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March 19, 2006 - Lent 3, Year B

One of the traditions of the Episcopal Church in the season of Lent
is to begin the service
with the penitential order,
as we did today.
And the reason is
that Lent is traditionally
a time of penitence,
a time to look hard at ourselves and find the things we have done wrong,
and the things we could have done right but chose not to,
we find those things,
we think about them,
and, if we have the courage
we admit them to God
and make a decision
to do better.

Today we took the option in the penitential order
to read the ten commandments.
I did that
specifically because we were going to read them again as our Old Testament reading.
But sometimes
when we read the Old Testament
it feels a bit like we're reading someone else's history.
Reading the Ten Commandments as part of our liturgy
reminds us
that they apply to us too, that they are an essential part of our faith,
something that we
in our tradition
are expected to uphold.
We are expected
to be obedient to them.

Not so long ago
I was reading something that talked about obedience. I think it was a book or article on monasticism, and it was discussing the vows that people take
when they enter a religious order,
and someone was asked
"Don't you find it hard
keeping all the rules?"
And the monk answered something like this,
"No, not really. You see, we have made a vow of obedience. That means
there's really no question about whether we keep the rules or not. We've already made the decision. All we have to do is keep it."

That's the issue for all of us, isn't it? It's not making the decision — it's keeping it. Think about what happens when we make a New Year's resolution. We say, "I'm going to go on a diet." We might even get as far as signing up for Weight Watchers. But then comes day three,
and there's chocolate in the cupboard and ice cream in the fridge.
And we say,
"well, I know I said I was on a diet, but just this once..."
And that's usually pretty much the end of the resolution for another year.
What has happened
is that we've made a decision — and then we pretend we never really made the decision, that it's something that we should revisit.
The alternative, of course, is to say,
actually, I already made that decision. I'm on a diet. So no more chocolate or ice cream
unless it fits the diet.

It's kind of like the paper rule that time management people teach. A piece of paper should only cross your desk once. You should deal with it immediately — respond to it, file it or trash it.
Never to be seen again.

So this monk's version, we might call the obedience rule. Make a decision, then live with it. Never to be revisited.

It sounds easy. But what about real life?
Anyone who's tried the paper rule
knows that there are times when you can't deal with the piece of paper right away — you might need more information, or someone else to do something, or simply time to mull over it.
The obedience rule
is kind of the same thing — there are times
when we need to revisit our decisions. Circumstances change.
But not as often as we think.

We, as Christians, have made a decision to follow Christ. A vow of obedience, if you like,
to God.
The challenge
is keeping it.
And most of us
probably didn't expect the Ten Commandments
to be part of the deal.

But when someone asked Jesus
what do I have to do
to inherit eternal life,
the first thing he said was,
"You know the commandments: "You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother." '
Jesus was quoting from the ten commandments.
Following Jeuss
isn't just what we think in our heads
but what we do with our lives,
the decisions we make, the things we do.

The Ten Commandments
don't belong to Jewish people alone
but apply to us as well.
And that's the hard part.
Because we agree with them in principle — but in practice
they tend to drop
to the back of our minds.
Which is why we read them
in the penitential
order — to remind us of the faith, the life style
that we have committed ourselves to in the promises of baptism
and reaffirmed in confirmation.
And we use the ten commandments
as a baseline
to measure our lives against.
Where we have failed
we confess,
we ask God's forgiveness, we ask God
to help us to do better in future.

Some of the commandments
are easier to keep
than others.
Earlier this year, our Sunday School kids
spent six weeks
learning about the ten commandments.
And I'll never forget sitting with them
and asking them
which commandment did they think it was hardest to keep?
We talked for a while
about each of them
but it was number 10
where we got into trouble.
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
We decided
that if you are 4 or 5 or 6 years old
what that means
is that when your sister or brother owns a toy and you want to play with it,
you don't run over and grab it from them, and you don't throw a tantrum
if they don't want to share. It's theirs, not yours.
Suddenly
one of the kids' face began to crumple up
and their eyes began to fill with tears.
Because they knew
exactly
what it was like
to covet.

Most adults
don't so often covet other people's toys.
But we do covet other things. Maybe their house. Their car. Their job. Their life.
We know we are coveting
when we find ourselves saying
"How come they get to have such and such?"
"How come they get to do that?"
when we find ourselves
caught up in self pity
because we don't have
what someone else does.
We justify ourselves with good reasons —
it's not fair
I deserve better
I've worked just as hard
— but in the end, it's still coveting
and coveting
is being disobedient
to the commandments.
The opposite of coveting, the standard of behavior that we are called to as Christians, according to the letters of the New Testament,
is to be content, to be happy with what we have,
When we fail to do that — when we fall into the habit of coveting —
and if we've already made that decision
to follow Jesus
and therefore
to put ourselves under the authority of the commandments
then we have no choice. Our decision condemns us.
Obedience
means confessing our coveting
and reclaiming our decision
to be do otherwise
And so every time we catch ourselves coveting something
we need to pull ourselves up short, and say
"No. The decision is already made. I am thankful for what I have."

But that's not the only commandment
to cause us trouble.

Jumping back a few commandments, we come to number four.
"Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it."

I don't know about you, but I find it almost impossible to take a Sabbath,
one day each week
to focus my attention on God
and allow God
to feed me, to renew me, to recreate me.
Because that's what the Sabbath is for. A day of rest, one day in seven
to put aside our everyday work and rest.
Sabbath reminds us
that there's more to life than work,
that we are more than living machines,
that the world can keep turning
without our intervention.
Sabbath reminds us that we are human
and that God is God.
One day in seven . . . we have far too much to do. There is family, sport, left over work . . .
But once again
we have no choice. We made our decision
when we decided to follow Jesus.
All that is required of us now
is obedience.

And what I've discovered
is that in those times when I've allowed myself to be obedient to this commandment
I've discovered
that it's not a burden
but a gift.
The rest of the week seems to expand
and there's more than enough time
for everything else.

But if course, I fail — all the time.
Week after week goes by
when I tell myself
I'm too busy
to take a day off
to spend time in rest
and in relationship with God.
And in that
I am disobedient.
Obedience means confessing my failure
and, each time I am tempted to tink
the things I have on my to do list
are more important than obedience to God
I have to consciously put them aside
and rest in God.

Finally
the first commandment, the hardest of them all.
"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me."
To put God first
in all we think
and say
and do.
We all fail on this one.

We have made the decision. Now we have to do it.
Obedience means not succumbing
to all the other pressures on uys
that urge us to put God in second place.
It means giving generously of our money —
off the top of our income,
not just what's left over
— even if that means skipping a cup of coffee
or turning down an invitation
to dinner at a restaurant.
It means putting coming to church to worship God
as a priority —
and that might mean
when the alarm rings on Sunday morning, not turning it off to catch some extra sleep, but getting up for church;
or leaving a party early on Saturday night
to make sure we're ready for church Sunday morning.
It might even mean
listening for the voice of God
calling us to serve
and doing whatever that takes,
whether it's rearranging our schedule
changing our vacation plans,
or even exploring a call to ordained ministry.
It's all about
obedience.

But there's another side to it all. Because as much as God calls us to obedience,
God also offers us grace.
The standards are high, but when we fail —
and it's inevitable that we will, sooner or later
— God offers us forgiveness.
Because in the end
the commandments, the law, are just a guide,
written for our benefit to help us know how
to live in a way
that honors God.
What matters most
is that we care, that we care about our relationships with God,
is that we love God enough
to make the attempt at obedience,
and even more than that
that God loves us, and gave his son for us
so that we might know his love,
that we might experience forgiveness,
that we might find
new life.

Sermon ©Raewynne J. Whiteley 2006