Keeping The Ten Commandments

             I don’t know about you, but I think that I have broken all of the Ten Commandments.  Shocked?  I hope not.  Those magnificent laws for all of us are rules that we ought to live by, but really don’t.  I have never killed anybody, but sometimes my anger has ruled my heart and I have lashed out at people who have offended me in ways that have not been at all helpful.  Murder was certainly in my heart on those occasions, even if I never committed the act.  I remember taking a candy bar from a store when I was a little kid.  I ate it with great joy, thinking that I had really gotten away with something.  That was stealing.  I have certainly taken the Lord’s name in vain on a number of occasions, particularly when somebody pulls out in front of me at an intersection.  I haven’t committed adultery, literally, but I have looked at women in a way that suggested that I wanted something more than looking.  Jesus told us that when we look at women in that way, that we have committed adultery already with them in our heart.  So chalk that one up against me also.

            God gave us those magnificent commandments in an attempt to restore humanity to that wonderful place before our desire for control gave us the knowledge of the difference between good and evil and we have been suffering from it ever since.  But we have never been able to keep the commandments.  We keep stumbling over them, rationalizing them and coming up with excuse after excuse to enable us to keep living the kind of lives that we want to live.  So God sent the prophets to help us to understand the way that we were intended to live.  Amos reprimanded the rich people in Israel for their life styles and reminded them to take care of the poor.  Ezekiel warned the people of the coming judgment of God if they continued their way of living, and Isaiah spoke comfort to the people after they were rounded up by the Babylonians and taken into exile.  But we never really listened to the prophets either. 

            Finally, God sent Jesus to show us what we needed to see in order to live the lives that we were created to live.  But we crucified Jesus because what he demanded of us was to give up our greed and our power and to take care of each other and to love each other with the same kind of eagerness that God has when we are loved.  God sent Jesus to humanity because we are infinitely loved and cherished by our God.  That is the love that we are asked to lavish on one another.

            That isn’t easy.  We frequently offend each other, either by our selfishness or our absolute beliefs that we are right and the other is wrong and we have trouble getting along with each other.  Look at our politics.  Some people want to describe us as a Christian nation, but then they go on to disparage others because they don’t believe the same things that we do.  That divides us from each other and creates barriers to understanding.  I know that God loves each of us.  God doesn’t care if we are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or whatever.  God is still God.  It isn’t necessary for all of us to call God by the same name.  What is necessary is for each of us to love each other, despite our differences in the way that God has loved us.  If we can do that, God’s kingdom is built and secure. 

            So what stands in the way?  Our egos are certainly a large part of it.  We want to be right, which means that others have to be wrong.  That is what divides us over and over again. 

            Jesus went to the Temple in Jerusalem during the feast of the Passover and chased the money changers and the sellers of animals out of the place.  Here was our Lord losing his cool and challenging the religion of the time.  This, according to John’s Gospel was the point where the officials knew for certain that they needed to get rid of Jesus.  He told them that if they destroyed the Temple, that he would raise it again in three days.  They mocked him about this because it had taken many years to build the temple; but Jesus was talking about his body and the Temple of his Spirit.  And certainly this is what happened.  When he was crucified by the Temple leaders in collusion with the Romans, Jesus was indeed raised again in three days.  This is the power of God working even in the midst of our most grievous sin.  Certainly killing the Son of God ought to rank that high.

            Here in the middle of Lent, as we move toward the Glory of Easter, is a good time for us to look closely at ourselves and think about how we so often offend each other and our God.  Receiving the wonderful forgiveness that God offers is only a first step toward a better life.  Continuing to love each other in the way that we have been loved is the way that we continue.  God bless us as we work toward the building of the glorious Kingdom of God through our relationships with each other.