Commands for the Disciples - Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9

I like rules. A lot. I actually find them to be freeing. When I know the perimeters that I can work in, then I feel that my creativity can soar. It is for me, as one of my professors in seminary wrote on her syllabus, “If it is not expressly prohibited, consider it to be a possibility.

I truly believe that the God we worship is one of both, order and creativity, both of which are expressed in the commandments that we find before us in today’s scripture lesson. God crafted commands, which he handed down to Moses, as a response to God’s saving act and resulting covenant.

Often we may find ourselves asking why we need rules in life. As children we may try to test our boundaries or resist authority over us, by bucking the rules. But our parents have set the rules in place to help us grow into our greatest potential. They created boundaries out of the response of loving us enough to want us to thrive. Thus the rules. Even if we do not realize the purpose or intent behind them as such, at the time.

Like, children we can sometimes push back against God’s commands, sometimes as going far as deliberately breaking them. It is as if something inside of us tempts us to test God – as if we need to make sure that God’s grace and love will be extended to us, even if we do not follow God’s commands. Brothers and sisters, I am here to tell you today that God’s grace can wash away any of our stumbling and sins, but above all God has given us commandments not because God could, or as a way for God to exert power over us, but because they are for our best interest. They are crafted to help us be the best disciples that we can be.

Like the Israelites, God has brought us out of the house of salivary as well. We may not have been oppressed by the Egyptians, but we were salves to sin and evil. So God sent Jesus Christ, fully divine and yet fully human, this great mystery of a person, to do something even more mysterious to us today – Jesus choose to love us to the point where he handed himself over to death on a cross, so we could be freed. And so, God has delivered us through the grace and power of Jesus the Christ. If the Israelites were given these rules because God loved them enough to save them and give them commands to help them fully grasp their choosiness, then how much more should we yearn to follow God’s commands because of God’s love that came to us in the form of Jesus, so that we could be called God’s beloved ones.

What I find moving about the commands that we are looking at today is that they are all about our relationship with God. Because if we do not have our relationship with God right then we won’t be able to be the best neighbor that we can be either. So God gives these commands to help shape those who follow the Holy One so they can be witnesses for what God has done in their lives. So the God that delivers, starts by giving the following commands to the Israelites, and to us as modern day disciples:

You shall have no other God’s before me: This first commandment and all that follow, do not stand as simply good advice, friends, they emerge from the history of a saving God. And yet, even though God has saved us time and time again, we often look to other gods, other things, to place our trust and hope in. God’s first command is a reminder to us to be loyal to the only God worth having allegiance to.

Whose are we? The easy answer to give is God’s, but as disciples do we live in such a way that reflects this statement. Or does it look like we worship the gods of status, power, money, and security. Do we put our trust in other people, presidents, nations, or kingdoms, or do we look to the God who has delivered us? When times get hard, who or what is the first thing that you turn to. God’ s first command today and every day is not rooted in unfairness or God’s assertion of power. No. This command exists to help us get it straight – through good times and bad – that we are God’s and nothing else should come before this, or block us from exuding this truth to others by the way we live each day.

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or one he earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. If we are truly loyal to our God who saves, then we should not be crafting other things that lead us to worship or give glory to another. This can be so hard today, brothers and sisters, in a culture that cries out for us to be narcissistic – we see people around us making themselves into idols – who we can be seduced into worshiping before we even realize what we are doing. When we make something or someone into an idol, we forget that they are God’s too – that God calls them beloved. Instead, we think of them as self-sufficient and worthy to be followed or modeled, when this is not the case.

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. For the people of Israel, God’s name was to be revered. It was so holy that it was not even written or spoken in its most Holy form. If people began to call on the name of the Lord in improper way, or did not show God reverence, then they were not being witnesses to what God has done in their lives, or the blessings of God extended to humanity. If they did not respect the name of the God who has done so much for them, then they were showing their neighbors that their God did not need to be taken seriously, even if this was not their intent. I do not think any of us set out trying to disrespect the name of God; we have simply forgotten how much God is to be revered, which can lead us to not showing God the respect due.

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but on the seventh day give your Sabbath to the Lord. Friends, I have attended several trainings and meeting over the past two weeks where I have been convicted time and time again by this commandment. This is the only commandment of the ten that we brag about breaking. I’m sure you know colleagues who brag about how much they work, or perhaps bemoan how much they extend themselves to the cause of their work, never taking a break. But Sabbath is God’s gift to us, given because we cannot constantly work. When we do so, we find ourselves forgetting that we are beloved – thinking that we need to prove ourselves or earn God’s love. We start to replace God with worship of work. Therefore, we must take one day to worship God.

Further, this worship of God is not simply an hour or two on the Sabbath, rushed through in order to get to our “rest”. Our worship of God should bring us true rest, peace, because we know that we are in the presence of the Risen Lord! Sabbath is not the same as a day off, or a time to do the errands that we did not get to the rest of the week. Sabbath is for us and God alone. When we cease from our work and just be, we are reminded that the world goes on without our toil.

What an amazing gift to the Israelites, who were slaves without ceasing. And what an amazing gifts for us as disciples in such a fast paced world. How we worship God the rest of the day each Sabbath may look different for each of us as we leave this place, but it is a reminder to put God is God’s due place – as master of the universe.

Brothers and sisters, commands are not just meant to be followed. They are meant to be revered so we can see them in all of their goodness and beauty. They are to be embraced so we can live our lives with a true freedom that comes from knowing our perimeters. And they are to be examined, so we can see how we are doing as disciples. Are we living into these commands in their fullest? Are there ones that we struggle with more then others? Why? How can these commands help us be the best witnesses to God’s grace, mercy, love, and salvation that we can be? May these questions and others stay with us this week, as we seek to grow closer to the God who created, redeemed, and sustains us. Amen.