Sermon

St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham, NC

3/19/06 - 3 Lent

The Rev. Sarah Ball-Damberg

Exodus 20:1-17; Ps. 19:7-14

 My father is preaching on these same texts right about now at St. Gregory's Episcopal Church in Athens, Georgia. What I've learned about these texts I've learned in large measure from talking them over with my Dad. For that, and for a whole lot else, I am deeply grateful.

Last June the Supreme Court confirmed that Texas has the right to display a Hollywood movie promotion on the grounds of its state capitol in Austin.

Of course, that's not how they put it. The Supreme Court ruled that Texas could leave a monument engraved with the Ten Commandments on the state capitol grounds. That's where it's been ever since Cecil B. DeMille, had the bright idea of promoting his movie, The Ten Commandments, by joining forces with the Fraternal Order of Eagles to distribute Ten Commandment monoliths all over the country. Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner, Moses and Ramses in the movie, would show up at unveilings of the monoliths like the one donated to Texas. So there you have it -- the Ten Commandments as publicity stunt, and the Supreme Court weighing in 50 years later.

In the last several years, there's been a flurry of cases about displaying the Ten Commandments. You may remember hearing about Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore who lost his job because he refused to remove a 5000 pound monolith engraved with the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Judicial Building. Judge Moore's monument -- or Roy's Rock as some people called it -- combines the Ten Commandments with quotations from men like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Judge Moore intended for his monument to teach Americans that the Commandments are the foundation of the American legal system.

Cecil B. Demille and Judge Roy Moore have something in common -something besides an affinity for large blocks of granite engraved with the Ten Commandments, that is. They're both telling a story. DeMille was, obviously, telling a story in his movie. But besides publicizing his movie, DeMille said he wanted to cultivate the moral fiber of the nation's youth. Planting the Ten Commandment monuments in public places around the country was his way of telling a story in which obeying the Ten Commandments is the way to build character and be a good citizen.

Judge Moore is also telling a story. In his story, the Commandments belong to the American story and to American law. In Judge Moore's story, the Ten Commandments play a central role in the development of the American judicial system.

Demille's Hollywood story is a good story - although Charlton Heston staggering around as Moses makes me giggle. The American story and the story of American law are certainly good and important stories. But they are not the story of God's redemption of His people. They are not the story of God's deliverance, freedom, and promise - and that is the story to which the Ten Commandments belong.

What difference does the story make? If you ever get to Austin, Texas or if you ever see Judge Moore's monument which is on a flatbed truck touring around the country -- or perhaps if you see one of the Ten Commandment lapel pins Moore sells on his website -- you'll notice the first line reads, "I am the Lord your God." The second line is, "You shall have no other gods before me."

Those versions are missing something vital. God doesn't say, "I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me." God says, "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." What's missing in the monumental versions is the story of God's saving act. In those versions, the Ten Commandments have been extracted from the story of the exodus and inserted instead into the story of our culture.

God commands Israel not to make idols for itself. Assigning godlike significance to anything in God's Creation is strictly forbidden. Israel may not hold up anything as ultimate other than God.

That word -- idol -- can also mean image. So the commandment can also read, "You shall not make for yourself an image. . ." meaning "Don't make a picture of God to worship." Either way, Israel is forbidden to make any attempt to domesticate God by locating Him or His authority in a visible, controlled object.

When Judge Roy Moore was told he had to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom he said, "To strip the Ten Commandments from the courtroom is a violation of the U.S. Constitution." The U.S. Constitution is the foundation of our government and I am thankful for it. It is not, however, words spoken by God. To confuse the two is blasphemous.

 "To have a God," Martin Luther said, "properly means to have something in which the heart trusts completely. . . . To have a God does not mean to lay hands on Him, or put Him in a purse, or shut Him up in a chest. ."

The attempt to enmesh the Ten Commandments with the American constitution or with American history is an attempt to lay hands on God, to shut him up in a chest by defining parameters in which He acts. The effect is to domesticate God's words and make them an idol or an image, by stripping them from the story of God's salvation of His people -- which is their right and proper context.

According to the Supreme Court, a display of the Ten Commandments surrounded by other documents of "historical" or "legal" significance may be constitutional, but as one court said, it depends on the context. In fact, versions of the Commandments -- minus the bit about God's saving act -- appear on doors and walls throughout the Supreme Court building. You can find carvings of the stone tablets, for instance, but there aren't any words on them, just Roman numerals I-X.

Moses himself is inside the Supreme Court's courtroom. He appears in company with Confucius, Napoleon, Hammurabi, and other lawgivers. On the outside of the Supreme Court, Moses is shown carrying two tablets, but they're blank.

Context is everything. If the Ten Commandments are a historical document like Hammurabi's code or Confucius' wise sayings, then they're good rules that may be useful in developing good citizenship and improving law.

If, on the other hand, they're words spoken by God to Israel, they are a powerful, liberating call to the freedom found in submitting to God's will - to the freedom to cling to Him with all our heart which, Luther says, "is nothing else than to entrust ourselves to Him completely. [God] wishes to turn us away from everything else, and to draw us to Himself, because He is the one, eternal good." (PLL 96)

In the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, Moses is thinking ahead to a time when children will ask the meaning of God's decrees. This is what Moses tells parents to answer their kids:  "You shall say to your children, 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. . . He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land that he promised on oath to our ancestors." Moses continues, "Then the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our lasting good, so as to keep us alive, as is now the case."

What is the meaning of the Ten Commandments? Deliverance. Freedom. Promise. Life with God.

The Ten Commandments are the chapter in our story that follows the chapter in which God sets His people free. They're part of the story of God's ongoing call to freedom and salvation. God's law is God's gracious gift - the gift of deliverance, freedom, and promise. That's why, as Psalm 19 celebrates, His commandments "revive the soul," "rejoice the heart," "enlighten the eyes," and are "more to be desired than gold, even fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb." Obeying them teaches us to tune our ears to God's will, to live into all the liberating words God speaks.

God speaks His commandments to those whom He loves, to those whom He has chosen to be His people. And when God speaks all these words, He sets us free from the bondage of finding our own way to Him. He sets us free from the bondage of self-determination and self-will. He sets us free from the way of darkness and death, and offers us instead life before God and with God in the Promised Land. God spoke all these words. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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