The Rev. Virginia W. Nagel
Episcopal Diocese of Central NY (Retired)
We are, today, half-way through Lent. And, of course, the Church is still
very much concerned that we are provided with Bible readings to help us keep a
good and holy Lent. So, let's look at today's readings and see what they have to
say to us in this year of our Lord two thousand and nine.
The first reading is from Exodus, and I suppose everyone has noticed that it
is the Ten Commandments. There are some interesting things about the Ten
Commandments (or the Ten Words as our Jewish brothers and sisters call them)
that we should think about.
The first important point is that the Ten Commandments are not the only
commandments God gave to Moses. But they are the most important, because they
are part of the Sinai Covenant between God and his people...and that means,
since Christianity grew out of Judaism, between God and us. They are not listed
in our Baptismal Covenant, but they are an inherent part of our personal
covenant with God, made by each of us when we are baptized.
The second important point is that these are the only
commandments that God himself put into writing, according to the Bible. God gave
many commandments to Moses during the time that Moses spent on Mount Sinai with
God...613 of them, scattered through the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and
Numbers. But the Ten Commandments were given by God directly to
the Jewish people who had come out of Egypt with Moses. God had given
instructions that the people, camped below Mount Sinai, should purify themselves
and prepare to meet with the Lord, so that he could make a covenant with them.
God himself spoke these commandments to the people, from out of the fire and
cloud of smoke. They accepted the covenant, saying, All that you have said
we will do. And then they begged to be allowed to leave God's presence,
which they found not only terrifying but mind-blowing. They begged that Moses be
allowed to go up the mountain to talk with God on their behalf. They were too
frightened to remain in God's presence (although they did not seem to understand
that all of us are always in God's presence!) So Moses went up the
mountain, and was given the two tablets of the Law, upon which God had written
the Ten Commandments, and then he spent 40 days talking with God, receiving the
other 613 commandments, which are known to the Jews as the Oral Law because they
weren't written down by God. Tradition says that Moses wrote them down later,
when he described the events of the ancient days and of the Exodus.
The third important point is that each of the commands of the Oral Law carry
with the command its special punishment. Break this law, and get punished in
this manner. But none of the Ten Commandments has a punishment attached. They
are so earth-shakingly important that the punishment for breaking them is
reserved to God alone, whose wisdom shows him all the reasons, excuses and
factors that are involved in this person's breaking of this law. They are
super-binding laws, and are found in almost every culture in one form or
another. They are so important that the judgment and punishment for breaking
them is reserved to God himself.
The fourth and final point about the Commandments comes with the last one.
The first nine speak of what we must or must not do. But the last one speaks of
what we must not allow ourselves to even think about. The rabbis say that this
commandment underlines the fact that we need to internalize all
the Ten Commandments, make them so much a part of our thinking and understanding
that we would not even dare to think of breaking any of them. This understanding
pops up in some of the Gospels, where Jesus explains that hating a person is the
same as killing them, and looking on a woman with lust is the same as raping
her.
One of the interesting things about Psalm 19 is that it starts by pointing
out the things that God has done that make us want to glorify and praise
him...and goes on to say that God's giving of his law is also a cause for us to
give glory and praise. God, you see, loves us so much that he wants to provide
for us a life-style that is guaranteed to make us live in peace and happiness
with one another and with him. That is, of course, a very real reason to praise
and give glory to God.
One problem that we have when we read Paul's letters to the churches is that
we often do not know exactly why Paul wrote this or that in his letters. We do
know that the city of Corinth in Greece was rather like Hollywood during the big
days of movies, the 1930's through the 1960's, before TV got more important to
most of us than movies. Hollywood, like Corinth, was a city that was built on
images. It didn't matter if you were rich, as long as you behaved in a way that
made others think you were rich. It didn't matter if you were a good person, as
long as you gave the appearance of being good. We all know about the scandalous
sex lives of Hollywood stars that were gossiped about, but they had to behave
in such a way that nobody would believe that this sweet-looking young girl
really did THAT! And so on. Corinth was like that, and Paul's first letter to
the people in Corinth scolds them for putting more importance on what people
think or say than on what people really are and do. God, Paul reminds them, can
see what you are actually doing and thinking, no matter how you behave so that
the neighbors or your boss think you are a perfect angel. And then Paul goes on
to show how it wasn't what people thought about Jesus that was important...it
was important what, and Who, Jesus is, and what he actually did, not what people
thought he did. This is something we need to be reminded of when we think about
living according to God's commandments. What really matters is what God KNOWS we
are and do, not what our neighbors or others think of us.
Today's Gospel is from the Gospel of John and speaks of Jesus driving the
money changers and the animal sellers out of the temple. Jesus quotes one of the
prophets, who reminds us (very much like Paul did) that we are to come to
worship ONLY to worship God...not to make a profit or look good to our
neighbors. The Temple, Jesus reminds us, is a house of prayer, his Father's
house...not a place to do business, not a place to go to look holy, but a place
to help us be, and keep on being, holy in the sight of God. This is a good
reminder for us, this Lent. In fact, all the readings come together to give us
encouragement and understanding that will help us keep a holy Lent, and grow in
holiness in the sight of God. And God, of course, already knows how we are doing
in that regard...we may be able to fool others, even fool ourselves, but we can
never fool God. Amen.
