October 8, 2023
19th Sunday after Pentecost
Gathering
MUSICAL OFFERING
ANNOUNCEMENTS
· Please join us in Calvin Hall following worship today for a time of fellowship.
· Beginning in October: A Butterfly ministry in our basement! You are invited to come help paint butterflies of grace to remind our hurting neighbors of God’s care and of our prayers. Call Shirley Darsidan at 563-613-2850 for more information.
· Ladies Lunch Bunch will gather on October 11 at 11:30 AM at Applebees. Please add your RSVP to the sign up sheet at office door.
· This month we receive the Peacemaking offering. 25% of this money remains with us to be used by our “Gathering Place.” The remainder is used at multiple levels of our denomination to fund programs that promote peace and well-being around our world.
· We are invited to a free community meal sponsored by the Salvation Army and the family of Colonel Joel Jones. Oct. 19th from noon to 6 PM at Information, Referral and Assistance Center (219 1st Ave.) Menu: Chili, cornbread, mac & cheese, chili dogs, chips, apple crisp, pumpkin bars, coffee and water. Non-perishable food items will be gratefully accepted.
PRAYER REQUESTS
· JoAnn Grimm who struggles with health problems.
· Joan Pinkston, on hospice.
· Keith and Ellen Miller who are struggling with health issues.
· For our Nominating Committee who are working to fill 2 elder positions, as well as Clerk of Session.
PRELUDE
*GATHERING PRAYER
God, with great gentleness and care, you call us to be your people and to do your work. Be here with us today, for we come asking for your support in all that we do. We need your love, transforming our lives in hope. Be with us we pray. Amen
*CALL TO WORSHIP
We gather today, seeking the peace Christ gives.
We gather, in spite of many a conflict, many a doubt, within our souls.
We gather, longing for the breath of God’s Spirit to give us courage and renewal.
All: Come, Christ Jesus, be our guest. Bless us through the power of your Spirit, and give us the courage to live as your disciples day by day. Amen
*HYMN Just As I Am #370
(You may be seated.)
CALL TO CONFESSION
How often we feel confined and confused by the darkness of our own sin! We don't know how to move forward. But Christ has shown us the way. We are invited to come to the cross and offer our whole being to the one who is able to set us free. Let us together confess our sin and seek the release of God's incredible grace.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Eternal God, from the beginning you have called your children into communion with you and with one another. Yet we confess that like all the rest, we have turned to our own way and refused your love and grace. We have acted on our own interests, ignoring our brother and sister. Restore us to the joy of knowing you, of being a caring part of the world you have created. Let us recognize your reign among us. Through Jesus Christ, bringer of good news. Amen.
WORDS OF ASSURANCE
In Christ we are given new life. The old is gone away. The new is on our doorstep. We are freed to fully live into this wonderful grace and to know the joy of God’s love that sets us free.
SONG OF PRAISE Gloria Patri #579
PASSING THE PEACE
May the peace of Christ be with you.
And also with you.
INTERLUDE
Word
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
God of Wisdom, God of Hope, Holy One, help us to recognize your truth in the words we hear today. May the experiences of those men and women who heard your voice like a trumpet’s call be ours, as well. Grant that we may experience the meaning and the joy to be found within your commands. Amen
SCRIPTURE LESSONS
Exodus 19: 9b-11, 16-19
9 The Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you.” Then Moses told the Lord what the people had said. 10 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes 11 and be ready by the third day, because on that day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.
16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. 17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. 19 As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.
Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20
20 And God spoke all these words: 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. 8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 13 “You shall not murder. 14 “You shall not commit adultery. 15 “You shall not steal. 16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” 18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”
SERMON When God Speaks
In 2001 Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court, installed a 5000 pound block of granite with the ten commandments in the Court House Building. An uproar ensued with multiple voices saying that it violated the separation of Church and State clause of our constitution. It also planted concerns about whether non-Christians would get equal justice in those courtrooms. Judge Roy argued that we need to return to the principles of our Christian Faith and this would be such a reminder. Well, after lots of battles back and forth, including the good judge refusing to comply with higher court’s rulings, both the stone AND the judge were removed late in 2003
It just goes to show the passion on both sides of the debate around these fundamental rules that God handed down the mountain. For some people, their faith centers on their attempt to follow these rules. I won’t argue that they are good and important rules, BUT maybe there’s more here. I wonder what Moses would have said to Judge Roy. Moses was pretty clear that God’s gift of the law had as much (or maybe more) to do with our personal relationship with a living God, and maybe less to do with a stone tablet with strict prohibitions or mandates on our actions.
Let’s review. These people had been slaves with very little personal autonomy. Their lives had been subject to the whims of their slave masters. Decision making and freedom had been sharply curtailed. Now all of a sudden they were out from under those constraints.
Imagine a 14 or 15 year old who had grown up in a strict and controlling household who suddenly got absolute freedom. Movies are full of such disasters! Well, these people had the advantage of being adults with fully developed brains. They had that going for them, but they had very little experience in self-governance or constraint. It had always been external. It had come from outside and was based on fear and punishment. Now their decision making needed to move to an internal locus and they needed to BE a community that cooperated and was functional. They needed to be a people who were loyal to God and who came to trust that God would lead and guide them forward. They would also represent God to those they met along the way. They were representatives of our Lord. They needed to get it right.
Now Moses could have gone up that mountain and got those tablets of stone and brought them down to the people. We see lots of Sunday School posters of that image. But that’s the ending of the story AFTER what we read here. That’s so they would remember what had happened right here. Now God would speak to the people in God’s own voice so they would know that these were truly from God, and not just something Moses made up on his own. They needed to experience God in a personal way. AND they needed to know that Moses was truly speaking God’s words to them.
So the people were gathered after the three days of preparation, cleansing themselves and making themselves pure. They were given strict orders on how to prepare for this holy meeting. Don’t touch the mountain was one of those rules. So here they are on Day 3. They’re at the base of the mountain and a spectacle opened before them. Smoke, thunder, and lightning all around. Then comes the trumpet blast. It grows louder and louder. The mountain shakes. Can you feel it? The people could hear Moses speaking and then the trumpet answered him.
Finally the Lord made his voice heard by those waiting at the foot of the mountain. I am the Lord your God. That was the introduction, the basis upon which all that followed would be based. God was giving them the foundation upon which they were to live. There were 3 commands that dealt with their relationship with the Lord.
You shall have no other gods before me. It meant absolute loyalty to Yahweh. Now when we add the next one, You shall not make for yourself an idol, we might assume that these two refer to the religious worship of other deities. That’s the tip of the iceberg. It’s much broader than that. It means our God is always (always, always) to be in the primary place of importance in our lives—above our jobs, checking accounts, hobbies, even our families. God was to be central and all those other things would find their proper place and be better because of it.
It’s so easy to make idols of different things. God is telling his people, ”Don’t do it. Don’t let those other things subsume God’s role in your life.” Don’t make an idol out of wood or stone is the easy part to obey. Those things can be manipulated and controlled. They are lifeless and don’t have any power. God has power. Our Lord is a living God with tremendous power and ability to know us and care for us. But it’s also easy to make a goal, a desire or a plan into a god who we strive for and put at the top of our priority. The most obvious ones are financial well-being, prestige, job advancement or family. Those things won’t work to lift up the community or even us. Those things can fall flat and fail. We need a God who has power and can pick us up when all else fails.
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord. We think of that as cursing. But it also includes speaking of God in ways that misrepresent the Lord, or that does harm to God’s reputation. Here’s one, “I asked God which socks I should wear this morning and God said to wear brown socks.” What does such a statement say to others about the nature of God? That God micromanages our lives! Who would want to give their life to such a God? We are to pay attention to how we reference our God. God’s reputation is just as important as ours is.
Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Remember these were slaves who didn’t get a day of rest. How important that is! It is for the people’s benefit so we don’t get exhausted and burned out, so we have time for the things that make life worth living. It is also a day that is consecrated to God. It’s a day to revitalize our relationship to the Lord. God, himself, rested in the act of creation. It must be important, and God mandated it for our well-being. So often we ignore this commandment to our own detriment.
Now we move to the commandments that deal with our interactions with one another. Do you notice that family takes center stage to lead this off? Honor your father and your mother. This is a commandment aimed at adult children to remind them to care for aging parents who perhaps have become more frail and whose mental faculties might have diminished. Do you notice that the instruction is to honor them. There are no specific instructions given on HOW they should do that. God seemed to understand that a one size fits all set of rules wouldn’t work here. He left it to them to decide what would be needed.
In our world today, we would also add the same command to parents to honor their children. In ancient times when children often died early, their needs and their role in the family felt very different. Today we know that what happens to our little ones can affect them for the rest of their lives. I believe we can very easily stretch this to also mean honor your children and care for them well.
The last 5 commandments are issued to the community, to equals so that their dealings would enable a functional community. At issue is how we respect one another and live together in peace and cooperation.
You shall not kill. The word here that is translated “kill” is used to mean murder in other parts of our scripture. To take a life is God’s domain. When we take a life we are acting as God. In our modern world we get caught up with this commandment in the issue of abortion. There the question of when life begins is at issue. People of good faith stand on both sides of this issue. On one side are those who assert that life begins at conception. On the other is the argument of a woman’s right to her own body and her autonomy to determine her future. It’s a debate that is likely to go forward for some time. It’s an issue that each person needs to struggle with, and I believe each of us need to understand that the other side has legitimacy in their views. I believe God knows that, and will offer peace and forgiveness to us all.
You shall not commit adultery. The family is once more front and center. To protect that relationship is so important. It comes back to loyalty, integrity, truthfulness and honoring one another.
You shall not steal. Israel understood property as an extension of one’s self. To honor and respect our neighbor is to honor and respect their property. In addition, to work is to gather in the benefits of one’s labor. Theft dishonors our neighbor and it denies the thief of the opportunity to develop and use the gifts that God gave. These are gifts that are intended to be used for the well-being of us all. Stealing is not just burglary or shoplifting. It’s also cheating, as well as any form of dishonesty that enriches one at the expense of another—plagiarism, scams, taking credit for work or an idea that is not our own. These things dishonor and destroy. God says, “Don’t!”
You shall not bear false witness. While this probably originally referred to giving false testimony in court, something that undermines justice, it also refers to falsehoods in general. They dishonor God’s truth. The same is true of gossip or slander, deception and even just empty talk. Those behaviors tear down relationships and destroy reputations. They cause harm to our ability to function as a society.
You shall not covet. This is probably one of the hardest commandments to get our head around. Our society is built on encouraging us to covet. That’s what advertising is all about. It teaches us to want something that we don’t have. But to covet is also a first step towards disobeying the other nine commandments that came before. It can lead us to steal or cheat, to lie or commit adultery. It can even lead to murder in extreme cases. When we covet, which means to deeply desire something that our neighbor has, we put our energy and impulses to work to acquire the object of our desire. It also means that we are focusing on what we DON’T have instead of giving thanks and appreciating what we DO have. It leads to discontent and the tearing down of relationships.
So these are the big 10 that Judge Roy wanted lifted up. The problem is that there’s so much more to be considered, as well as how we live these in relationship with people who worship in different ways. How do we lift up and mandate a relationship with God? How do we demand that people honor one another and cooperate and live together respectfully. These are the broad strokes of what God desires for us. They are bumper guards to keep us on the right track.
God spoke to his people. They had trouble listening. We’ve had over 4,000 years to meditate on these words and to attempt to incorporate them into our lives. I suggest that we can only begin to do so when we keep God’s first words at the center of our hearts. “I am the Lord your God.”
Help us Lord, to hold ourselves to your care and love. Amen.
*HYMN Great Is Thy Faithfulness #276
(you may be seated.)
PASTORAL PRAYER
LORD’S PRAYER
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.
OFFERING OUR GIFTS TO GOD
*DOXOLOGY Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow #592
*PRAYER OF DEDICATION
*AFFIRMATION OF FAITH (Apostle’s Creed)
*HYMN This Is My Father’s World #293
(You may be seated.)
Sending Forth
*CHARGE & BLESSING
POSTLUDE
* Sections of the service preceded with * are times to stand if you are able to do so.
Bold text is to be read together aloud as a congregation.
October 8, 2023
19th Sunday after Pentecost
Gathering
MUSICAL OFFERING
ANNOUNCEMENTS
· Please join us in Calvin Hall following worship today for a time of fellowship.
· Beginning in October: A Butterfly ministry in our basement! You are invited to come help paint butterflies of grace to remind our hurting neighbors of God’s care and of our prayers. Call Shirley Darsidan at 563-613-2850 for more information.
· Ladies Lunch Bunch will gather on October 11 at 11:30 AM at Applebees. Please add your RSVP to the sign up sheet at office door.
· This month we receive the Peacemaking offering. 25% of this money remains with us to be used by our “Gathering Place.” The remainder is used at multiple levels of our denomination to fund programs that promote peace and well-being around our world.
· We are invited to a free community meal sponsored by the Salvation Army and the family of Colonel Joel Jones. Oct. 19th from noon to 6 PM at Information, Referral and Assistance Center (219 1st Ave.) Menu: Chili, cornbread, mac & cheese, chili dogs, chips, apple crisp, pumpkin bars, coffee and water. Non-perishable food items will be gratefully accepted.
PRAYER REQUESTS
· JoAnn Grimm who struggles with health problems.
· Joan Pinkston, on hospice.
· Keith and Ellen Miller who are struggling with health issues.
· For our Nominating Committee who are working to fill 2 elder positions, as well as Clerk of Session.
PRELUDE
*GATHERING PRAYER
God, with great gentleness and care, you call us to be your people and to do your work. Be here with us today, for we come asking for your support in all that we do. We need your love, transforming our lives in hope. Be with us we pray. Amen
*CALL TO WORSHIP
We gather today, seeking the peace Christ gives.
We gather, in spite of many a conflict, many a doubt, within our souls.
We gather, longing for the breath of God’s Spirit to give us courage and renewal.
All: Come, Christ Jesus, be our guest. Bless us through the power of your Spirit, and give us the courage to live as your disciples day by day. Amen
*HYMN Just As I Am #370
(You may be seated.)
CALL TO CONFESSION
How often we feel confined and confused by the darkness of our own sin! We don't know how to move forward. But Christ has shown us the way. We are invited to come to the cross and offer our whole being to the one who is able to set us free. Let us together confess our sin and seek the release of God's incredible grace.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Eternal God, from the beginning you have called your children into communion with you and with one another. Yet we confess that like all the rest, we have turned to our own way and refused your love and grace. We have acted on our own interests, ignoring our brother and sister. Restore us to the joy of knowing you, of being a caring part of the world you have created. Let us recognize your reign among us. Through Jesus Christ, bringer of good news. Amen.
WORDS OF ASSURANCE
In Christ we are given new life. The old is gone away. The new is on our doorstep. We are freed to fully live into this wonderful grace and to know the joy of God’s love that sets us free.
SONG OF PRAISE Gloria Patri #579
PASSING THE PEACE
May the peace of Christ be with you.
And also with you.
INTERLUDE
Word
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
God of Wisdom, God of Hope, Holy One, help us to recognize your truth in the words we hear today. May the experiences of those men and women who heard your voice like a trumpet’s call be ours, as well. Grant that we may experience the meaning and the joy to be found within your commands. Amen
SCRIPTURE LESSONS
Exodus 19: 9b-11, 16-19
9 The Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you.” Then Moses told the Lord what the people had said. 10 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes 11 and be ready by the third day, because on that day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.
16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. 17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. 19 As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.
Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20
20 And God spoke all these words: 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. 8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 13 “You shall not murder. 14 “You shall not commit adultery. 15 “You shall not steal. 16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” 18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”
SERMON When God Speaks
In 2001 Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court, installed a 5000 pound block of granite with the ten commandments in the Court House Building. An uproar ensued with multiple voices saying that it violated the separation of Church and State clause of our constitution. It also planted concerns about whether non-Christians would get equal justice in those courtrooms. Judge Roy argued that we need to return to the principles of our Christian Faith and this would be such a reminder. Well, after lots of battles back and forth, including the good judge refusing to comply with higher court’s rulings, both the stone AND the judge were removed late in 2003
It just goes to show the passion on both sides of the debate around these fundamental rules that God handed down the mountain. For some people, their faith centers on their attempt to follow these rules. I won’t argue that they are good and important rules, BUT maybe there’s more here. I wonder what Moses would have said to Judge Roy. Moses was pretty clear that God’s gift of the law had as much (or maybe more) to do with our personal relationship with a living God, and maybe less to do with a stone tablet with strict prohibitions or mandates on our actions.
Let’s review. These people had been slaves with very little personal autonomy. Their lives had been subject to the whims of their slave masters. Decision making and freedom had been sharply curtailed. Now all of a sudden they were out from under those constraints.
Imagine a 14 or 15 year old who had grown up in a strict and controlling household who suddenly got absolute freedom. Movies are full of such disasters! Well, these people had the advantage of being adults with fully developed brains. They had that going for them, but they had very little experience in self-governance or constraint. It had always been external. It had come from outside and was based on fear and punishment. Now their decision making needed to move to an internal locus and they needed to BE a community that cooperated and was functional. They needed to be a people who were loyal to God and who came to trust that God would lead and guide them forward. They would also represent God to those they met along the way. They were representatives of our Lord. They needed to get it right.
Now Moses could have gone up that mountain and got those tablets of stone and brought them down to the people. We see lots of Sunday School posters of that image. But that’s the ending of the story AFTER what we read here. That’s so they would remember what had happened right here. Now God would speak to the people in God’s own voice so they would know that these were truly from God, and not just something Moses made up on his own. They needed to experience God in a personal way. AND they needed to know that Moses was truly speaking God’s words to them.
So the people were gathered after the three days of preparation, cleansing themselves and making themselves pure. They were given strict orders on how to prepare for this holy meeting. Don’t touch the mountain was one of those rules. So here they are on Day 3. They’re at the base of the mountain and a spectacle opened before them. Smoke, thunder, and lightning all around. Then comes the trumpet blast. It grows louder and louder. The mountain shakes. Can you feel it? The people could hear Moses speaking and then the trumpet answered him.
Finally the Lord made his voice heard by those waiting at the foot of the mountain. I am the Lord your God. That was the introduction, the basis upon which all that followed would be based. God was giving them the foundation upon which they were to live. There were 3 commands that dealt with their relationship with the Lord.
You shall have no other gods before me. It meant absolute loyalty to Yahweh. Now when we add the next one, You shall not make for yourself an idol, we might assume that these two refer to the religious worship of other deities. That’s the tip of the iceberg. It’s much broader than that. It means our God is always (always, always) to be in the primary place of importance in our lives—above our jobs, checking accounts, hobbies, even our families. God was to be central and all those other things would find their proper place and be better because of it.
It’s so easy to make idols of different things. God is telling his people, ”Don’t do it. Don’t let those other things subsume God’s role in your life.” Don’t make an idol out of wood or stone is the easy part to obey. Those things can be manipulated and controlled. They are lifeless and don’t have any power. God has power. Our Lord is a living God with tremendous power and ability to know us and care for us. But it’s also easy to make a goal, a desire or a plan into a god who we strive for and put at the top of our priority. The most obvious ones are financial well-being, prestige, job advancement or family. Those things won’t work to lift up the community or even us. Those things can fall flat and fail. We need a God who has power and can pick us up when all else fails.
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord. We think of that as cursing. But it also includes speaking of God in ways that misrepresent the Lord, or that does harm to God’s reputation. Here’s one, “I asked God which socks I should wear this morning and God said to wear brown socks.” What does such a statement say to others about the nature of God? That God micromanages our lives! Who would want to give their life to such a God? We are to pay attention to how we reference our God. God’s reputation is just as important as ours is.
Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Remember these were slaves who didn’t get a day of rest. How important that is! It is for the people’s benefit so we don’t get exhausted and burned out, so we have time for the things that make life worth living. It is also a day that is consecrated to God. It’s a day to revitalize our relationship to the Lord. God, himself, rested in the act of creation. It must be important, and God mandated it for our well-being. So often we ignore this commandment to our own detriment.
Now we move to the commandments that deal with our interactions with one another. Do you notice that family takes center stage to lead this off? Honor your father and your mother. This is a commandment aimed at adult children to remind them to care for aging parents who perhaps have become more frail and whose mental faculties might have diminished. Do you notice that the instruction is to honor them. There are no specific instructions given on HOW they should do that. God seemed to understand that a one size fits all set of rules wouldn’t work here. He left it to them to decide what would be needed.
In our world today, we would also add the same command to parents to honor their children. In ancient times when children often died early, their needs and their role in the family felt very different. Today we know that what happens to our little ones can affect them for the rest of their lives. I believe we can very easily stretch this to also mean honor your children and care for them well.
The last 5 commandments are issued to the community, to equals so that their dealings would enable a functional community. At issue is how we respect one another and live together in peace and cooperation.
You shall not kill. The word here that is translated “kill” is used to mean murder in other parts of our scripture. To take a life is God’s domain. When we take a life we are acting as God. In our modern world we get caught up with this commandment in the issue of abortion. There the question of when life begins is at issue. People of good faith stand on both sides of this issue. On one side are those who assert that life begins at conception. On the other is the argument of a woman’s right to her own body and her autonomy to determine her future. It’s a debate that is likely to go forward for some time. It’s an issue that each person needs to struggle with, and I believe each of us need to understand that the other side has legitimacy in their views. I believe God knows that, and will offer peace and forgiveness to us all.
You shall not commit adultery. The family is once more front and center. To protect that relationship is so important. It comes back to loyalty, integrity, truthfulness and honoring one another.
You shall not steal. Israel understood property as an extension of one’s self. To honor and respect our neighbor is to honor and respect their property. In addition, to work is to gather in the benefits of one’s labor. Theft dishonors our neighbor and it denies the thief of the opportunity to develop and use the gifts that God gave. These are gifts that are intended to be used for the well-being of us all. Stealing is not just burglary or shoplifting. It’s also cheating, as well as any form of dishonesty that enriches one at the expense of another—plagiarism, scams, taking credit for work or an idea that is not our own. These things dishonor and destroy. God says, “Don’t!”
You shall not bear false witness. While this probably originally referred to giving false testimony in court, something that undermines justice, it also refers to falsehoods in general. They dishonor God’s truth. The same is true of gossip or slander, deception and even just empty talk. Those behaviors tear down relationships and destroy reputations. They cause harm to our ability to function as a society.
You shall not covet. This is probably one of the hardest commandments to get our head around. Our society is built on encouraging us to covet. That’s what advertising is all about. It teaches us to want something that we don’t have. But to covet is also a first step towards disobeying the other nine commandments that came before. It can lead us to steal or cheat, to lie or commit adultery. It can even lead to murder in extreme cases. When we covet, which means to deeply desire something that our neighbor has, we put our energy and impulses to work to acquire the object of our desire. It also means that we are focusing on what we DON’T have instead of giving thanks and appreciating what we DO have. It leads to discontent and the tearing down of relationships.
So these are the big 10 that Judge Roy wanted lifted up. The problem is that there’s so much more to be considered, as well as how we live these in relationship with people who worship in different ways. How do we lift up and mandate a relationship with God? How do we demand that people honor one another and cooperate and live together respectfully. These are the broad strokes of what God desires for us. They are bumper guards to keep us on the right track.
God spoke to his people. They had trouble listening. We’ve had over 4,000 years to meditate on these words and to attempt to incorporate them into our lives. I suggest that we can only begin to do so when we keep God’s first words at the center of our hearts. “I am the Lord your God.”
Help us Lord, to hold ourselves to your care and love. Amen.
*HYMN Great Is Thy Faithfulness #276
(you may be seated.)
PASTORAL PRAYER
LORD’S PRAYER
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.
OFFERING OUR GIFTS TO GOD
*DOXOLOGY Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow #592
*PRAYER OF DEDICATION
*AFFIRMATION OF FAITH (Apostle’s Creed)
*HYMN This Is My Father’s World #293
(You may be seated.)
Sending Forth
*CHARGE & BLESSING
POSTLUDE
* Sections of the service preceded with * are times to stand if you are able to do so.
Bold text is to be read together aloud as a congregation.
RSS Feed
