This sermon, which is the seventh in a sermon series on the Book of Exodus, was preached at Christ Episcopal Church Eureka on Sunday October 4, 2020.
Readings for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 22 – Year A)
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Psalm 19
Philippians 3:4b-14
Matthew 21:33-46
A couple weeks ago, I was here in the church when I heard a screech followed by a loud crash on H Street. I stepped outside and saw a small group of people standing nervously around two damaged vehicles. Apparently, someone in the middle lane decided to take a sharp left turn onto 15th street without first checking to see if a car was in the left lane beside her. Not a wise move. I informed the police and helped move one of the cars off of H street while trying to generally provide a prayerful and non-anxious presence. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured.
The car accident made me think about the importance of rules. The reason that we have rules is not to control and dominate other people but to keep people safe. When a traffic light turns red, we stop; and we don’t accelerate again until the light turns green. If people ignore these rules of the road, then we end up having some nasty car accidents and people get hurt. Rules help keep us safe by providing the necessary guidelines for a healthy and thriving community. That is why we here at Christ Church Eureka have our “Covenant for Safe Community” guidelines, excellent community guidelines that preceded my arrival here. Before COVID-19, some of you often heard me say that “all are welcome here, but not all behaviors are welcome,” specifically the behaviors prohibited in our covenant. And that is also why we have our “Regathering Covenant” Guidelines, not because we’re killjoys, not because we don’t want to sing and embrace each other but because we want to keep each other healthy and safe during this lethal pandemic. And that’s a helpful way of understanding this morning’s reading from the book of Exodus, which features God’s top ten rules or commandments. Although there are actually about 613 commandments in the Torah altogether, most Christians and Jews understand these 10 commandments as representative of the morality endorsed by Scripture; and these 10 commandments have formed the bedrock foundation for all of Western morality. God did not give these rules to Israel and to us because he’s a cruel and domineering taskmaster. God gave Israel and us these rules in order to help keep us safe and make us a healthy and thriving community. The commandments are like the fence in today’s parable, which the landowner built around his vineyard to keep the vineyard safe and to let things grow. And all of these commandments still apply to us today, which is why you will often see the Ten Commandments displayed prominently in churches and synagogues. We have the two tablets displayed here at Christ Church in one of our 150-year-old stained glass windows designed by John Mallon (who also designed the stained-glass windows in Carson Mansion). These ancient commandments still apply to us today and one helpful way to see how they apply is by opening your prayer book up to the Catechism at the end of the book, on page 847. Later this afternoon, Mother Lesley will be teaching a Confirmation Class on the Prayer Book so this is a little teaser. The Catechism offers a very helpful outline of our faith as Episcopalians and on page 847, it describes how the Ten Commandments fit into that faith.
The Catechism splits the commandments into two categories: the first is a set of rules concerning our duty to God and the second is a set of rules concerning our duty to each other, which is apt since Christ summed up the Law by simply saying “Love God and love others.” So what is our duty to God? According to our Prayer Book, “our duty is to believe and trust in God; 1) to love and obey God and to bring others to know him; 2) To put nothing in the place of God; 3) to show God respect in thought, word, and deed; 4) To set aside regular times for worship, prayer, and the study of God’s ways.” That is how the prayer book invites us to keep the Sabbath. And what is our duty to our neighbors? “Our duty to our neighbors is to love them as ourselves and to do to other people as we wish them to do to us; 5) To love, honor, and help our parents and family; to honor those in authority, and to meet their just demands; 6) To show respect for the life God has given us; to work and pray for peace; to bear no malice, prejudice, or hatred in our hearts; and to be kind to all the creatures of God; 7) To use our bodily desires as God intended; 8) To be honest and fair in our dealings; to seek justice, freedom, and the necessities of life for all people; and to use our talents and possessions as ones who must answer for them to God [that’s about stewardship!]; 9) To speak the truth, and not to mislead others by our silence; 10) To resist temptations to envy, greed, and jealousy; to rejoice in other people’s gifts and graces; and to do our duty for the love of God, who has called us into fellowship with him” (848). These are the guidelines for a safe, healthy and thriving community.
This morning, I want to briefly highlight two of these commandments. I first want to highlight the tenth commandment: “You shall not covet.” The Jewish rabbis say that if we can follow this commandment, we will have no trouble obeying the other commandments. If we resist the temptation to covet and to envy those things that are not ours, then we won’t have much reason to steal, kill, lie, commit adultery and so on. We see this demonstrated in Jesus’s parable of the tenants of the vineyard. The tenants coveted the inheritance of the landowner’s son so they killed him (committed murder) and then attempted to steal and we might imagine them lying about it afterwards. One of the best ways to avoid breaking the other commandments and also one of the best ways to avoid feeling miserable is to follow the tenth commandment and resist the temptation to envy and covet that which is not ours. And I have found that the most effective antidote to envy is gratitude. And practicing gratitude is, in fact, obeying the most frequent command in all of Scripture, which is “Praise the Lord! Give thanks!” And what a joy it was for me to hear from you last night about those things for which you are feeling most grateful during this very difficult time. And may that gratitude inspire us to give generously to the church and to those in need.
I also want to reflect briefly with you on the third commandment, which our prayer book sums up as a command to “show God respect in thought, word, and deed” (847). Back in March, when I was discussing the Bible with the Inquirers / Confirmation Class, I invited us all to try to remember all of the ten commandments; and whenever I do that with a class, there’s often at least one commandment that we can’t quite remember and I often think that that is the one that the Holy Spirit wants us to pay extra attention to. In March, it was the third commandment that took us the longest to remember. And in the Book of Exodus, which is Shemoth (the Book of Names), the commandment is written like this: “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.”
Our Jewish brothers and sisters take this commandment very seriously, so seriously that they do not even write the name of God at all. In fact, often when they write God, they write G-dash-d rather than G-o-d, out of respect for God’s Name. And you will rarely ever (probably never) hear a Jewish person say the divine name formed by the letters yod – heh – vav – heh and I would urge us to be sensitive in saying that holy name Yahweh when among Jewish people. The great irony and paradox is that we apparently say that name every time we breathe.
In my Evangelical Christian upbringing, I was taught to obey this commandment by avoiding the use of God’s name or Jesus’s name as an expletive. We would say “Oh my Gosh” rather than “Oh my God.” We would say “Geeze” instead of “Jesus” or “Gosh Darnit” instead of… the less euphemistic form of that expression. I knew one person whose father was trying to avoid using God’s name in vain, as an expletive; and so whenever he would do something like stub his toe, he would say, “GOD bless America and all the ships at sea!” And to this day, I still find it jarring to hear others use the name of God or Jesus as an expletive. But now, instead of judging others when they misuse God’s name or judging myself when I misuse God’s name, I try to take it as an opportunity to turn my attention towards God or Christ with reverence and awe and gratitude so that the use of the name is ultimately not in vain, even if one’s intention isn’t pure.
I appreciate the deep respect with which Evangelicals and Jews approach the holy Name of God and they are in good company because the great saint (maybe the greatest saint) of church history agreed with them. Today is the feast day of St. Francis (and I hope you all bring your pets or pictures of them to coffee hour for a St. Francis Animal Blessing.) In the St. Francis Sacred Saunter service that premiered on YouTube yesterday morning, I read the saint’s famous Canticle of Brother Sun, which is also known as the Canticle of the Creatures. Another appropriate title for this canticle would be the Canticle of God’s Name because in the first line, St. Francis says, “Most high, all powerful, all good Lord! All praise is yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing. To you, alone, Most High, do they belong. No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.”
I agree with St. Francis. None of us, by nature, are worthy to say God’s Name, but, by God’s grace, are worthy. In ancient Judaism, only the high priest would pronounce the Name of God and only once a year (on Yom Kippur). However, through our baptism, we have become a part of the priesthood of all believers and, through Christ’s atoning sacrifice, we have become worthy to boldly say God’s Name. But let us acknowledge this profound honor and privilege and responsibility by not using God’s Name willy-nilly or disrespectfully because knowing God’s Name is like knowing God’s phone number. If you say God’s Name, expect him to be present. Don’t prank call God. So as we continue our worship this morning and call upon God to have mercy, may we feel the weight of the divine glory, may we thank God for giving us rules to keep us safe, and may we hold the Name with reverence and awe and deep gratitude. Amen.
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 