Who are we?
Welcome
Community
People
Families and Kids
History

What do we do?
Worship
Sermons
Music
Other Activities

What's Happening?
Events
Newsletter

What else do I need to know?
Location
Contact Us
Glossary
Links

Sermons

Sunday October 2, 2005 - Proper 22, Year A

On Monday of last week
I took one of our teenagers
up to Princeton University
so she could have a look around it. We took one of their Orange Key tours,
with a senior acting as our guide. She talked about the history — the university's Nassau Hall served as the first capitol of New Jersey in 1776
and was the nation's capital when the Continental Congress met there between June and November of 1783.
We saw the chapel, an incredibly beautiful Gothic revival building that is the third largest college chapel in the world.
We walked past lecture theaters and seminar rooms and the library with its seventy-odd miles of bookcases.
And our guide introduced us to life at Princeton, with its unique system of colleges, dorms and eating clubs.
But the thing that stuck in my mind most
was the honor code. This is run by the students, and they
take it incredibly seriously. Students have to sign it when they enter, and again with every exam they take. Violations — which are few and far between — have serious consequences, from being suspended for one to three years, to expulsion.
It sounds kind of draconian.
But as the student explained it to us, because everyone expects each other to keep it, the result is that the community has
an atmosphere of trust.
People don't worry about leaving work on their desks in the library; they cooperate with each other in their learning. You see, it's not so much the details of what they promise that matters,
it's the fact that they make a promise to one another, a commitment to the community, so that trust underlies all their relationships.

And it was Princeton's honor code that came to mind
as I read our Old Testament reading for today. These are familiar words,
inscribed on numerous statues and plaques,
the subject of a bunch of court challenges,
the foundation of much of western law and tradition.

But sometimes
that familiarity gets in our way. "The ten commandments, oh yes, we know all about those."
But do we?
If you anything like me, you can get eight or nine of them by memory if you're lucky,
but how often do we sit down and actually read them? How often
do we check out to see if our lives match up to them?
And should they?
After all, these words belong to the Old Testament, the law of the Jewish people. We are Christians, and isn't there something in the New Testament about us not having to keep all those laws?

And it was with these sort of questions in my mind
that I made the connection between the ten commandments
and the honor code.
You see, the ten commandments
are actually a whole lot more
like an honor code
than a list of laws.
Because what they are about, fundamentally, is not just making sure people do certain things,
but about protecting relationships. And the two relationships they are protecting
are the relationship
between people and God
and the relationships between people.
Just think of the commandments.
The first one
is to have only one God — to not worship anything else above God. The second one is to not make idols, things that get in the way or are substitutes for worshiping God. The third — don't abuse God's name. The fourth — take a Sabbath, one day a week, where you rest and remember the goodness of God.
Those four all have to do
with worshiping God, with making time and space for that relationship, with not letting anything get in the way.

And then there are the next six. Honor your parents. Don't murder. Don't commit adultery. Don't steal. Don't lie about other people. Don't be envious of what other people have.
All about
our relationships with one another, about creating a community and society
of trust.

Relationship with God.
Relationships with other people.
That's what the ten commandments
were fundamentally about. And so it's not surprising that when Jesus gets asked
which is the greatest commandment — presumably the person asking him was trying to get him to opt for one of the ten, or maybe even
one of the 633 laws that were set out in the Judaism of the time — when Jesus was asked which is the greatest commandment,
he said this:
Jesus answered, ‘The first is, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." The second is this, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." There is no other commandment greater than these.'

The ten commandments summed up in two lines.
Love God
and love your neighbor.
As far as Jesus is concerned,
him coming
didn't get rid of the need for them. Because the same two things
are at the core of his message: love God
and love your neighbor.

That's why, when a man came to him and asked
"Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus didn't just say "Follow me."
It's too ambiguous, too fuzzy. What he said was, first and foremost,
to keep the commandments.
And then referred him to
the commandments
that have to do with loving others, adding the summary, love your neighbor
as you love yourself.

The ten commandments
still apply today.
Not so much as a rule book, a list of laws
but as guidelines, kind of outer boundaries for life,
an honor code
for life with God and with one another.
Live like this,
the bible suggests,
live like this
and you have at least a chance
at a good, happy life,
a life that has both spiritual and emotional health.

And it's an all
or nothing
deal.
The point of the ten commandments
is that God is saying,
"Listen, people. I'm the one who made you. And these are the things, the essentials
for living in a good relationship with me
and good relationships with one another."
When there's an honor code
you either keep it
or break it.
There's no passing grade: so many laws kept
out of ten and you make it; add one or lose one
and you tip the balance.
You know how it is with relationships. When you mess up,
you mess up. You can't bargain, say
"It was only a small thing. Can't you just get over it?"
Because even small things
hurt,
small things
destroy trust.
And so keeping the ten commandments matters,
because they are the foundation of trust between God and us,
and between us and each other.

On the other hand,
we all know that some time
we'll all break at least one of them.
And that means
we break trust, we undermine our relationships.
With God.
And with each other.

And the only way to heal that trust, the only way to heal those relationships
is forgiveness.
Confessing our sin to God,
receiving forgiveness, and changing the way we live.
Apologizing to each other, forgiving each other, changing the way we live.

Some of the ten commandments, the ground rules,
are fairly easy for us to keep.
Don't commit murder.
Most of us
are not placed in a situation
where that is even something that would cross our minds.
Others are things we agree with in theory
but more difficult in practice.
Don't commit adultery.
Jesus tightens the bounds even further. Don't look on someone with lust. In other words, don't start your way on a track
that's likely to lead to trouble.
Some require us to make a decision to challenge the values of our society.
Don't covet other people's things. In other words, be content with what you have. You don't have to keep up with the Joneses. You don't need to always upgrade to something bigger and better.
What about this one? Don't bear false witness against your neighbor. I suspect most of us think
that the commandment
is not to lie. But it's more subtle than that.
It's about not fudging about people you know, not spreading rumors.
It's something churches are particularly bad about — we love passing on what we call "news", never checking to see if it's true. And Trinity isn't immune — I can't tell you the number of times this last year
that I've heard rumors about something that is supposedly happening here. None of it true. It means I wonder who I can trust. And it makes a mess of our relationships.

Those are all commands about loving one another. But you know,
I think that in some ways they're the easy ones. They're tangible, they fit in with the values of our society.
But it's the commandment that affect our relationship with God that are harder.

Put God first, above everything else. In our time, in our money, in the choices we make, in everything
put God first.

Don't take God's name in vain. That can be as simple
as not swearing using the words God or Jesus or Christ.
But it's also about
not behaving in ways
that would bring God's name
into disrepute,
that would make others say "If that's being a Christian, I don't want anything to do with their Christ."

And maybe hardest of all,
keeping the sabbath.
Taking a time
to rest, to recreate, to spend time with God.
It means making an appointment in your calendar
for God time. And not letting other things
edge it out.
There are so many things that compete with worshiping God.
Friends and family want us to go places and do things. Sports interfere. We want to sleep in.
But God matters. Having a relationship with God matters.
And that
takes time.

The Ten Commandments are our honor code, our honor code as Christians.
It's how we're called to live,
to build a community of trust and love.
And so I challenge you this week
and the weeks ahead
to think about how you keep those commands. To ask God and those who you have relationships with
to forgive you where you've failed.
To receive that forgiveness
and work out practical ways
of living your life
under God's honor code.

Amen.

 

Sermon ©Raewynne J. Whiteley 2005