I remember it well because St. James' Episcopal Church in Potomac, Maryland has as its immediate neighbor the Beth Shalom Congregation, an Orthodox Jewish Congregation that held at its core a deep respect for and heartfelt attempt to live out all of the Torah and especially the 10 Commandments, even the call to remember the Sabbath. The neighborhood surrounding St. James' and Beth Shalom was filled with Orthodox Jews who needed to live within walking distance of the Synagogue because they were forbidden to start their cars on the Sabbath. The Congregation's website updates weekly, just before the Sabbath, the status of their Eruv, a series of naturally occurring and man made land features that act as the walls of their city inside which, according to tradition, the rule against "carrying outside of the home" may be expanded; one may "carry" within the boundaries of the Eruv. Even the local appliance stores carry, in stock, stoves by KitchenAid and Whirlpool that had Sabbath settings on them so that observant Jews might be able to heat up a meal without violating the rule forbidding lighting a flame.
Their strict adherence got me thinking that perhaps there is something to this Sabbath thing. Maybe God's dream isn't so crazy after all. Certainly the members of Beth Shalom think so. The intricacy of their rules might be hard to understand, but the underlying desire to honor God in every aspect of one's life is to be commended and modeled.
Even beyond that tough Sabbath commandment, the vast majority of the list of ten can be difficult to live up to. In my lifetime I'm fairly certain I've only really kept two of the ten as they are traditionally understood in the Episcopal Church. I rarely am able to keep Sabbath; days off mean mowing the yard, washing love bugs off the car, and grocery shopping. I have, though less and less as I mature, made wrongful use of the name of the Lord. There were times when I did not honor my father and my mother. I stole some penny candy and smashed a pumpkin or two as an adolescent. I most certainly brought false witness against my sister when it meant saving myself from being grounded or losing the car for the weekend. And just Thursday I found myself coveting my neighbor's i-phone. As one who routinely falls short, I realize that the dream of God articulated in the ten commandments is a difficult calling. And yet, it is a life that seems worthy of the effort as I strive to live into the covenant that God has made with us.
Whenever someone mentions a covenant these days, it is almost universally assumed to be a list of can't do's; he "Covenants - Conditions - and Restrictions" form many of us had to sign when purchasing a home. You can't park a boat in your driveway. You can't paint your house pink. You can't have a pet pig. Covenants are seen as narrowing, as drawing strong lines, as keeping us penned in.
I think the underlying cause of our apathy toward the 10 commandments is that we often read the 10 Commandments as the covenants - conditions - and restrictions of our lives, our faith, and even our worship. There are many churches that to this day have 10 commandment style architecture; standing tall as huge white boxes with clear windows so as not to disobey the commandment against making idols.
Seeing the Commandments this way makes them ugly things; top down initiatives; the stuff that boomers, gen xers, gen yers, and millennial children have spent the last 50 years breaking for the sport of it. Even the name, the 10 Commandments set it up with a negative feel. Almost all of us dislike commandments. We don't like being told what to do and how to live our lives, thank you very much. Which brings me back to the Beth Shalom Congregation in Potomac, Maryland because for them the text of Exodus 20 is not the 10 Commandments but they are the 10 Words which God spoke to his chosen people; the only words spoken directly to the people at large by their God. They aren't the CCR's of their lives but the establishment of a relationship. For them, the first word or commandment is not, "you shall have no other god's before me", but it is "I am the Lord your God, who brought you our of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." Typically, "commands and laws have the imperative form." Thou shalts and Thou Shalt Nots... "But “I am your God” is not an imperative; there is no rule to keep or action to do. It is an announcement: good news for a people desperate to hear it. This reorients the [whole of the passage from 10 Commandments to 10 Words because it means that the one who keeps the first commandment—on which all the other commandments rest—is Yahweh, the faithful One of Israel. The other nine commands for Jews —all imperative in form, call for Israel’s active response to God's initiative— they simply shape a life of gratitude, a life poured out in grateful response to the gospel announcement that precedes: I am your God." (1) Looking at the 10 Commandments this way they become a lot easier for us to buy into. We understand lifestyle changes for the sake of a relationship.
Look at our baptismal covenant. We articulate first our belief in, our trust in, our relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and in light of that relationship we promise to live our lives a certain way; we will continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. We will persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord. We will proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ. We will seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves. We will strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. Like the Hebrews at Mount Sinai, in light of our new found relationship with God we make promises about how we will live our lives.
It is easy to get bogged down by a commandment oriented faith, but if we reorient ourselves from the stuff we can and can't do and instead seek the full relationship with God promised in his first word we quickly begin to see what a blessing the rest of the words from God can be. May God's promise to be the Lord our God motivate each us toward living a life worthy of God's dream. May we take seriously the words he spoke to the Hebrew's at Sinai. May our lives always be pointed toward him in thanksgiving for the relationship that he initiated. Amen.
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