Nassau Presbyterian Church

October 2, 2011
Exodus 20:1-21
“The Legacy of Faith”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

In preparation for today’s sermon on the Ten Commandments, Matt Schultz sent me a picture of Charleton Heston taken right from the movie. Charleton Heston as Moses, just down from the mountaintop. You can imagine the picture was photo shopped a bit. The title on the picture was iGod; and in smaller letters it reads “now available in tablet form.” In the picture there on my screen, instead of two tablets of stone, Moses is carrying two ipads; ipad-moses. No doubt lighter, more flexible, could carry more of the law, but probably harder to smash in dramatic fashion. Don’t let the silliness of the image hide the implied question about the relevance of the Ten Commandments?

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. Do not have any other gods.
Don’t bow down to worship anyone, anything else.
Do not toss around my name like it means nothing.
Remember the sabbath day. Keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother.
Do not murder.
Be faithful in marriage.
No stealing.
Quit telling lies about other people.
Don’t want anything that belongs to someone else.

The preacher Barbara Brown Taylor writes about the experience of driving through a small town where many folks had signs displaying the Ten Commandments stuck in their yards. The Ten Commandments were planted like “For Sale” signs or one of those signs giving credit to your painter, your builder, your driveway paver. The signs must have been part of a larger debate about displaying the Commandments on public property. In her description of this Ten Commandment landscaping, Brown Taylor can’t help herself from pointing out the irony when she saw a homeowner cutting his grass, steering his riding lawn mower around the sign, on a Sunday. “Public defense of the Ten Teachings” she artfully concludes, “is no substitute for practicing them…embodying God’s Word constitutes a stronger witness to that Word than printing it in blue ink on white plastic.” Or to put it another way, living the Ten Commandments is what makes them meaningful, not just posting them, or hanging them, or sandblasting them.

No other gods, only me.
Make no idols for yourself in any form.
Quit misusing my name.
Remember that the sabbath day belongs to me.
Respect your parents.
Do not murder.
Honor your marriage vows.
No stealing.
Quit telling lies about other people.
Don’t set your heart on anything that is your neighbor’s.

According to the Book of Exodus, the people’s first encounter with the Ten came complete with thunder, lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. All the people stood at a distance. They backed up. They called out to Moses, “You can speak to us and we will listen. But don’t let God speak to us or we will die!” That’s when Moses replied, “Don’t be afraid! God has come only to test you and to put the fear of God upon you so that you do not sin.” That doesn’t make a lot sense, really. Do not fear, God has come to fill you with fear. It doesn’t make a whole lot of common sense either. Everyone knows, certainly God knows, you can’t stop all the misbehaving just by making a list. The people of Israel clearly weren’t convinced. When Moses drew near to the thick cloud of darkness where God was, the people still stayed back. Way back. A long way off.
Do not fear. God has come to fill you with fear. That’s not right. That’s not quite right. How about “do not be afraid” God has come to place this reverence and awe within you. Do not fear, God is instilling within you this driving force, this yearning, a life longing. Do not be afraid, with this Law, God is driving home within you a profound and humble thirst for God; that you might always know the difference, feel the difference, experience the difference somewhere deep within you, the difference between life with God and life in the world.

Do not have any other gods. Me and only Me. Only “I Am.”
Never bow down to anyone, anything else.
Stop abusing my name.
Remember the sabbath day. Keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother.
Do not murder.
Be faithful in marriage.
No stealing.
Never spread rumors about other people.
Stop wishing for other peoples’ stuff.

The Ten Commandments, God’s gift of the Law, stuck somewhere within you. Not just a check list that tells you how to live, or bookstore wisdom guaranteed to make you successful, or an outdated piece of religious kitsch that just collects dust. Rather, a kingdom way of life ingrained in your soul. An affirmation of who you are and to whom you belong written somewhere in your heart. A deep and resonating, always relevant longing for God carved not in stone, but etched into your very being.
That’s why its better to sing them than to post them. The Ten Commandments, I mean. When you sing something, you learn it you experience it with more than just one half of your brain. When you learn a song, some part of it usually goes with you. When you a know a song, it keeps coming back. Posters are for movie stars, MVPS, and bad religious poetry. Beckham. Bono. Drako Malvoy. Lady Gaga. That old poem about the Footprints that will never go away. Put those up your wall. The Ten Commandments belong in your heart. These days etchings in stone are reserved for those who have gone before us over at Princeton Cemetery, or in monuments to founders and saints and heroes and modern prophets. The Ten Commandments can’t live in stone. The meaning comes when they live in you. Like a tune you get in your ear, and it goes with you the rest of the day. Like the melody you always whistle at the start of the day or the one that plays in your head when you’re trying to clear your mind and end the day in sleep. Like the song you sing as you fall on your knees in prayer, or when you cradle your sleeping child in your arms, or when you’re calming yourself in the classroom as the teacher distributes your exam. Like the tune you remember long after you have forgotten the words. A reverence for God that is so beyond memorizing, its in your bones.

I am
No other
Praise my name.
Sabbath Day.
Bless you father and your mother.
No murder.
No cheating.
No stealing.
No gossip.
Stop wanting everything else.

A few years ago Cathy and I took some ballroom dance classes. Over and over again, the instructor would tell us to feel our center, to hold posture, and to move from the core. If you stop at any gym and listen to what a trainer is explaining, drilling, or yelling to a client. It will include something about working the core. Strenthening the core. A coach, when teaching someone how to pay defense in basketball, or soccer, or football, or lacrosse, will tell a youngster to learn to keep you eyes on the waist, on the core, on the center. You can be faked out by feet, or a move of the head. But the core, is always going to go, always going to point where the opposing player is intending to move. Do not be afraid. Yes, God cares about how you live and how you behave. And God is placing within you this sacred core. This holy center. A kingdom way. The strength for your journey. A guide when it comes to your movement. You don’t post the core, or hang the core, or just remember the core, or simply memorize the core, you live it! You breath it! You Are it!
In a board meeting this week of the Princeton Presbyterian campus fellowship, a student described the scene out on Prospect Street down by the eating clubs as students are streaming to parties on a Thursday or a Saturday. Apparently, in an effort to offer a Christian witness, some folks take turns during the wee hours of a college party night, wearing sign boards that say various things about particular sins, with threats of hell, and the wrath of God. As a parent of a college student and a high school senior, I have some sympathy for the use of dire warnings and threats. But if that’s our legacy of faith, well, God forbid and God forgive us all.
The preparation for a night out on campus; it starts around 2nd grade. The preparation for negotiating that deal at work; it began in the 1st grade Sunday School Class with Mrs. Weddle. When you think about honoring the relationships most dear in your life, or when pondering an opportunity to not honor them, that tune that plays in your head, it is so much a part of you, you can’t even remember when you learned it. When folks all around you are bowing to the statue of the bull up on Wall Street, or falling before the altar of success at any cost, or trying to convince you that your very identity is defined by getting into the right college, that’s when you tell yourself that you are a child of God and your draw upon the core that has been placed with in you by the power of the Holy Spirit, strengthened within you by the grace of God, and nurtured within you by an ever present faith community full of church school teachers, youth group advisors, small group leaders, elders, deacons, pastors, pew partners, life long members, first time visitors, all of whom learn, and teach, and sing this song:

No other gods, only me.
Make no idols for yourself in any form.
Quit misusing my name.
Remember that the sabbath day belongs to me.
Respect your parents.
Do not murder.
Honor your marriage vows.
No stealing.
Quit telling lies about other people.
Don’t set your heart on anything that is your neighbor’s.

Do not be afraid. God has come to place this reverence and awe within you. Do not fear, God is instilling within you this driving force, this yearning, a life longing. Do not be afraid, with this Law, God is driving home within you a profound and humble thirst for God; that you might always know the difference, feel the difference, experience the difference somewhere deep within you, the difference between life with God and life in the world.
The legacy of our faith, it’s not sign boards and threats, it is God at work deep within you. So that when you hit the street, whatever street, you would know to the very core of your being, that God loves you. God is with you, and God alone is worthy of your life.