Today marks Part 2 of my Lenten Journey through the Catechism - the Ten Commandments. (BCP pg. 847-848)
When I was a teenager I remember commenting in Sunday School how we hear a lot of Thou Shalt Nots, and isn't there anything that tells me what I should do. My classmates quickly flipped in their Bibles to the two greatest commandments, which are to Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Dt 6:5) and to love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18). Yes Jesus described these two as the greatest commandments but in reality he was quoting from the Torah. They had already been around for quite a while.
In The Episcopal Church, our Catechism uses these two commandments as a frame work to understand the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. To be fair Moses was given another 603 at that time but after the first ten the rest of Israel thought the experience was too intense and sent Moses to learn the rest, and then come back to teach them.
Showing our English roots, our Prayer Book describes the commandments in terms of our duty - duty to God and duty to our neighbor. To be honest I struggle quite a bit with the concept of duty. It's a word that is very meaningful to our British cousins across the pond but to Americans it can sound like something we have to do but we really don't want to. Returning to the Scriptural source we can see that the word duty is never mentioned, only that we love God, and love our neighbors as ourselves.
So we love God by believing in Him and trusting Him. We love him by putting nothing in the place of God, meaning that the teachings of Christ are the highest authority in terms of truth and morals, no matter how difficult they may seem to us at the time. We love God by showing respect to Him in thought, word, and deed. Only invoke God's name in ways that are beneficial to others and in accordance with Christ's teachings. And finally, we love God by setting aside regular times for worship, prayer, and study. As our world becomes increasingly busy it has become fashionable to find other things to do on Sundays and other holy days. But the truth is those days are very special, and forgetting about them is like turning down your grandmother's invitation to Christmas Dinner so you can work on your backhand for the upcoming ping-pong tournament.
We are also told to love our neighbors as ourselves. In a Lenten study that I'm leading, we're talking about seeing people as people, whereby their hopes, dreams, goals, fears, and challenges are every bit as real to us as our own. This doesn't mean that others become more important than us so that we diminish who we are, but it's like we're creating a beautiful mosaic, with everyone contributing pieces out of their own life. If all I'm doing is looking at my needs and challenges, I only have a small fraction of the whole picture.
So we love our neighbors by honoring our parents, and those who brought us into this world. When they make reasonable and just requests, we honor them.
We love our neighbors by honoring life in all of its forms, recognizing that a life tragically cut short is a tragedy, whether it is sanctioned by the government or not.
We love our neighbors by making right use of our sexuality, not pursuing it for our own pleasure, but for it's ability to unite two persons permanently and when it is God's will, for the creation of new human beings. Anything less than this does a disservice to God's gift.
We love our neighbors by seeking fairness in all economic exchanges, and recognizing that there are certain minimums that people need to fully participate in society. We do not allow ourselves to fall victim to the "grab all you can get" mentality that treats others as irrelevancies to our own lives.
We love our neighbors by speaking the truth and being honest, making sure that everyone has full access to the best information when they make decisions. This does not mean we judge other people and then call it the truth. It does mean that we only speak those words that are useful in building up other human beings.
And finally, we love our neighbors by being content with what we have, and celebrating others' good fortune. Acting as if the world owes us something subtly puts others down and makes us miserable to be around.
The Ten Commandments, with all of their implications set a really high bar, and though we do not always obey them to their fullest extent, they are still valuable because they show us where we are headed. Each day by God's grace we live into them more fully, until that final day when all of creation is transformed by Christ's redeeming power.
When I was a teenager I remember commenting in Sunday School how we hear a lot of Thou Shalt Nots, and isn't there anything that tells me what I should do. My classmates quickly flipped in their Bibles to the two greatest commandments, which are to Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Dt 6:5) and to love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18). Yes Jesus described these two as the greatest commandments but in reality he was quoting from the Torah. They had already been around for quite a while.
In The Episcopal Church, our Catechism uses these two commandments as a frame work to understand the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. To be fair Moses was given another 603 at that time but after the first ten the rest of Israel thought the experience was too intense and sent Moses to learn the rest, and then come back to teach them.
Showing our English roots, our Prayer Book describes the commandments in terms of our duty - duty to God and duty to our neighbor. To be honest I struggle quite a bit with the concept of duty. It's a word that is very meaningful to our British cousins across the pond but to Americans it can sound like something we have to do but we really don't want to. Returning to the Scriptural source we can see that the word duty is never mentioned, only that we love God, and love our neighbors as ourselves.
So we love God by believing in Him and trusting Him. We love him by putting nothing in the place of God, meaning that the teachings of Christ are the highest authority in terms of truth and morals, no matter how difficult they may seem to us at the time. We love God by showing respect to Him in thought, word, and deed. Only invoke God's name in ways that are beneficial to others and in accordance with Christ's teachings. And finally, we love God by setting aside regular times for worship, prayer, and study. As our world becomes increasingly busy it has become fashionable to find other things to do on Sundays and other holy days. But the truth is those days are very special, and forgetting about them is like turning down your grandmother's invitation to Christmas Dinner so you can work on your backhand for the upcoming ping-pong tournament.
We are also told to love our neighbors as ourselves. In a Lenten study that I'm leading, we're talking about seeing people as people, whereby their hopes, dreams, goals, fears, and challenges are every bit as real to us as our own. This doesn't mean that others become more important than us so that we diminish who we are, but it's like we're creating a beautiful mosaic, with everyone contributing pieces out of their own life. If all I'm doing is looking at my needs and challenges, I only have a small fraction of the whole picture.
So we love our neighbors by honoring our parents, and those who brought us into this world. When they make reasonable and just requests, we honor them.
We love our neighbors by honoring life in all of its forms, recognizing that a life tragically cut short is a tragedy, whether it is sanctioned by the government or not.
We love our neighbors by making right use of our sexuality, not pursuing it for our own pleasure, but for it's ability to unite two persons permanently and when it is God's will, for the creation of new human beings. Anything less than this does a disservice to God's gift.
We love our neighbors by seeking fairness in all economic exchanges, and recognizing that there are certain minimums that people need to fully participate in society. We do not allow ourselves to fall victim to the "grab all you can get" mentality that treats others as irrelevancies to our own lives.
We love our neighbors by speaking the truth and being honest, making sure that everyone has full access to the best information when they make decisions. This does not mean we judge other people and then call it the truth. It does mean that we only speak those words that are useful in building up other human beings.
And finally, we love our neighbors by being content with what we have, and celebrating others' good fortune. Acting as if the world owes us something subtly puts others down and makes us miserable to be around.
The Ten Commandments, with all of their implications set a really high bar, and though we do not always obey them to their fullest extent, they are still valuable because they show us where we are headed. Each day by God's grace we live into them more fully, until that final day when all of creation is transformed by Christ's redeeming power.
Comments