Ex 20:1-17

6 October 2002

World Communion Sunday

“It’s a Way of Life”

Thou shalt not!  These words, seen as having a distinctly non-permission giving / party pooping nature, sum up what a great many people believe to be the essence of faith.  Of everything in the Bible, the Ten Commandments seem to be, far and away, the scriptures most commonly cited by our society at large when it comes to describing the things of God.  But as a wise man once said, “Just because something’s quoted a lot, it doesn’t mean it’s understood…a lot!”

Something else about the Ten Commandments, be it the version in Exodus or the one in Deuteronomy:  it’s hard to find anything else in the Bible that gets used so often for people’s cultural and political agendas.  That’s especially true for folks who seem less interested in actually practicing the Ten Commandments than in using them to define their enemies!  I’m thinking of the ways in which the Ten Commandments get treated like a political football.  Even the name of God gets treated like that—which, by the way, is a violation of commandment number three!

Guess what?  Misusing God’s name isn’t an American invention.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached a sermon on this very subject while Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party, promising to restore glory to Germany, was continually gaining supporters.  Here’s an excerpt from his sermon:[1]

We read that a government has proclaimed that a whole nation is to be saved from collapse—by the Christian attitude to life…’In the name of God, amen,’ is again to be the slogan, religion is again to be cultivated, and the Christian view of life is to be spread.  How meagre, weak and pitiful all this sounds.  Are we really to be taken in again by this ‘In the name of God, amen’?  Do we really believe that we shall be governed by it in our actions?  That we, rich and poor, Germans and Frenchmen, will allow ourselves to be united by the name of God?  Or is there not concealed behind our religious trends our ungovernable urge to…power—in the name of God to do what we want, and in the name of the Christian attitude to life to stir up and play off one nationality against another?…It is not our irreligiousness that is disobedience to God, but the fact that we are very glad to be religious…very relieved when some government proclaims the Christian attitude to life…so that the more pious we are the less we have to tell ourselves that God is dangerous, that [God] is not mocked.

Bonhoeffer spoke these words on 12 June 1932.  They could have been uttered yesterday.  Seven months later, Hitler rose to power as the Chancellor of Germany.  The wrongful use of God’s name would then be taken to whole new levels.

I mention that as an example to show how the Ten Commandments, and more than that, how the Old Testament law itself, gets misunderstood and gets misused.  Case in point:  the rich young man in our gospel reading who approaches Jesus.  “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” (Mt 19:16).  Translation:  on that big checklist of actions, both plus and minus, which one on the plus side do I really need to make sure I’ve got covered?

Jesus gives him an answer that shows he’s asking the wrong question.  Standing in the tradition of the prophets, Jesus indicates that serving God is less a matter of scorekeeping than it is one’s whole way of life.  The prophets—and Jesus— understand the law of Moses to be, not nitpicking over minutia, but rather, a vision of how things can be.  It’s what happens when we allow God’s joy and peace to be unleashed.  Admittedly, the coming of Christ and the unfolding of history help us to gain this outlook.  (At least, they should.)  But the Ten Commandments really are best understood as a vision of life.

I mentioned already the third commandment, but I want to take as a special focus the one right after it.  To me, it’s the one that best sums up the Ten Commandments as a way of life.  And the fact that it’s the one about which we seem to have the most confusion is only appropriate!  I’m speaking, of course, about the sabbath—and the call to keep it holy.

Some time ago, I came across some observations by a medieval rabbi.  It was pointed out by Rabbi Jacob, called the Ba'al ha-Turim, that the sabbath commandment deals with the seventh day of the week (well, I knew that); it begins with the seventh verse in the Ten Commandments (which start with verse 2); it begins with the seventh letter of the Hebrew alphabet (z, zayin); and it specifies rest for seven categories of creatures.[2]

            Such comments about sabbath aside, we’re often not quite sure what to make of it.  One of our church’s confessions from the seventeenth century, the Westminster Confession of Faith, tells us that “from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, [the sabbath] was the last day of the week; and from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week…and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath.”[3]  Not all Christians would agree with that—the Seventh Day Adventists, for example.

            Still, how does the Confession say we are to observe this sabbath?  Well, by not only observing a “holy rest all the day from [our] own works, words, and thoughts about [our] worldly employments and recreations; but also [by being] taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of [God’s] worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.”[4]  So what does all that mean?  Is it okay to mow the grass on Sunday?  How about watch football?

            Before I go any further, I should say that our ignorance (and by “our” I include myself) of sabbath costs us dearly.  We find ourselves stressed out because we don’t have enough time.  It takes its toll in a lot of ways.  For all of us, the assortment of demands, both major and minor, threaten to smother us.  There’s great wisdom in keeping sabbath.  Jesus knows what he’s talking about when he tells the people that the sabbath is made for them, not the other way around (see Mk 2:27).

Let me tell you a couple of stories.  The first one concerns a pastor I heard about when we lived in Pennsylvania.  He had made it a matter of principle never to purchase a Sunday newspaper.  If he were to do so, he felt that he would be helping others to work on Sunday, and that would be unacceptable.  Eventually, someone explained to him that Sunday papers are actually printed the day before, on Saturday.  Realizing this, his conscience was now clear in buying the Sunday newspaper!  I don’t recall, however, if he then began to boycott the Monday paper!

            My other story is from the movie Schindler’s List.  For those of you who’ve never seen it (and you should—it’s truly excellent):  a quick explanation.  Oskar Schindler, played by Liam Neeson, is introduced as a wealthy playboy, a German industrialist who is also a member of the Nazi Party.  As the movie progresses, Schindler’s conscience begins to bother him as he’s forced to face the true nature of his government’s policies toward the Jews.  He becomes increasingly protective of his Jewish employees.  And when they’re threatened with deportation to the concentration camps, Schindler bankrupts himself with bribes in order to hold on to all the people whose names appear on a list that he’s had drawn up.

            Near the end of the movie, late on a Friday afternoon, Schindler does something unthinkable for a Nazi factory owner:  he encourages one of his workers, a rabbi, to prepare for the sabbath.  In a movie with many powerful moments, the scene in which celebrants are gathered in the huge building’s candlelit darkness—while Hebrew prayers are offered—that’s as moving as anything else in the film.

            I mention these two examples to illustrate both the confusion, often humorous confusion, and the deep spiritual wealth of the sabbath, be it Jewish or Christian.  And I imagine that much of the confusion for we Christians comes from our movement of sabbath observance from Saturday to Sunday, referred to in the New Testament as the Lord’s Day (Rv 1:10).

According to the Bible (and the Westminster Confession), sabbath is something that predates our scripture reading in the law of Moses, going all the way back to the time of creation.  Verse 11 gives as the reason for observing the sabbath that the Lord, having completed the creation, “rested [on] the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.”  Sabbath existed before Israel ever came into being; sabbath is for all creation.  Sabbath requires that we care for creation.

But having said that, the version of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy makes a point of linking the sabbath with the exodus from Egypt.  Deuteronomy 5:15 says that “the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.”  The sabbath may have existed before Israel ever did, but it’s Israel who’s given the job of honoring it.  And the reminder that they were slaves in Egypt means that they’re to treat their workers fairly.  So there’s the social justice aspect of sabbath.

As I suggested earlier, the sabbath commandment sums up, or crystallizes, the Ten Commandments as a way of life.  That’s the day in which we’re especially called to celebrate the peace of God.  There’s a great line in the Talmud (Jewish commentary on the scriptures):  “If Israel were to celebrate only one sabbath properly, Messiah would immediately come.”[5]

Jürgen Moltmann has contributed some good stuff, too:  “The sabbath is an order of peace for everyone.  It is impossible to celebrate and enjoy it at the cost of other people.  The feast can only be celebrated and enjoyed together with all the others,” including the creation.[6]

It seems appropriate that this be the Old Testament reading for today, World Communion Sunday.  In a few moments, we’ll be celebrating the Light of Peace—which has traveled around the world—with two candles commissioned for this congregation by another church here in Jamestown.  That keeps very well with the spirit of this day.

As the article in our newsletter says, World Communion Sunday started in 1936, during the Great Depression, as a way to unite Christians in dedication to Christ.  This day represents the very best of what the ecumenical movement is all about.  It represents our Lord’s call for us to live in peace together.

That call to peace—that call to shalom—that is the way of life envisioned in our scripture reading.  Abraham Heschel, the American Jewish theologian who died in 1972, brought the wisdom of the ancient rabbis to his generation.  “[T]here was indeed ‘an act of creation on the seventh day’ and the universe was not complete until this act of creation took place.  ‘What was created on the seventh day?  Tranquility, serenity, peace and repose.’”[7]  Imagine, peace as something to be made!

Peace isn’t the absence of violence.  Quite the opposite, it’s the other way around.  Violence is the absence of peace.  It’s important to understand that.  Peace is what has fullness; violence is the vacuum that results when peace gets sucked out.  That’s what Bonhoeffer, Moltmann, Heschel, and beyond them, the prophets and Jesus all point to.

By heeding the call to sabbath, we allow a space for God’s peace to grow in our lives.  We allow it to overflow into the rest of the week and into those around us.  It saturates those demands on our time, and it helps us in setting right our priorities.

I’m sorry to conclude on a somber note, but current events require it.  On this World Communion Sunday, our government is making plans for war on Iraq.  We would like to think that only one bad guy will suffer.  But just like the war eleven years ago, as well as the sanctions that have taken a lethal toll, many will suffer and die—and that includes the Christian population of Iraq, our brothers and sisters in Christ, who number almost one million.

I won’t pretend to have the final word on this.  My question is (and I have plenty of questions, but I’ll stick to this):  in doing this, are we practicing the Ten Commandments, in letter or in spirit?

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