A Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost 2005
The Baptism of Danika Joelle Selene Howard
By the Rev. Dr. Bill Doggett ©

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
Philippians 3:4b-14
Matthew 21:33-46

"You speak to us and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die."

If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom, then the Israelites are wise indeed. But somehow, in the long history of humankind’s walk with God, fear doesn’t seem to translate into obedience, or at least never for long.

Our reading from the Hebrew Bible is about fear and obedience. You probably remember from Sunday School the context of the story: while Moses is up on the mountain getting The Rules from God, the people waiting below are busy breaking them – collecting all of their gold and melting it down to make an idol to Ba’al, since their God and their leader seem to have abandoned them. No wonder they don’t want God to talk to them. Moses uses the stone tablets to smash the idol, and then, I guess because his short-term memory isn’t too good, he has to go back up the mountain to get the commandments again.

You all can remember better than Moses, I’m sure. Most of you learned the Ten Commandments in your youth, and some of you may even have considered them again recently, as the debate about their place in American public life has heated up. And you may have noticed that of the ten, the supposed basis of civil law, only three are actually covered by statutes, and one of those, the one about bearing false witness against your neighbor, is only illegal in certain circumstances.

That leaves seven and a half commandments to be enforced by God if they are to be enforced at all. And it falls to us – as church; as community; as parents – to teach the rules to our children, and to help them understand why they matter, so that they and we can be good citizens of the City of God, just as it falls to the schools and parents to teach the Constitution, so that our children will be good citizens of our nation.

But the Ten Commandments, like the Constitution, can be hard to interpret. The Psalmist may have been overstating the case in saying "your commandment is clear and gives light to the eyes."

How do we remember the Sabbath and keep it holy when we’re confused about when the Sabbath is?

(For the record, the Sabbath is Saturday, not Sunday. Sunday, the first day of the week, is celebrated by Christians precisely because it is not the day God rested, but the day God acted – the day of creation and resurrection.)

Even the simple directive not to kill is clouded by a translation problem, The Hebrew verb is translated in our reading as "murder," but it actually covers more kinds of killing than just murder. "Slay" would be a better translation – after all, the same verb is used for what David did to Goliath – the Hebrew word means killing people by any means and for any reason, and it is against the rules.

And what does it mean to make wrongful use of God’s name?

Does it mean, as Jewish people believe, that we should never say God’s name at all? Or that we shouldn’t swear on or in God’s name? Or if we do, that we shouldn’t break the oath? Or that we shouldn’t invoke God’s name boastfully, in a "my God can beat up your god" kind of way? And does this rule apply to Jesus’ name as well?

I would love to be able to give you definitive answers to all these questions. I would especially love to be able to provide them for Jennifer and Joe Howard, whose baby Danika is to be baptized today. I believe that raising our children in faith is the most important thing we do, and clarity about some of the vexed issues of our faith would be extremely helpful. But I have no answers.

I do, however, have some hints for living the kind of life with God that the Ten Commandments point us toward.

First, God desires nothing so much as worship and praise. This is probably true for most of us as well. But what would be a supreme vanity for us makes sense if you happen to be God. God really wants us to understand whom we are dealing with. God tells us over and over. I AM. I am the Lord your God. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. True recognition of the "godness" of God inevitably results in either praise and worship or despair, depending on where you think you belong in the hierarchy. Praising God not only recognizes who God is, it helps us recognize who God is. As a side benefit, the preponderance of children who keep their faith in adulthood are those who worshipped with their parents in childhood.

Second, keep Sabbath. There are all kinds of practical reasons for this – rest and quiet waking time are as important to spiritual growth and health as sleep is to physical growth and health. Busyness is such a virtue in our world that stillness is almost freakishly countercultural. I wouldn’t fret about which day of the week so much as whether you do the thing at all. Set aside some time as an individual and as a family to be quiet – with yourself, with one another, and with God. Use the time to pray, and to share. If you talk about your busy lives, stop and say a prayer for each person you mention. In a life of doing, take a little time each week to just be.

And about that coveting thing: our economic life is centered around trying to get you to break this commandment. And everyone here on Capitol Hill covets his neighbor’s house. But that’s another sermon altogether. Still, notice, at least, how you are being constantly led into temptation. Don’t covet your neighbor’s TiVo, but you can at least hit the mute button when the commercials come on.

Oh – and don’t lie or steal or kill or cheat.

And finally, honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

To the Hebrews, for whom the family, not the individual, was the smallest indissoluble social unit, that meant something different than it does to us. For them, it meant ‘do not break the covenant that gives your life meaning, place and value in the world.’ Do not throw away the good name your parents and your ancestors have built up over generations by your sin and profligacy.

Our legacies from our ancestors may be somewhat less clearly positive, and we are more likely to be ambivalent about what we inherit.

So take this commandment instead to be a call for children to honor their parents and for parents to be honorable. While we all want our children to grow up better than ourselves, "do as I say, not as I do" is a violation of the parental half of this covenant. To be honored, it is necessary to be honorable. And as for the children’s half of this covenant, at this point I cannot resist returning to my musical comedy roots and quoting a song from Harold Rome’s 1954 musical "Fanny."

It is my charge to young Danika.

Be kind to your parents, tho’ they don’t deserve it,
Remember that grownup is a difficult stage of life.

They’re apt to be nervous and over-excited,
Confused by the daily storm and strife.

Just keep in mind, tho’ it seems hard I know,
That parents once were children long ago. Incredible!

So treat them with kindness and sweet understanding
In spite of the foolish things they do.

Someday you may wake up and find you’re a parent too.