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All those Rules!?Timothy J. KuenzliExodus 20:1-17Messiah Lutheran Church3 Lent B7 March, 2021Reynoldsburg, OhioOften times, the practice of the Jewish or Christian faith (or for that matter, most all religions, I suppose) is characterized as a system of rules: do’s and don’ts, mostly don’ts. “Don’t do this; don’t do that.” “This is permitted; that isn’t.” Religious people are supposed to act or talk in particular ways, and if we talk or act outside the perceived boundaries of the “rules,” then we’re not being properly religious. There isn’t any criticism of religious people more damning than being labeled “hypocrites,” or those who put on a false appearance. So keep the rule, toe the line and be nice in general; that’s what religion looks like to most people.That, really, is a sad, rather small and unsuitable way to understand religion, religious practice and the “10 Words” we have before us this morning. (I say “10 words” because that is what the “Decalogue” means.) If our practice of religion is reduced to keeping a set of rules, it’s not large enough to really matter much. If our practice of religion is about keeping a set of rules, then our lives and our eternities are fully in our own hands, and that would be a tenuous situation, indeed!Sure, there are good reasons for rules in life and in religions. Unless there are some common assumptions about life and living, chaos will result. (We visited once in Australia. I can tell you that to keep their driving rules is very important. More once I found myself on the wrong side of the road. Not to worry, my family noticed right away!) When rules are ignored or stretched, bad things often happen. Witness the housing meltdown a dozen years ago; sensible rules about lending money were ignored. Rules in athletics are intended to keep the playing field level. As parents, we have rules to keep our kids safe and healthy. Without rules, life unravels.But when the keeping of rules becomes the center of religion, what we have is merely order, not life and certainly not love. And too often, these “10 Words” in the Old Testament, these Ten Commandments, are understood as a set of rules which, if kept, will make God happy and therefore bring us benefits as well as keep us from being punished either now or later. Keep the rules and you’ll be blessed; break them and suffer the consequences. If you were Jewish, however, you’d be aware of a critical factor: the first “word” isn’t “you shall have no other gods.” That’s the second. The first is: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. The first word, and the one from which all the rest flow – these and the hundred others you’ll read in the Old Testament – is a word of grace. It begins, this religion business, not with a threat, but with a saving act.And it begins with a personal address. When we read I am the Lord your God, the word “your” is personal. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God of Jesus; the God of Martin Luther and Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Mother Theresa and of my parents is a personal God. God, as conceived in the Bible, is never a concept or theoretical construction. God is personally oriented toward human beings; toward me and you. I rescued you is how this catalogue of words begins. It could have begun, I spoke to your father, Abraham; or I came to live with you in Jesus; or I claimed you as my very own in baptism. Similar kinds of graceful words. When religious practice is personal, it is revealed as more, much deeper, more life-giving than keeping a set of rules could ever be.And note this well: the personal, opening address, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, isn’t one of those set-ups intended to generate guilt, as in “I did this for you so now you owe me.” Sometimes religion gets portrayed as that. Often our Christian faith gets corrupted to be something like “Jesus suffered and died for you, so you’d better be grateful and good to pay him back.” Guilt then becomes the motivating factor. And that’s never, ever life-giving. It’s only another form of rule-keeping. If I do the right stuff and act really grateful, then I can avoid feeling guilty; it’s a rule for self-protection.No, the saving act of God for the people of God in the Passover event and the rescue from Egypt was a graceful act of love, not an event intended to set up a ledger account that we would forever be trying to balance. God came to Abraham and descendants; God rescued the Hebrew slaves in Egypt; God has consistently shown concern for widows, orphans and immigrants; God came to the world in Jesus: all those things because God wants people – people exactly like you and me – to live full and grateful lives and to share life with others. God’s deepest hope is that we fall in love with God, which is finally where life can be found.So why the rules? Why the “words” about how to live? Because we need the reminder over and over again that life is not about “me.” Since self-awareness became a reality in the garden when Adam and Eve discovered what it meant to have to hide from God, we have struggled because we forever want life to be about “me.” The ego, or the “I” in life always wants to rise to the surface. That’s why we often read the “10 words” wrong, thinking if I keep them I’ll be better and God will love me more and I can be self-realized: they’re really about “me,” as is everything else! No! The “10 words” are given because we need to know how to love others: God and neighbor. How, in practical ways, do we get ourselves out of the way in living and loving?First, we remember that we are loved. We’ve been rescued and loved simply because of who God is. This is the foundation of all of our living. God rescued the people God loved in Egypt. God came to live among us in Jesus to get very personal with us. That’s the first and primary word.Second, we are encouraged to pay attention to the One who loves and saves us. There is a person, a force, a reality in the universe who really, really loves us. So we put ourselves under that person. We call him/her “God.” There is no one else who loves us like that. And we set time aside to say “thanks.” We call it “sabbath time.”Third, we are given thoughts as to how to make life good for others. So we look after our first neighbors, our parents. We don’t take stuff from our neighbors: not their life, spouses, goods, or reputation. In fact, we shouldn’t even want those things in a way that we obsess over – that’s what coveting is. Remember how Jesus wrapped all of this up in a simple, two-piece word: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. During these 40 days of Lent, I would be a good thing to be attentive, thoughtful and prayerful about how we allow God to have the first place in our lives and how we express that in our relationship with neighbors. And we are invited to do that out of gratitude, right? We don’t pay attention and live our days intentionally because we have to or because it will get us something or because we might thereby avoid punishment; but because we are grateful for life, love and mercy. We are grateful for the love that creates, sustains and lifts us to life. So we find ways to turn life, love and mercy to others. ................
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