"Jesus and the Ten Commandments"
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
October 3, 1999
Rev. David Beckett

A sermon on the ten commandments. Isn’t there something satisfying about a message on old-fashioned values and morals? I wonder how many of us could actually name all ten commandments from memory? Could you? More importantly, are these ten commandments affecting the way you live today? The 8th commandment says, "Don’t steal." Do these words help you fill out your income tax returns every year? The 7th commandment says, "Don’t commit adultery." Do these words help you remain faithful to your spouse?

The ten commandments are timeless in their appeal to people of all ages who desire to live in peace with each other and with God. What I would like to do this morning is take a brief look at how Jesus was shaped by these words. Christopher Wright, in his new book, "Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament," argues that Jesus’ values were shaped by his Jewish upbringing and his understanding of the Law. Wright states three principles that formed the foundation of Jesus’ ethics. In a sense these three principles are the ten commandments boiled down to three. So if you can’t remember the ten commandments, perhaps you can remember these three.

The first is that GOD COMES FIRST. This is a tough one for us, but was one of Jesus’ guiding principles. He literally walked away from hurting people in order to climb a mountain to be alone with God. At other times he put God first by being with people, by having dinner with the outcasts of his day. In agony in the garden as he faced the cross, Jesus prayed, not for his will, but for his Father’s will to be done.

What does it mean for us to put God first in our lives? For one thing it means that spiritual things are more important than physical things. God knows we need shelter, food, water, clothing. But these are not more important than our relationship with God. The problem with many of us today is that we are too attached to things.

A little girl's mother gave her two quarters as she left for church one Sunday morning. Mom said, "Just remember honey, one quarter is for God and the other is for you to spend any way you wish." The girl said, "OK Mommy, I'll remember." So the girl went skipping down the street happily tossing the coins in the air as she moved along. One of the quarters slipped out of her grasp and rolled into the gutter and down a sewer grate. The little girl ran up to the sewer grate, looked down rather sadly and said, "Well, there goes God's quarter!"

That’s how we often look at things in our lives. We put things like a home, car, food, and all of our toys first. Then if there is enough left over we will think about giving to God and the Church. We’re spending God’s quarter on other things. Putting God first in our giving has nothing to do with how much money we have. It has everything to do with protecting God’s quarter so it can go where God can use it.

The second OT principle that guided Jesus’ life is PEOPLE MATTER MORE THAN THINGS. Like the first principle, this one often gets mixed up. All too often we put things before people. This is where many of us men get ourselves into trouble. I don’t know about you but I can be fairly good at interacting with things. Give me a machine that needs fixing or something that needs building, a decent work space, the right tools, and lots of time, and I can have a profoundly religious experience. It’s true! Some of my best prayer times have been kneeling in a pile of sawdust. There are many men and women who feel the same. We like to tinker with machines. We like gadgets and electronic toys. The reason that Tim Allen’s TV show, "Home Improvement" is so popular is that it is so true! We have to learn the hard way sometimes that people really are more important than things.

When I was in kindergarten we made clay sculptures. I made a replica of a wooden Dutch shoe. Everybody, including the teacher, raved about my sculpture. I remember looking at all the clay models spread out on a table. Some of my friends were there when I picked up Janet’s sculpture. We all laughed at Janet’s work because it was near as nice as mine. Suddenly, it slipped from my hands and crashed to the floor. Everything in the room was still and what I felt at that moment was shame. I knew in an instant that I had put things before people.

The third OT principle that influenced Jesus is NEEDS MATTER MORE THAN RIGHTS. The Parable of the Lifesaving Station is an old story that illustrates this principle.

On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought of themselves went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost. Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, so that it became famous. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little lifesaving station grew.

Some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. So they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely, because they used it as a sort of club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The lifesaving motif still prevailed in this club's decoration, and there was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club initiations were held.

About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, and some of them had black skin and some had yellow skin. The beautiful new club was in chaos. So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted

upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. but they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast. They did.

As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that sea coast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.

No doubt you can draw the parallels in this story to the church. It shows what can happen when we allow rights to become more important than needs. We need to stop thinking that this church or any church has a right to exist. There are no bill of rights when it comes to following Jesus Christ. We are guaranteed no right to life, liberty, or happiness. What we have is the promise, not of things, but of the person of Jesus. When we receive the gift of God’s self in Jesus Christ our eyes are opened to this gift being given to all people. So it is not our rights and privileges as members of the Church that motivate us to be in ministry. It is the needs of others. We don’t decide whom we will love and whom we will not love. We give up this right when we choose to be a Christian. We allow the needs of God’s children to determine our mission.

There is a prayer in your hymnal, page 607, which comes from our Wesleyan tradition which I’d like to read now. I say a word of caution because its message may be offensive. For many Christians caught up in the wave of cultural consumerism it is a message that strikes at the very heart of our comfortable lifestyles. It speaks to this notion that needs matter more than rights, people matter more than things, and God always comes first.

READ P. 607