How to Stay Free

Exodus 20:1-17

Lent 3, Year B

March 19, 2006

INTRO

The United States Supreme Court issued two rulings last summer on lawsuits that had challenged displays of the Ten Commandments on public property. Their rulings seemed to demonstrate how torn our nation is on the role of the Ten Commandments. In separate 5-4 rulings, the justices declared a small, framed Kentucky display to be unconstitutional, while ruling that two, six-foot granite monuments in Texas were constitutional. In commenting on the case, Justice Scalia noted the paradox of the Ten Commandments in American life. “I think probably 90 per cent of American people believe in the Ten Commandments,” he said. “90 per cent of American people believe in the Ten Commandments,” even though “85 per cent couldn’t tell you what the 10 are.” So where do you begin to tell the story of these words about which we are so ambivalent? Where do you begin?

I. Joseph would be a good place to start. Do you remember his story? Joseph was foolish enough to taunt his brothers with a dream where he was the hero and they were the fools, so they decided to show him. Some wanted to kill him, but compassion intervened and they decided just to sell him as a slave to the first caravan of merchants that passed by. As the caravan faded out of sight on the horizon it looked for all the world like Joseph was enslaved and his brothers were free. But it’s a funny thing, being free. Sometimes the ones who have their freedom don’t have much freedom. Joseph was enslaved by the Egyptians, while back home, his brothers were slaves to no one. Yet they were enslaved by the secret of their sin. The story they concocted grieved their father, Jacob. The only thing that would grieve him more was if the truth came out, the truth that they had so despised Jacob’s favorite son that they sold him as a slave. Joseph’s brothers had a measure of freedom, but we all know you can only be so free if your life is staked on a lie; if you dread every day that someone will find out about your sin; if you have betrayed someone as close to you as a brother.

Meanwhile Joseph bounces back and forth between slavery, freedom, and imprisonment. For most of his time in Egypt, he doesn’t have much freedom. He’s either enslaved to someone or indebted to someone. But he’s able to live with the truth. And if you can face the truth head-on with no fear, you have a kind of freedom that nothing can take away.

You remember the rest of the story, don’t you? Joseph rises to prominence in Egypt. He’s still a hired hand, but he’s an awfully important hired hand. When famine begins to spread far and wide, when it gets so bad that his brothers come to Egypt in search of food for their father and their families, Joseph is in the only position that could have saved them. And while he makes them sweat it out a little bit, he eventually frees them from the death sentence of famine in the land. He also frees them from the death sentence of their guilt, and of their dread of ever having to face him again. He forgives every sorry one of them, and there’s not much better than the freedom forgiveness brings.

II. Joseph and his brothers are reunited in Egypt. They are all experiencing a measure of freedom, and it’s passed along to their kids and grandkids. The sons of Jacob all do pretty well in their adopted home. In fact, they get so comfortable there that they just settle down. They prosper and multiply. And the Egyptians get that fearful look in their eyes, and that fearful feeling in the pit of their stomach. So many Israelites are living there that the Egyptians are afraid they’ll be outnumbered in their own country. They’re afraid they’ll be overrun by these foreigners, so they clamp down on them. They restrict their freedom; they try to restrict the number of kids they can have.

So over time, these descendants of Jacob who came to Egypt searching for freedom from famine find that having a full stomach is one thing, but freedom is another matter altogether. The very land that once gave the brothers of Joseph a new lease on life has now begun to drain the life out of them, and they want it back. So they cry out to God to save them. They cry out to God to give them back their freedom. He hears their cry and sends Moses. And God says to Moses, “They will know that they are my people when I free them from Egypt. I’m going to take them from slavery to freedom, and they’ll know that they’re mine.” Moses is a reluctant freedom fighter, but he finally accepts the task. After days and days of wrangling with Pharaoh, Moses leads his people out of Egypt. Across the desert, through the sea, and into the wilderness they march. But most important of all, they get out of Egypt.

Once they’re out, Moses begins immediately to tell the story of what God has done. “The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation” (15:2a). Moses sings it, but it’s not just Moses’ song. It’s the song of all whom God has set free. It’s not Moses who is their savior, it’s the Lord. The Lord has brought them into the wilderness, and in the wilderness they find both freedom and three square meals a day.

Some would say the hard part has been done. They’ve been set free from the slavery of Egypt. That’s what they had cried out for, and God had provided it for them. But now comes the really hard part: once you’ve been set free, how do you stay free? How do you live a life that is truly free? Someone who has been set free can become enslaved again. Someone who has been saved can be lost again. They don’t have to be! But God knows there is only one way to preserve that freedom. That’s the way of life God describes to Moses on Mt. Sinai. That’s the covenant He establishes with His people.

III. We’ve called them rules, we’ve called them commandments, but above all, they’re a way of life. In fact, they are the only way of life for people who want to be truly free. There is power in these ten words, but not the power we might think. Their power is not to create freedom, but to sustain it. Freedom comes only from a decisive act of God. But freedom never comes as an established, full-grown oak. Freedom always comes as a fragile sapling. For freedom to survive, it must be nurtured, tended, cultivated. These ten words are the tools God gives us to cultivate the freedom He has given us.

The world would be a better place if more people lived by these ten words, but they don’t really work if you haven’t first been set free by God. They don’t make sense if you don’t know the story from which they came.

Oh, the last six can more or less be lived by anyone with a strong will and a solid moral foundation. But the first four can only be lived by people who know the story, the story of being caught in a way of life with no way out. You can’t begin to live this way until you’ve come to the place where you cry, “God, save me.” But if you have ever cried out, “God, save me,” then this is your story too. Listen again to how these ten words begin. These words were spoken this way:

“I am the Lord your God who brought you out of . . . slavery” [20:2].

I’ve set you free so you’ll be able to make choices. The first and most important choice of your new life is whom you’re going to serve. Freedom never means you’ll never have a master again. It means you can choose your new master. Choose another god, and your freedom will shrink day by day. Choose Me, and your freedom will increase. There are many things you can acknowledge as a god, but I am the only true God, the God who has brought you salvation. Don’t ever settle for a second-rate god.

I’m a God, not an object. If you need a visible reminder of your God, you should look at the change He has made in lives. Inanimate objects are never worthy of being a god. Great people are not worthy of being a god. In fact, if your god is something you can paint a picture of, make a statue of, or set on a coffee table, your god is too small.

If you make Me into an object, you’ll forget that I’m a living being, someone with whom you have a relationship. I am not an “it,” but I have a name, and that name is to be honored. Don’t use it cheaply, and don’t bring disgrace upon it by the way you act.

In Egypt your taskmasters forced you to work seven days a week. I’m your boss now, and I insist that you rest one day out of seven. You’re going to have several years in the wilderness where you don’t have to work for your food or shelter. I’ll provide it all for you. But you still are to honor the Sabbath. When you enter the Promised Land, you’ll walk into houses you didn’t have to build, and you’ll harvest crops you didn’t have to plant. Even in those days when your work is lighter, you still are to honor the Sabbath. When your kids are too young to know what work is, or when your parents are too old to be expected to work, they are still to honor the Sabbath. If you become rich enough to hire maids or gardeners or chariot drivers, give them a Sabbath too, so you don’t become the kind of boss the Egyptians were to you. You see, the Sabbath is only partly about rest. It’s more about the reminder of who’s in charge of your life. If you let me be in charge, you’ll honor the Sabbath. If you don’t honor the Sabbath, it will be evident that someone else is in charge of your life. Don’t let yourself be enslaved to anyone else ever again. Don’t trade the taskmasters of Egypt for any other taskmaster, no matter what they promise you.

Honor your parents. Don’t be like the sons of Jacob who dishonored their father by mistreating one of his children. You saw how long it took to straighten out the mess they created. Nothing takes quite as long to mend as a fractured family.

That goes for your relations with every generation. It does no good to honor your parents but dishonor your spouse. Keeping harmony in the home is hard enough when it’s just a husband and wife. It becomes well nigh to impossible if you bring a third person into the picture. Don’t give your bed, your eyes, or your affections to anyone else. Whomever you choose, and however you choose, once the choice is made, make it for life, and see it through.

Don’t take what’s not yours. And this includes all kinds of things. Don’t take someone else’s life. But neither should you take what is equally precious to them: the love and relationship with their spouse. Don’t take someone else’s possessions away with your hands. But neither should you take their reputation away with your words. People who honor my name should honor their neighbor’s name as well.

You may think it is okay to wrap your heart and eyes around something, as long as your hands don’t take them. You may think that, but it’s wrong. Keep both your hands and your heart off of things that belong to your neighbor.

IV. These are the words God speaks to all whom He has set free. And God wants to know our response. These words are intended not as a document, but as a dialogue. When Moses gathers the people together to receive these words, the address from God comes not as, “If you read my message.” No, God’s preface to these words is, “If you hear my voice.” And the promise to the community that responds in obedience to His voice is that they will be God’s “treasured possession” (Exodus 19:5). The words are addressed to the community. But they’re a conditional promise. God’s treasured possession is neither the community that has memorized these ten words, nor the community that has been successful in having these words posted for all to see. God’s treasured possession is the community who responds, “All the words the Lord has spoken we will do” (Exodus 24:3b, NRSV).

The tragedy of Israel was that they frequently forgot to fulfill their promise to God, the promise to structure their community life in ways that would keep them free. In fact, they traded their freedom in God for bondage to a golden calf in less than 40 days. It’s a sobering reminder to the Church in the season of Lent, this season of 40 days. Sometimes it takes as long as 40 days to remove distractions so we can renew our focus on God. But sometimes it takes less than 40 days to drift into old, freedom-destroying bondages.

Moses was so angered by the people’s 40-day drift away from God that he raced down the mountain and broke the tablets with the ten words. To this day we get confused about which is the bigger issue. Breaking (or banishing) the tablets always gets the headlines, but breaking the covenant is the real tragedy. In time, God promised a new covenant, written not on tablets of stone, but on the human heart. He did it in part, I think, to give us a clearer image of how these words are intended to work. They were never meant to be stone-cold words. They were always meant to be live-giving words, the words of God, reflecting the heart of God, pulsing through us, giving life with every beat. But even life-giving words don’t give life if they’re written on stone-cold hearts.

In this season of Lent we hear God’s voice again: “If you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession.”