Photo by Tijs van Leur on Unsplash
Karen Hollis | March 3, 2024
Lent 3
Exodus 20:1-18 Then God spoke all these words: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
“Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
“You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be reflections of your word to us today, in Christ’s name we pray. Amen
In the big park at the center of Gabriola Island there is a bench next to a huge maple tree. I used to run or walk along the trail, come around the corner, and be greeted with this compelling invitation to come and sit – and sometimes I did. It is a well-placed bench, next to the massive maple, who always offers something interesting. While I loved reflecting with her in every season, there is something deeply powerful for me about winter . . . to let go of all her leaves, draw in her energy, stand steadfast as the wind, rain and snow sometimes come unrelentingly. In her season of rest, she invited me to sit and breathe and contemplate . . . what if, in the same season, I let go of the things that have served their purpose and are complete, what if I draw my energy inward, what if I draw on the things in me that are essential and bring me back to my humanity? If, during the season of Lent, we were to allow all the non-essentials to fall away . . . what remains? Where are the places we return to that remind us of what is central?
Our shared journey through worship and Lent invites us to consider the piece of writing we refer to as the 10 Commandments or the 10 Teachings. A couple of interesting facts: stone tablets were indeed used for monument inscriptions long, long ago. Even for the exiles in Babylon, the original hearers of the Exodus story, the reference to stone tablets indicates this is an old, old story . . . as old as the practice of roasting food over a fire or baking unleavened bread, which are also included in the Exodus story.[1] Understandably, inscriptions cut into stone were compact. Some scholars believe that the original text would have been much more succinct and any elaboration of the core teachings came later. In fact, the Hebrew is only a few syllables per line in some places.
When I was in Scotland in 2007, we flew into Glasgow, where I found in a bookshop the Glasgow Bible. Inside is the most compact version I’ve seen of the 10 commandments, which are written like this:
(Nae murderin.
Nae theivin.
Nae lyin.)
Serve me an me alane.
Take nae heed or ither idols.
Honour ma name – aye –
respect the name o the Lord, yer God.
Nae workin oan the Sabbath.
Love yer faither an mither.
Nae murderin.
Nae theivin.
Nae lyin.
Stick fast tae yer ain partner.
Nae greedy habits.
When we whittle it down to these compact statements, we can see the bones of the text. It’s all about relationship. These are teachings about our relationship with God, with ourselves, and with one another.
So, on this snow day, where we don’t have anywhere to be . . . let us pause, rest into our bodies, and ponder our relationships . . . beginning with God. Did you notice that the text tells us that God who made the universe is also God who brought the Israelites out of slavery? God who is all mystery and all creative force is also God who reaches into our lives and transforms our suffering.[2] God is both mystery and manifest, and God is One. Sometimes God’s love is difficult to see, sometimes other gods are more visible . . . gods to which we give power: Money/wealth, busyness, convenience, oil, power over. God’s presence is always distinguishable from that which does not support life and right relationship – learning to hear the difference may be an ongoing practice. And God’s voice – however each of us experiences God reaching out to us – is always present. God’s is reliably a voice of love and life.
We are invited to consider our relationships with ourselves through this teaching about Sabbath. It’s always been a challenging one for me, perhaps also for you, and definitely for our culture. We live by the perpetual to do list, any number of opportunities to engage, and commitments to honour. I’ve heard many of you retired folk say, “I’m busier now than when I was working. Maybe I should work again to slow down my life.” So, a question for you: where does Sabbath fit in the shape of your week? Or, how does Sabbath help shape your week? I had a colleague in the Seattle area who lived in a Jewish/Christian household – she taught her teenage daughters that Sabbath is the day where you don’t have to do homework. You don’t have to do chores. As such, Sabbath invites us to practice setting boundaries with our time. The boundaries we set are self-defining. They say, this is who I am in relationship to this thing. This is my relationship to all the things that keep me busy . . . to those things I say pause . . . I say wait. I’m choosing to take a breath – I’m gifting myself with a little space – I’m going to move slowly, I’m going to be in the fresh air, I’m going to behave in a way that fills me up, brings me joy.
As we continue reading this passage from Exodus, they offer us teachings about how to walk in a good way with one another. Even if the extremes of these statements seem obvious – Nae murderin, Nae theivin – we still want to walk together in a way that honours life, that supports our partnerships and respects healthy boundaries, exchanging goods and services with clean energy, and speaking what we know to be true.
Right relationship with each other extends also to our wider family of creation, especially if every rock and tree is a who and not a what. Creation even reflects back to us the state of our collective being. We are connected. We are one. She reflects back to us the challenges we’ve had over the past few hundred years walking in a good way within the web of creation through her scars and inability to regulate the temperatures we need to thrive. She reflects back to us the state of our collective being together . . . the beauty and the harm.
In her book Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer shares another set of teachings about how to be together. These teachings she calls the honourable harvest are primarily about how to be with Creation who feeds us and gives us things we need to live well. As I read I invite you to also listen for metaphors and teachings braided in about how to be in right relationship with our fellow humans.
Kimmerer writes: “the guidelines for the Honourable Harvest are not written down, or even consistently spoken of as a whole – they are reinforced in small acts of daily life. But if you were to list them, they might look something like this:
- Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.
- Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life.
- Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.
- Never take the first. Never take the last.
- Take only what you need.
- Take only that which is given.
- Never take more than half. Leave some for others.
- Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
- Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken.
- Give thanks for what you have been given.
- Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.
- Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.”[3]
The practice of living well together is reinforced in small acts of daily life that reinforce our lived understanding of our interconnectedness. I love the last line – sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever. Of course, she is talking about gathering plants for food and hunting in ways that take only what is given, but think about that metaphor for our relationship with one another. Sustain the ones who sustain you . . . when we do that, the earth reflects back to us that right relationship. This is true, because God is One, we are One, and we live in God . . . let us practice every day . . . in the knowledge that when we forget, we find ourselves in the arms of God’s mercy . . . for the mercy of God is literally the force that holds everything in existence, the gravitational field in which “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Mercy is God’s innermost being turned outward to sustain the visible and created world in unbreakable love. On this snow day, on this Sabbath day, let us open ourselves to this stream of love that is offered to us and offer God our love in return. Amen
[1] Robert Alter, The 5 Books of Moses. p. 295
[2] Alter, 296.
[3] Braiding Sweetgrass p. 183