2nd Ten Commandments 2 Greatest Laws

Exodus 38:1-12
Matthew 22:34-46
We study engineering and economics, physics and philosophy, so as to know.
We study poetry and music and art so as to listen, to see, to feel life's rhythm.
The call to worship this day, was written a decade ago, when the Arizona State legislature dropped all study of creative writing, art and music from the public school curricula. What seems self-evident, is that governments want answers, fix the economy, bomb the enemy, make peace, without full comprehension of the means, the weight and value of balancing and changing priorities.

When we do turn to the Scriptures, we seek wisdom and faith, as if these were set apart from human reason. Years ago, there was a New York Times' Best Seller “All I Ever Needed to Know, I Learned in Kindergarden”. Which emphasized the basics of cooperation, sharing, compassion, loyalty. There are times when life seems so complicated, time is a commodity and there is no where safe or secure to invest. Times when, rather than seeking complex new leaps of understanding to balance pointillism with string theory, we need to listen to the needs of others and act out of a commitment of love. Faith does not require that we know the language of dogma, distinctions between Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation, between a Hermeneutic and Proof Texting, faith requires a commitment of covenant. In Western society, we tend to imagine a commitment as if a warrantee. Covenant commitment is not for 1 year, or three, or a lifetime, but for all time.

Part of the wonder of this morning's readings are the importance of visiting an idea a second time. A first effort may be experiential, may be flawed, might be forgot, but a second time underscores and makes permanent. Contracts are legally binding, Covenants are cut into stone or into us in love. An odd, but true reality, love cuts us, love can wound, can scar, can disfigure, but as covenant is cut into our lives.

We are a cynical stiff-necked people, who hear the word love, and drop into an overtly sentimental ridicule of “The Church Lady”, where everything is “SPECIAL” and we bless one another's heart with saccharin sweetness. We emphasize that, this love is different, this is not as perverse as eros, or as flowery as romance, AGAPE is a special kind of love Jesus made up. He did not. The Greek language had just as many words for love, just as many emotions, as we do. But what Jesus describes in Greek with AGAPE is what in the Old Testament was named as “hesed” a steadfast love, a living covenant, that could simultaneously suspend a myriad polarities with the reality: because you are loved.

Exodus records that God loved Israel, loved the people so much as to protect them from oppression; to give the enslaved, freedom; and part seas for them. But as often happens in first love, the people did not appreciate what was offered. The power and beauty of the 10 Commandments we know, the 10 Commandments here written on two stone tablets, are that knowing how fickle we are, having already been betrayed and abandoned by us, God offers the covenant anew. Not ignoring what took place, for God is named as one who can visit suffering on a people for four generations, but God is also steadfast in mercy, in loyalty, in compassion. The 10 Commandments are not about LAW, they are an emphatic statement of COMMITMENT from God, that God will be with us, God will be faithful, and God can transform what was broken into something of value.

There has been a Wendy's Commercial this Summer, emphasizing value. One friend asks the other for a dollar, then offers to trade that buck for the 99 cent sandwich the other is enjoying, and the one enjoying the sandwich recognizes that what is in hand has increased in value and they do not want to give it up.

We have been witnesses to miracles. Imagine a young couple, who are afraid that if they bear a child they may pass along DNA that their child would endure what they had suffered as a child. But before the child is born, they diagnose a more serious problem. Despite all our prayers to make the suffering go away, to relieve them of their plight, the child is born, and with a series of surgeries is healthy and a great gift. Suddenly all their earlier fears are forgot.

There is a certain irony to Exodus 34, because where the first version spelled out four laws of relationship to God and six of relationship within human culture, eight in the negative and two Thou Shalts, in the dictating of these commandments, God instructs the people of Israel to avoid their enemies, to not cook lamb in goat's milk, and rather than worshipping fertility Gods to observe three offerings annually, an offering at the time of planting, an offering pledging future commitment when crops first begin to bear, and an offering at harvest, yet while the people attempted to follow these as a kosher people, the 10 Commandments were remembered as stated in the first version.

In total, the Old Testament Rabbis had counted 618 different laws, 248 positive and 365 thou shalt not, associated with 248 parts of the human body and 365 days of the year. We have followed the last several weeks as the Pharisees and Saducees each tested Jesus about Authority, about the Sanctity of Marriage, about the Resurrection of the dead, and the Power of the Empire versus the Kingdom of God, finally this morning a Theologian is put forward to challenge Jesus on the nuances of all the laws and commandments of what it is to be Kosher. Of the 618 different laws, cooking meat in its mother's milk, versus circumcision, lying, versus simple coveting, pride versus murder which is the greatest? According to Hebrew Law all the Commands were equal, if Sin is brokenness from God to do what you desire as if there were no God, what difference if that is because you were prideful, or murderous? Yet, Jesus replied, the way we need to understand the Laws, the key to everything is to follow the Covenant to love the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Here the purpose of the Second is not that the first was insufficient, but that the two together, support and reinforce one another. like the form of the cross, we love God, and we love one another, everything else is understood through these covenant commitments. One need not know every single iota of every law, if you follow these covenant commitments, for all the Law and the Prophets are based upon these.

Having been tested in all these ways, Jesus then tests his listeners. Some have suggested Jesus might be the Messiah, so he asks of the Pharisees, Saducees, Scribes and Theologians: :”How is the Relationship between Beloved King David and the Messiah?” They respond The Messiah is Son of David, as recorded in David wanting to build a house for God and God instead making a Covenant for all future generations that God would be present with the Son of David. To which Jesus then sings one of the most loved of the Psalms which identifies David addressing the Messiah as Lord. It would be as if in the midst of the Political debates last spring, if instead of trying to explain their faith and religious loyalties, the Candidates for our highest Office, our greatest Powers, simply stood before the Nation and humbly sang “Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now am found, twas blind but now I see.”

The answers to life's problems do not have to be complex, the language of faith need not get in the way. What matters, the only thing that maters is our COVENANT COMMITMENT, our Love and Devotion. I have tried to start a tradition, that was begun years ago in my becoming a minister. After College and Seminary Graduate School, candidates for the ministry sit for four four hour written exams similar to passing the Bar in Law, or Medical Boards for a Doctor, after which you are permitted to find a Church that wants you. Then, and only then, are you able to stand before the Presbytery as the Elders and Ministers ask whatever questions they desire. And since the reUnion of the Presbyterian Church in 1984, every time a minister changes Presbyteries they are questioned all over again. The first time I was examined this lasted for two hours. At the end of which you are escorted from the room as they debate and vote on your preparedness for serving a Church. As I was led back into the Sanctuary after the vote, the Presbytery rose to sing: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow” as reminder that the blessings we seek are not the Culture's values of Celebrity, Wealth, Notoriety, and Security, but God and God's love alone