This last year has not gone as any of us expected it to go. In fact, for most of us our expectations and understandings have been uprooted. It leaves us disorientated and confused. What should we do?
I find
when I am in these uncertain moments that I am well served to take the time to
seek out wisdom older than myself. My
great grandparents and grandparents lived through the Spanish Flu. They did not speak to me about it, but they
did speak to my dad and older cousins.
One of my habits during this uncertain time has been to pick my older relatives’
brains. What has been so interesting
has been that all the counsel that my grandma left keeps coming up as simply
good sense as we watch science in real time put together ways to get through
the coronavirus winter.
I have also done that habit with my Bible reading. We are not the first community of God’s people to face uncertain times. Let us spend some time in Exodus. I will do something that is a bit like an African leader – I will avoid simplicity. I cannot boil this sermon down to just 1 vision statement with 3 points. Instead, I will look at history and see we many times need 10 points and a few stories to get through uncertain times.
Most of us are familiar with the 10 Commandments. We may
see them as a plaque or statute sometimes place in key locations to orientate ourselves. For us, they are an incredibly old part of our memories of faith. Yet, we really miss something if we do not recognize how they were heard to their first hearers.
The Israelites were a large extended family in the process of becoming a nation when these commandments were first heard. They had heard some stories from their grandparents of a God of their fathers. Yet, they lived in Egypt, a land of many gods. The Egyptians were one of the most prosperous and powerful nations upon the earth. The Israelites were initially in Egypt just family of livestock keepers. The Israelites lived on the outskirts of Egypt.
After, Joseph passed they had almost no influence; and what influence they had was forgotten by new Egyptian leaders. Egypt was in a war with kingdoms who spoke similar languages to the Hebrews and had similar cultures. Egypt’s pharaoh feared a possible alliance between his enemies and the Israelites within his borders. To suppress the formation of that alliance pharaoh forced the Israelites into slavery and committed genocide. For a long season Israel struggled with oppression in which answers were distant, few, and forgotten.
Then Moses arose. He arose not in the means we who write vision statements would expect. His story started with surviving genocide. Then in a strange twist Moses grew up in pharaoh’s own household and became a master of Egyptian wisdom. When Moses tried to take matters into his own hands he completely failed. He was not trusted by those he attempted to liberate. He fled as a refugee and settled into a life of tending livestock. After 40 years of humbling, God called Moses. In that call as in all calls it comes as a surprise in which the called one would rather God call someone else.
As Moses went back to Egypt the Israelites watched God
bring 10 plagues until pharaoh released the Israelite people from slavery. They left Egypt with victorious emotions but suddenly felt the hunger and thirst of the desert. Why were they even out here? What did God expect of them? Where was this all going? Then God spoke these 10 Commandments, and if we take the time to read further, He fleshed many of them out in detail.
We too in today’s world are watching a disorientating movement of God. Our expectations have been shaken. Frankly, they need to be shaken.
God spoke to the Israelites in Exodus 20. The first commands are ones that define the relationship:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.
Do not have other gods besides me.
Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands ( Exodus 20:2-6, Christian Standard Bible.)”
God states His authority. He is the Lord. He is supreme overall. Egypt’s gods are not God. The idols of creation and power do not reign.
God also states that He is personal. He is Israel’s God to both each individual and the whole community.
This God is a wonder working, redeeming, and restoring God. He has brought Israel out of slavery.
He is this God to us too – powerful, supreme above all competing affections and affiliations.
Personal to each of us as an individual while still living and moving in our community.
Rescuing us from each element of slavery in our lives – sins, addictions, and oppressive systems.
Because of God’s very nature there can be no other gods. We are not to fashion idols.
From the distance of time and with our culture’s secular presuppositions it can be tempting to discard the temptation of idolatry. Yet, we dare not ignore the eternal temptations of the human heart to control. In uncertain times many of us will adamantly hang onto control mechanisms. The ancients shaped idols to control creation and by doing so the economy and thus other people. Do not miss the moments where we too shape controlling idols that harm both our personal soul and the soul of our community.
For our God is jealous. He will punish generations. Yet, His nature is merciful desiring to bless many generations.
Jealousy can have a negative and controlling connotation. Yet, there are relationships that are not to be shared such as the relationship between a husband and a wife. This is the type of jealousy our God calls us to. We are to hunger for the only God and share our love with no other competing gods.
What does that jealous love look like in practical action?
God’s Word continues,
“Do not misuse the name of the Lord your God, because the Lord will not leave anyone unpunished who misuses his name (Exodus 20:7, Christian Standard Bible.)”
First, we are not to misuse the name of the Lord. Some translations call this using His name in vain. We are reminded again He is Lord of all and deeply personal.
Most times we think of this as using God’s name in a profane manner with curses to express anger and frustration. Yet, we dare not forget a more palatable form of misusing God’s name.
I have a mentor, Dr. Dwight Jackson who calls what I will
discuss the “pitfalls of pietism.” When I first heard Dwight speak of this I was confused. Then I heard him tell a story. Then I actually watched Dwight express indignation at missionaries who used God’s name to justify doing what they wanted to do when our community needed them to seek the good of others instead of protecting their agenda.
Later in the Pentateuch in Deuteronomy 18 we are taught to discern prophets who speak in God’s name when they are only promoting their agenda. It is called the sin of presumption. I see much of this through the Covid pandemic in Western Christianity. I am unaware of any government entity that has asked us to deny our faith. I am unaware of any government entity that is leading in the dark forms of oppression such as slavery or genocide. Yet, many Christians in the West use God’s name to argue to do church just the way they want it while they neglect the command to love our neighbor as ourselves, protect the vulnerable, preserve life, and sacrifice our comfort for the good of others. In my mind using God’s name to justify self-centered behavior during a global pandemic is taking the Lord’s name in vain. I am thankful for my mentor, Dwight who pointed that out to me many years ago.
The commands continue with,
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: You are to labor six days and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident alien who is within your city gates. For the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy (Exodus 20:8-11, Christian Standard Bible.)”
When we do not believe that God is sovereign and all powerful, we then believe that there are either powers to be manipulated or we are left all alone to make life work on our own. When our understanding of God is off so is our management of time. We may labor with no breaks. Or we may indulge in constant pursuit of pleasure.
The Sabbath calls us to good stewardship and a sustainable
pace. We are to labor in a disciplined way. We are also to rest in a disciplined way. Our rest is to be holy – set apart for God’s purposes. As this Sabbath is further fleshed out in the Pentateuch, we see it involves not only rest, but worship, forgiveness, and care for creation.
The Sabbath was to be instituted in in a just and equitable way. All were to take the Sabbath no matter their status in family, gender, economic strata, or immigration status.
We are reminded again that these commands are not mindless rules. They are the living out of our world view – of how we see God and His Creation. We are reminded that God created the heavens and the earth in 6 days, and then rested on one. Since, we are made in God’s image we too should labor in creating a better world with great discipline, and then with that same discipline rest.
As we face the uncertainty of the coronavirus winter soon to be upon us, we have gone through a unique 9 months like most of us have never seen before. Some wallow in grief and confusion during this season. Please allow yourselves to grief. There are real losses not only of expectations, but also of dear lives near us
Yet, I do believe we also must grieve what life became as the gods of secularization, individualism, and materialism displaced the true God in our world. I am hopeful that as spring comes and like our ancestors in in the spring of 1919 came out we too will come out a better people – more acquainted with the ways of God and committed to life in His instructions.
One area that quickly caught my attention in the early days of this pandemic was how our economy was not based on Sabbath principles or rhythms. It was based on going 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, and 365 days per year. It was also committed to vastly different pay grades and labor schedules based frequently on age, gender, economic status, and immigration status. When we had to stop for just a few weeks our economy collapsed. Our economy was not based on a solid and sustainable pace. Our economy was based on constant consumption.
As the Sabbath principles are fleshed out in more detail in the
Pentateuch, we find that in Leviticus 25 there is a Sabbath Year. After 6 years of tilling the land, the land is to take a Sabbath too. The land is to rest. Though we cannot in detail replicate the Old Testament laws we can model their principles. History tells us of the Great Plains of the United States becoming the Dust Bowl in the 1930’s because the land was tilled with no rest. We have learned lessons from those days to manage land better, but it seems we have not learned the full implications of never allowing a Sabbath like year in our midst.
Following the Sabbath Year comes the Jubilee after the cycle of 7 Sabbath Year Cycles. To do the math – 7 Sabbath Year Cycles is 49 years. Then on the 50th Year is the Year of Jubilee. During that year, all debt is to be forgiven. Land is to be returned to the original family ownership. All wrongs are to be made right. You must understand the context a bit to make sense of this. In ancient days when a family fell on hard times, they sold their ancestral land. When the land was gone, they sold themselves. The Jubilee acknowledged that the nature of life was frequently unjust. At least once per lifetime all labor must stop, and all debt must be forgiven. The only way to make life sustainable is with using the strength of national institutions to forgive, heal, and replenish.
My grandmother’s counsel from living through the Spanish
Flu was
to settle into a couple years of loss and then rebuilding. It appears to me we will experience something
similar in that the effects of Covid-19 will alter our lives for 1 to 2 years. Then a spring will come, and we will emerge
a better people.
I look at these Covid years as our generation’s Sabbath and Jubilee Year. We will not be able to labor in the ways that gave us comfort and control. We will lose our comfortable rhythms that when we are honest were not shaped by God. We will have to trust that when we cannot labor as we have in the past that God will still provide. I trust that these years of Sabbath and Jubilee will bless us as God intended to bless the Israelites thousands of years ago with Sabbath rest of all that their lives entailed.
The commands continue,
“Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. (Exodus 20:12. Christian Standard Bible.)”
I suspect that the pagan cultures that surrounded Israel saw
the aged as expendable. Their gods were fertility gods that honored youthful beauty and reproduction. They practically were full of lust and lust left unchecked is a handmaiden of death. The Israelites were promised if they honored their elders that they would have a long life in the land that God intended to give them.
Today, I believe God tells us the same message as we enter this Covid winter. Now is a time to honor our older family members. Though I cannot ask my grandma her stories of Spanish Flu I can call my dad, and my older cousins and ask them to repeat their memories of grandma’s instruction. I can listen to the counsel of relatives older and wiser than me. Though face to face interaction is limited with the modern technology we can stay connected. If I can briefly hop to the New Testament, I do not think Jesus would be big on social media. Yet, I do think Paul would be constantly calling on the phone, writing emails, Facebooking, tweeting, and putting up YouTube videos and blogs. Through this Covid winter please use your technology to honor your older relatives. Do not let them be unnecessarily lonely.
Second, there are voices in our contemporary culture who loudly proclaim the same message of pagans thousands of years ago that the lives of the aged are not valuable. Honor the aged by protecting their lives. Wear a mask and restrain your social interactions
The next command is
“Do not murder. (Exodus 20:13. Christian Standard Bible.)”
In the Exodus account we see from the beginning that our ultimate ethic is one of life. The Hebrew midwives are affirmed and blessed when they do not tell the truth during a Genocide so that they can preserve life. Ethics is a tough intellectual and emotional field. How do we make decisions when there are conflicting ideals? We all are inconsistent. Yet, what inconsistencies should we choose. I see Exodus by the power of the Holy Spirit proclaims we are to use all means available to protect life.
In Exodus 21 the issues of managing an ox prone to goring is raised. Owners of the ox are accountable.
In Leviticus 13 and 14 priests are responsible to examine, quarantine, and declare healed infectious diseases and contaminated property.
Practically, I believe this principle of preserving life and the management of property and religious leadership still applies today. Covid is spread by close contact. It is worse in indoor spaces. Now is a time to take a Sabbath from comfortable rhythms, and for church leaders to reflect God’s creativity. Our property and the activities in it must be managed so Covid is minimized.
I still have a few more commands to cover.
“Do not commit adultery.
Do not steal.
Do not give false testimony against your neighbor.(Exodus 20:14-16. Christian Standard Bible.)”
Yet, let me be frank. I’ve yet to think deeply through the implications of these command for our uncertain times. You should never preach on something you have not researched, prayed, and thought through. If you have some ideas on how these commands apply to our uncertain, please drop me a line and help me reason better.
Let me get to our last command,
“Do not covet your neighbor’s house. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Exodus 20:17. Christian Standard Bible.)”
There are some Christians today who have a low view of the Old Testament. They see it as a book of rules with a vindictive God who has no care for the heart. I strongly disagree with that appraisal.
Let us note that the 10 Commandments begin with a declaration of God’s nature. Then they close with the instructions to not covet – to not long for and plot to have something which is not yours. While many of the commandments are easy to document when they are broken such as a fashioned idol or stolen property, coveting cannot be documented until the actions of coveting are taken. God in the end asks for our hearts.
Through this uncertain time let us not hunger for another season, another place, nor another’s fortune. Let us accept where we are and what we have. Let us thank God for all He has given. Let us trust that He will take us through these uncertain times. Let us believe that a day will come when we will tell our stories of these uncertain times and laugh again in a large celebration of family and friends.
