, what is the punishment for failing to observe the Sabbath?  Does God send a lightning bolt and strike people dead for refusing to stop working?  No.  The punishment for ignoring the Sabbath is not getting a Sabbath.  Not getting the rest that you need and deserve is quite punishment enough.  How many heart attacks have occurred in this world because some people just are not able to stop?  How many people in this world are run into the dirt because they are not free to stop, but are slaves to the whims of others?  Remember the stopping day, and keep it holy.

The other gift (probably the primary gift) that the Sabbath provides is God’s presence.  It is the opportunity to come to God’s house on the beach, allowing God to provide for your needs as you rest in God’s presence and engage in holy conversation.

In the Jewish parts of Jerusalem today, you see this amazing thing happen the hours just before the Sabbath starts.  People are frantically buying food from the markets, running home and preparing the food for the next 24 hours.  The streets are full and they are busy in a crazy way.  And, as soon as the sun sets and the Jewish Sabbath begins (which begins at sunset Friday night), the streets are suddenly quiet except for the singing of hymns from homes and the smells of a delightful meal blowing out the windows and through the streets. 

For the next 24 hours, the people of God will live as if they were in the garden of Eden.  They will not prepare food, it is already ready, just like the plants and trees were ripe and full in the garden of Eden.  They will sing to God and read from the Hebrew Scriptures, allowing God to be in their presence and shape and mold them.  They will rest and remember once again to put their trust in the Lord, the one who creates and sustains everything. 

That is the gift of the Sabbath.  That is the gift worth holding onto.  That is the gift that can revive the world.  That is the gift which puts life and the world in perspective again.  That is the gift that oozes God’s mercy and love for us, God’s people.

That is the gift of rest and divine presence that Jesus desperately wants everyone to be able to experience. 

While walking through the grain fields, which should remind us of God walking with Adam and Eve in the garden, Jesus’ disciples pluck some grain and are fed from the graces of God’s abundance.  It is an image of Eden.  It also looks like work to some people. There will always be someone around to complain.  But, humans were not created to serve the Sabbath; the Sabbath is a gift which is created for humans.  What could be better than enjoying the day with the Lord?

Again, Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath, allowing him to finally rest from the pain, allowing him to rest from the worry, and allowing him to be in the very presence of the Lord.  Some complain that the healing Jesus does is work, but the Sabbath is about stopping all that destroys life and resting in the presence of the one who creates life.

Whenever we are in the presence of Jesus, we are walking in that unending Sabbath day where we can rest deeply, trusting in the Lord to provide.

And so, may your Sabbath day, today, be a day of deep rest and engagement with the Lord.  May you learn to trust the Lord once again.  May you walk in that garden with God where the sun never sets and the Lord’s goodness is always present.

Reflection on Exodus 20:7 and Luke 22:24-27

 

The pastor of a very rural, ten member congregation opened the mailbox one day to discover 15 envelopes sent from the nearby state penitentiary.  Each envelope contained a money order from various inmates, all with the same explanation.  A man, who was serving a life sentence for murder, had requested that the money be used to send an at-risk child to summer camp.

You see, the pastor had visited the man in jail, and had helped him accept the punishment that was handed down.  The pastor had also given the man a Bible, which was one of the most transformational things that could have ever occurred.  One evening, while reading through Exodus, the prisoner discovered something amazing: Moses was a murderer, like him.  Moses had murdered that slave driver; yet just verses later, God intentionally chose Moses to do amazing things.  Though he was a murderer, God still chose Moses to carry God’s name and to carry God’s gift of the Ten Commandments to God’s people.

“I can carry God’s name too!” the inmate exclaimed, a revelation of God’s warm love in a cold cell of cinder blocks. 

And so, he did.  The inmate dedicated his life to carrying God’s name well.  The inmate dedicated his life to making sure young children did not follow the same murderous path as he.  He desired more than anything for at-risk children to learn and be something more than the destructive things they had learned in their broken lives. They needed the transformational power of summer camp.  

And, because of this inmate’s dedication to carrying God name, that small, tired, congregation of ten people also discovered what carrying God’s name was all about.  This little congregation found their purpose for existing all because a former murderer, just like Moses had done long, long ago, took the lead and showed them God’s ways. They may be ten people, but they are a mighty ten people, now dedicated to being Jesus Christ to at-risk children in their community.

The commandment reads, “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God.”  You may have memorized it as, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” 

As children, we are told that this commandment is about swearing and how we should not use God’s name as a swear word.  I can remember the first time that I used the Lord’s name in vain.  It was while I was falling the down first enormous drop of my very first roller coaster ride, toward what I assumed was my complete annihilation.  God’s name screamed out with a few other choice words from the Jr. High locker room that I had never uttered before in my life.  And, God’s name screamed in vain was not screamed in the safety and confidence of my best friends.  No, I was riding the ride right next to my mom.

Please understand, I took God’s commands very seriously as a child, and as we walked through the rest of the amusement park, I stared up at the growing threat of storm clouds, praying that I might be delivered from my demise.

Though the commandment certainly includes the idea of using God’s name as a curse word, I want to point out a Biblical truth: cursing with God’s name is not the primary purpose for this commandment.  When we say, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” the Hebrew word for “take” actually should be translated “carry.”  “Vain” would be better translated today as “useless.”  So, this is how the commandment should read, “You shall not carry the name of the Lord your God in a useless way.”

“You shall not carry the name of the Lord your God in a useless way.”

This was such an amazing revelation to me!  You see, so many things in the Bible start to make so much sense when you realize that this commandment is about so much more than using God’s name as a swear word.  It now makes so much sense as to why the nations of Israel and Judah were destroyed by God and their leadership sent into exile in Babylon.  The prophet Jeremiah lays out the reasoning for the people’s punishment clearly: “Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of treachery; therefore they have become great and rich, they have grown fat and sleek. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy. Shall I not punish them for these things? says the Lord, and shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this?” (Jeremiah 5:27-29). 

What Jeremiah is saying is that God’s people had forgotten to carry God’s name in all that they do and say.  God’s people had forgotten to care about those that God cares about.  God’s people had forgotten to “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, [and] plead the widow's cause” (Isaiah 1:17).

The priests performed their temple rituals perfectly, but they forgot to care for the lowest and least of God’s people.  The people sang their praises, but forgot to serve their God and their neighbor in need.  The people that God designated to be God’s image on earth had forgotten to carry God’s name.  They had become useless to God and useless toward the causes that God cares about.

“You shall not carry the name of the Lord your God in a useless way.”

Jesus is worried that the exact same thing might happen to his disciples.  They are brought together to be the hands and feet of Jesus in all that they do and say.  But, there is always a temptation to fashion God into our image rather than fashion ourselves into God’s image.  There is always a temptation to justify what we think by proclaiming God’s support, rather than taking the time and effort to change what we think to be aligned with God.

When a fight broke out among the disciples as to who was the best…who was the most important, Jesus rebuked them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves” (Luke 22:25-26).  Jesus is clear that we are a people who serve God.  God’s name does not serve us.  We are servants of God; nothing more, and nothing less.

How many times has God’s name been used to throw support behind our wars?  How many times has God’s name been used to support our hatred for certain people?  How many times has God’s name been used to justify forgetting the poor, forgetting the outcast, forgetting the foreigner, forgetting the widow, forgetting the orphan, and forgetting the sinner? 

But, God does not carry our name.  We carry God’s name.  We care about all God cares about.  We love those who God loves.  We serve Jesus.  We are the hands and feet of Jesus Christ on this earth, carrying the love of Jesus for the world.

“You shall not carry the name of the Lord your God in a useless way.”

You were not created to be useless. 

You are not useless.  It does not matter what others may have told you.  You are not useless.  You are not a murderer.  You are not a lazy good for nothing.  You are not a lost cause.  You are not an abomination.  You are not stupid.  You are not any of those names that are designed to push you down and degrade you from being who you truly are. 

You are the image of God.  You are the ones chosen to carry the name of God.  You are the hands and feet of Jesus Christ.  You were worth saving on the cross.  You were worth dying for.  You are the people of God who do not carry God’s name in a useless way.

“Useless.”  That is what that little congregation of ten people felt before their very own Moses led them from the confines of his jail cell.  Previously, the shrinking congregation honestly felt abandoned by God.  They felt old and powerless.  They felt small.  They felt tired and useless as a congregation.  But, that murderer, that man deservedly serving his time, that forgiven child of God, that carrier of God’s name and his fellow prisoners had led that congregation of ten people from the barren sands of uselessness into the lush green fields of Jesus’ love, and into the life of Jesus’ purpose as they devoted themselves to helping wayward children. 

The Ten Commandments are given as a gift by God in order to give all of us life on this earth.  And, God will certainly provide us with the gift of life and purpose whenever we carry the name of the Lord our God in a way that serves God and neighbor. 

“You shall not carry the name of the Lord your God in a useless way.”

Reflection on Exodus 20:1-6 and Luke 9:51-62

 

I want you to imagine for a moment or two that all you have ever known in life is performing whatever tasks your slave masters have told you to do.  If the empire wanted a wall built out of stone, and your slave masters told you to cut the stone, under threat of punishment you would have cut the stone.  If the empire wanted more grain planted for the season, and your slave masters told you to plant an extra four fields of grain, under threat of punishment you would have planted the four extra fields of grain.  If the empire only gave you five days of bread for a seven day week, you would have figured out how to stretch five days of bread into seven. 

The picture that I am painting for you is the life of the Israelite slaves under the absolute power and absolute authority of Egypt.  Raised as a slave from childhood, all you would have ever known would be how to serve the Empire.  All you would have ever known would be listening to whatever you were told.  As a slave, you were shaped and molded to serve the government…to serve the empire.

Now, I want you to imagine that you have suddenly been freed from a life of slavery by God.  If fact, everyone around you has been freed by God from lives devoted to serving the empire.  How do you now live to the next day?  How do you live together in freedom with others?  What does this new life look like?  To whom do you now listen?

I think putting the Israelite’s situation in these terms reveals just how much of a gift that the Ten Commandments are to the people of God.  For centuries, the Ten Commandments have been viewed by both Jews and Christians, not as burdens that we somehow need to accomplish in order to be holy, but as gifts that give us life as we strive to live together in this world. 

It is a life that is focused, not on what is best for governments and empires.  It is a life that is focused, not on what is best for corporations and CEOs.  It is a life focused, not on what is best for narcissistic leaders and power brokers.  It is a life focused, rather, on the life, and love, and mercy, and peace of God.  It is a life focused on the desires of the one who created us and desires us to have the best life together.

So, it is no surprise that the First Commandment is, “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.”  We will find life together when we focus on the same merciful God together. 

In the Hebrew language, this commandment is quite fascinating.  It literally reads, “You shall not place other gods in front of me.”  The image being conveyed here is literally picking up and setting down some sort of other god, in the form of a symbol or idol, in front of the one true God.  And, that is precisely what the Israelites literally do when Moses is up on the mountain and God is giving him the Ten Commandments.  They literally place a golden calf in between them and the mountain of God.  The golden calf is literally blocking the path up to God on the mountain.

As you can imagine, God, quite rightly, gets really, really upset by this, as God does throughout the Bible as the kings of Israel place idols of their wives’ gods in front of the altar in God’s temple, and images and symbols of government, such as Caesar’s head, in front of God in God’s holy temple.  This literal placement of other things or symbols in front of God or beside God in places of worship is a really big problem, because it reveals quite clearly the things and symbols that are blocking the view of God in our minds and in our hearts.

Think back to the Israelites wandering around in the wilderness, who are struggling and hungry, and who are more than willing to abandon God in favor of the pots full of meat that the Egyptian empire provided.  They are placing another god in front of trusting the true God.

Think of those who are captured by the lure of addictive substances.  I think of a widowed grandmother who told me about how her grandson stole her husband’s wedding ring right off of her nightstand, where it brought her comfort through the loneliness of the night, and sold it for an hour’s worth of feeling high.  As tragic as that story is, I also think about how she told me that she does not need the ring back.  All she wants is her grandson back.  She desires nothing but life for him.  If only the substances were not placed so solidly in front of God, blocking the holy, blocking the mercy, blocking the life.

Think of those who are captured by images of the good life; of nice houses, and nice cars, and an abundance of fine food.  I think of those who have no problem paying their employees the bare minimum so that they can live the good life.  I think about those who have no problem exploiting others so that they alone can live well.  I think about those who place their own desires in the way of God, so that they cannot even see the desires of God, who desires that we care for our neighbors.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol.”  “You shall not bow down to them to worship them.”  “I am the Lord your God.”

Here’s a fun Bible fact.  Did you know that the golden calf was supposed to represent God?  It was not intended by Moses’ brother Aaron to be another god, but rather was supposed to represent God.  Do you know why God got so mad about that and why God does not want us creating idols in the image of God?  Because God is very clear in the book of Genesis that God has already created something in the image of God.  To be more precise, God created “someone” in the image of God.  God created us to be the image of God on earth.  God created you to be the image of God on earth.  The Bible reads, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (NRSV, Genesis 1:27).  When others look at you, God hopes they will see in you the reflection of the divine.  God hopes that nothing in your life is blocking the image of our life-giving God.

Jesus is explicit that we will only be able to see the gift of life and the gift of the salvation of God when we follow and do not place anything else in the way.  In the same way, others will only be able to see that same life and salvation in us, God’s image on earth, when we follow and do not place anything else in the way. 

To one man Jesus said, “’Follow me.’  But [the man] said, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’  But Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’  Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’  Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God’” (NRSV, Luke 9:59-62).

Now, I understand that Jesus seems pretty rude here and the story seems to be an obvious exaggeration.  That might be the case, but it is an exaggeration that makes a much needed point.  Sometimes we place family and our own homes in the way of God.  Sometimes, we cannot see Jerusalem, where the Lord resides, because we have allowed others to stand in the way.  Sometimes, we allow those closest to us to block the good life found in the kingdom of God.  In a shocking teaching to our own society, Jesus teaches that sometimes family does not come first, especially if they are blocking all that is good and holy and loving. 

Again, I need to emphasize that putting God first does not secure God’s love.  Following the First Commandment is not what saves us.  Notice that the commandment starts out with “I am the Lord you God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;” and then the commandment goes on to read, “you shall have no other gods.”  God saves us from Egypt first.  God saves us first, because God wants us near.  Jesus goes to Jerusalem for us and dies for our sake and rises to new life, whether we follow along the way or not.

But, if we look at our world, bemoaning how it is crumbling, and then we also see our neighbors in pain, then God will create a desire to want all that God wants.  After-all, it is God who can put it all back together.  We will strive first for the kingdom of God.  We will strive to live this life of peace that the Ten Commandments seek to create.  We will place nothing before God, because it is only God who gives all of us life.  We will do it for the sake of our neighbor who also cries out silently in the night for the world to be right again.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” (NRSV, Luke 10:27). 

“You shall not place other gods in front of me.”

Reflection on Deuteronomy 6:1-9 and Luke 10:25-37

 

You guys are in for a fun ride this summer!  We are going to be looking at the Ten Commandments and we will also being looking at what Jesus has to say about each of these ten sayings from God the Father. 

But, before we start plumbing the depths of each commandment, I want us to understand the purpose of the Ten Commandments, because so often we view them simply as rules for living our individual lives.  I once had a T-Shirt that said, “Life not going well?  Just follow the rules,” and it had a picture the Ten Commandments. The insinuation being, “If you follow them, you are good and life is good.”  “If you do not follow them, you are bad and life is bad.” 

But, God has so much more in store for us when we look to these ten sayings.  For God, these ten sayings give life.  They maintain grace and love when embraced by a community.  They are a gift.

But, we are getting ahead of ourselves.  Before we get into that, I want to ask you simply to list the Ten Commandments as you learned them in Sunday School. 

Lutheran:   The First Commandment You shall have no other gods.   The Second Commandment You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God.   The Third Commandment Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.   The Fourth Commandment Honor your father and your mother.   The Fifth Commandment You shall not murder.   The Sixth Commandment You shall not commit adultery.   The Seventh Commandment You shall not steal.   The Eighth Commandment You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.   The Ninth Commandment You shall not covet your neighbor's house.   The Tenth Commandment You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Reformed/Protestant:   The First Commandment You shall have no other gods.   The Second Commandment You shall not make for yourself an idol.   The Third Commandment You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God.   The Fourth Commandment Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.   The Fifth Commandment Honor your father and your mother.   The Sixth Commandment You shall not murder.   The Seventh Commandment You shall not commit adultery.   The Eighth Commandment You shall not steal.   The Ninth Commandment You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.   The Tenth Commandment You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Again, the Ten Commandments are not simply rules that you make sure to follow so that you can be a good and holy person.  They are so much more.  And, to get at that, I want to talk to you about “The Smasher.”

“The Smasher” was our elementary school dodge ball nemesis.  The Smasher was bigger than everyone else in the class, and thus he was much stronger than everyone else in class.  For the most part, The Smasher was a pretty nice guy, until he entered the dodge ball court.  You never wanted to throw the ball in the direction of The Smasher because if he ever caught the ball, you were in for a whole lot of hurt.  This guy was able to whip that ball so hard that it would leave huge welts.  Fear and speed were the methods that The Smasher employed in order to win.  And, win he did.

One day a new kid showed up in class, one who looked as if he could possibly put up a challenge to The Smasher, and the Smasher immediately went after this new threat.  Relentlessly, The Smasher would pelt the new kid with the ball, beating up his body game after game.  The rest of us were more than happy to step aside as he went after this new target; there were no self-sacrificing soldiers on this playing field.

Finally, it got so bad that our gym teacher had to step in.  She made a rule against hard throws, and anyone who broke the rule would be sent to the bench for the rest of that round.  You can imagine who found themselves on the bench, a lot, the next few days: The Smasher, of course.  And, for the first time the game was kind of fun for the rest of us, including the new kid.  The game was now challenging in a way that allowed everyone else to finally hone their dodge ball skills.  And, the fun started precisely because a rule or a boundary was set by the teacher.

And, that is what the Ten Commandments are.  They are a gracious gift of boundaries provided by God so that life can go well for all of us, not just the most powerful, or the most liked, or the shrewdest and wealthiest of us.

The Ten Commandments are not put here on this earth by God as a test to pass in order to get to heaven.  They are not put here on this earth by God as a way for us to somehow prove how great of people we are.  They have nothing to do with that.  God says right in the Bible what the purpose of the Commandments are:

“Observe them diligently, so that it may go well with ‘you-all,’ and so that ‘you-all’ may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has promised you” (Deuteronomy 6:3).

God does not need your good works.  God does not need you to keep the commandments.  But, your neighbor does.  Your neighbor needs you to not steal and not lie and cheat, just as you need the same from your neighbor so that “it may go well with you-all.”  The commandments are a gift from God that allow us to live together, and grow together, and have a little fun together.  And, when we love the LORD our God with all our heart, and soul, and might, and our neighbors as ourselves, we do not have to live in fear of one another.  And, when we do not have to live in fear of one another, it is all a little more fun.

“The Smasher” protested the teacher’s new rules.  He could no longer just power his way to a win.  “This is not fair.  I cannot help that I am the most powerful.  I cannot help that I am the best at this game” he tried to convince the teacher from the sidelines.

And, I hear this a lot.  “Might equals right.”  “The best deserve the best.”  “If you lose, just try harder.”  And, though there is real value in this message of hard work and striving to be the best, the teacher put it best in her answer to him:

“There are other things to learn in sports than just being the best.  In sports we learn focus and self-control.  In sports we learn how to help others to become the best they can be for the sake of the team.  In sports we learn how to be a team.  We learn how to be a community.  It is not all about being the best.  And, when we can all play without needing to fear for our safety, it is all a lot more fun.  My rule will stay.”

Do you want to know who benefitted the most of all?  The new kid.  He was no longer the target.  He was no longer the outsider who needed to be destroyed, literally by a small, red ball.  He was no longer left to fend for himself as he took the beating no one else wanted.  Jesus had a lot to say about the outsider and the rules.

After being questioned if the rules of loving God and neighbor really had to include everyone, Jesus told a parable about a man who had been beaten by robbers and left on the side of the road.  You know how the story goes.  The holy people who have places to be and hands to keep clean ignore the bloody mess of a man, but an outsider, a Samaritan, a man of a despised race, is the one who stops and helps the guy.  The outsider shows mercy.  The outsider plays by the rules better than those who should have known better.  The outsider shows mercy, just as God shows mercy. 

These commands of God are a gift of God to everyone and are for the benefit of everyone, so that life can be a little more fun for us all.  When following the commands of God, we find life together.  We find love together.  And, we find peace together, or as the Jews say it, we find “Shalom” together.  Commands for all, to give life to all.

So, as we dig into these Ten Commandments in the Sundays ahead, I want you to remember that they are not so much a demand from God as they are a gift from God for the sake of us all. And, yes, even The Smasher learned how to just have fun with us.