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    Sep 17, 2017

    The Disciple's Worship and Work

    Passage: Exodus 20:1-4

    Speaker: Rev. Vivian McCarthy, Pastor

    Series: God's Top Ten: The Ten Commandments for Today

    Category: The Bible for Today

    Keywords: idols, ten commandments, worship

    The first four Commandments focus on relationship with God. Who or what do you worship?

    A few months ago, one of our faith family members asked me to preach on the 10 Commandments as they apply today.

    The Ten Commandments are known in scholarly circles as The Decalogue or The Ten Words, based on the Hebrew, and there are various ways that interpreters have divided them over the years. Some interpreters put them in different order and some base the list on Exodus 20 while others base the list on Deuteronomy 5 where bearing false witness is not recorded but coveting is broken into two separate commandments.

    For our purposes, we are looking at the Exodus 20 version and I will be breaking the Commandments into 3 parts: Israel’s (or The Disciple’s) Worship, The Disciple’s Work, and The Disciple’s Walk (which we will explore next week). Perhaps my phrasing the sections this way gives you a clue as to how the Commandments apply to life today. Honestly, I don’t think there is a lot of difference in how they applied in Moses’ day and how they apply to life in 2017. They are basic. They are meant to be simple. They are meant to be clear.  The Ten Words form a base for the code of conduct for the people of faith.

    Every group of human beings develops norms so they can live together. Every culture develops and constantly refines the code of conduct for how they interact with each other. Israel – and modern day disciple culture – are no different. The difference lies in the why – the foundation.

    As I thought about how to express this, I was reminded of Jesus’ farewell address and prayer in John’s Gospel. In chapters 14 through 16 of his Gospel, John tells the disciples the things he wants them to remember. I think of that long passage as Jesus’ farewell address – kind of like his dying wishes. I believe that conversation took on deeply significant weight in the minds of the disciples like often happens when a parent is dying and we think long and hard about the last thing “dad said” or “mom said” to me. Do you know what I mean? How many of us take on a task because we saw it as a parent’s last instruction?  Haven't you heard a child say that they have to take care of Mom because Dad told me to just before he died?

    Then, in chapter 17, Jesus begins a prayer that commends the disciples to God. He is both asking God to help them and raising the bar, telling the disciples what they need to do. His dying words include a prayer where he is both pleading with God on their behalf and allowing them to “overhear” a few of the most important points of his message to them as he repeats them to God. It is in this context that Jesus says this: I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.  (John 17:14-16)

    Disciples of Jesus are in the world but not of the world.

    To me, that’s why the first 3 Commandments are so important. The Ten Commandments begin with what sets the People of God apart from any other culture: I am the Lord your God. Just me. Don’t worship anyone or anything else.

    In Moses’ time, there were similar legal codes for the cultures surrounding the Israelites. And in every other case, the code demanded that loyalty belonged to the ruler – to the king who was in power.

    The people of Israel were to be in the world. But their loyalty was to God and God alone. It was that loyalty that was to shape life. It was to be the motivation for everything they did and thought and said – everything. I like the way one author, Dennis Bratcher who wrote an article about this topic, put it. He wrote:

    In the OT, the codes are not based on the authority of a king, since many of them predate the time when Israel had a king. They are rooted in the Israelites’ own unique experience of God. The covenant at Sinai, with the Ten Words at its heart, is the grounding of Israelite community. That covenant is based on an understanding of God as the defender of the oppressed, the One who hears the cries of oppressed slaves, and enters history to reveal Himself as a God of grace and compassion. So, although the Israelite codes deal with economic matters, they do not dominate. Rather, at the center of Israelite thinking is the first of the Ten Words:

    Exod. 20:2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of slavery; you s hall have no other gods besides me.

    All other OT instructions, from social conventions to priestly regulations, are commentary on this profound experience of God in the exodus and at Sinai. [see note]

    In other words, the people of God then and now are to be motivated and guided by the Eternal God – not by whims or the influences of the world around us.

    Even the way the faithful stayed in touch with God in Moses’ day isn’t so different from what we do now. They were reminded again and again of who God is and what God did and continues to do – primarily in worship and reflection on Holy Writ. They told the sacred stories over and over and over again. That’s why each worship service in our tradition includes a time of proclamation and interpretation of the scriptures.

    The second Word presses the point of the first: if you make an idol of something else, you aren’t worshiping me. Remember what happened when Moses stayed so long on Mount Sinai? The people became desperate for a protector – and they gave away their worship to a piece of metal. For us, we may not actually make something out of our melted down jewelry, but we often make things more important than God. In other words, the Israelites put their faith in an object, giving it power in their lives. What do we elevate? What do we put first? What informs what we do? What do we think will make us happy? It’s those things that are our graven images.

    Word Three is about respect and a baseline that measures our behavior in relation to God’s place in our life. Names were and are important. In Moses’ day, you may remember that people couldn’t even speak the name of God as the name itself carried the very essence – the holiness – of Yahweh. How many of us want our names dragged through the mud? We may not have the exact same concept of a name, but we can all relate to having our names damaged in some way or other. We all know when God’s name is used carelessly or used as a curse. What does that say about our reverence for God?

    The final Word for this week is Word Four, and we are going to call it the Disciple’s Work. Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.

    What does it mean for this Word to define our work?

    • Work is not all there is. Rest is holy time – creative time – time to let God work within us. Time to give minds and bodies refreshment. And Sabbath time – by its very nature – is uncluttered so that God can speak in us. 
    • Many of us grew up at a time when only certain activities qualified for inclusion on the Sabbath. Remember blue laws? Closed stores? Church two or three times on Sunday? Does rest mean sleeping? Does Sabbath mean only wearing certain clothes? What restores your soul? What nudges you toward life abundant? I learned several years ago that my soul is parched when I don’t have time with my children – when family meals and laughter are crowded out. Along the way I also learned that when I don’t have the time to absorb the scripture that is on my heart to share in worship – to soak in it – to spend time just listening to scripture speak – both the task of preaching and scripture’s wonder become mechanistic. So, for me, holiness of Sabbath has something to do with listening to God speak through scripture.

    In the world but not of the world. Every thought, every act, every breath and motivated and powered by our worship and love for God. Life open to guidance by the one who brings us out of bondage and into glorious light. The remaining 6 Words help us live that out, and we'll explore them next week.

    NOTE:  Dennis Bratcher, Israel’s Codes of Conduct Compared to Surrounding Nations, from The Voice: Biblical and Theological Resources for Growing Christians, the website of the Christian Resource Institute. http://www.crivoice.org/lawcodes.html