by Rev. Dr John Evans
So what do we make of the Ten Commandments? Try these observations -
“The 10 Commandments are the most negative statements ever written.”
Francis McNab of St Michael’s, Melbourne – seen on a billboard near you.
But then,
“The Old Testament passage from Ex. 20 is so fundamental to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition that it almost beggars comment.”
Walter Bruggemann, one of the foremost Old Testament scholars of today
Or,
“I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind of righteousness that comes from trusting Christ – God’s righteousness.”
The Apostle Paul in chapter 3 of Phillipians, as interpreted by Eugene Peterson
Mmm.
They are all true, I guess, in a particular sort of way. But they can leave us a little perplexed and confused. . . So what do we make of the 10 commandments, the ten words today?
First of all, Francis McNab is correct in pointing out that the Ten Commandments are negative – whether they are the most negative, I don’t know. All those “thou shalt nots” are there – and it is true that they are very negative about human behaviour. But then that was how laws, to the extent there were laws, were formulated in the Ancient Near East over 3,000 years ago. They were cast in the negative, and today could just as easily be cast in the positive: respect human life, instead of thou shall not kill; or honour one’s wife or one’s husband, instead of not commit adultery, and so on.
However, I suspect it is not really the negativity of the 10 commandments that Francis McNab is concerned about; it is the whole role and place of law and proscriptions against human activity in particular, which is his concern. And this is a reasonable concern, too – for it has been an issue down the ages.
It is one of the features of a society, an ordered society, which has culture of customs, practices and laws, that the law can take on a life of its own; there will need to be lawyers to interpret those laws, and the original purpose or context for the law gets lost in the mists of time. The law, and its applicability to your behaviour, becomes the measure of whether you are right or wrong, a good person or not, an insider or outsider and so on. So have you followed the law, the custom, even the etiquette of your society? Have you – from anything like to talking while your mouth is full to not killing your neighbour after some minor dispute – kept the law? You are going to be judged. Furthermore, if these laws have a religious dimension, they quickly can be the basis for someone, usually a religious leader, assessing whether you have an appropriate relationship with God. To use a jargon word – whether you are righteous or not.
Legalism and legalistic thinking become an end in themselves: arid, sapping of life and oppressive. And can be justly criticised.
Jesus constantly attacked the scribes and the Pharisees, lawyers of his day, for the heavy burdens they placed on the people. We will soon be getting to Matthew 23 where there is a tirade, a vehement tirade, by Jesus against the lawyers. As Bill Loader says, these folk – the Pharisees and the scribes, the religious lawyers, were the fundamentalists of Jesus’ day.
One of the best commentaries we have on what can go wrong with law and more particularly the 10 commandments, comes in fact from the prophet Jeremiah – in Jeremiah 31. He writes his word of the Lord in this way:
See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah [the giving of the ten commandments was seen to be the original covenant with the people of Israel]: Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to be their guide out of the land of Egypt; which was broken by them, and I gave them up, says the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the people of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put my law in their inner parts, writing it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Jeremiah is simply saying that a far better relationship between ourselves and God – comes not from the rigidity of law observance; but that someone, actually from within their heart does something, or doesn’t do something. In other words, it is because of who they are, and their understanding of life and the world that a person behaves or lives in a certain way, and not because there is a policeman standing at their elbow all the time.
There is a new covenant written in people’s hearts; or as Paul would say, it is not by keeping a list of rules; it is trusting in Jesus; of being in Christ, as he says, because Christ through his life, death and resurrection has restored that relationship with God.
This is all very well, but why do we still have to have laws? Are laws still important? And what of the 10 Commandments?
Well there is much theology in answering such a question – and Paul in Romans 6 and 7 addresses this. However today I want to be a little more prosaic – and simply say that the law, and in particular the Ten Commandments, are about the creation of a life-giving, life-enjoying and sustaining human community. Understood correctly, the Commandments offer life – but as Jeremiah saw – they can also become a burden and a straitjacket.
I want look at just one of the Commandments – a pivotal commandment. The fourth commandment - which simply says, remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
On the one hand this is the classic commandment that can be used to burden someone. When is one working – or not working on the Sabbath – the seventh day of the week? As Jesus found, is one working if you are healing someone, or getting animals out of ditches, or just picking some wheat as you walk through a field? Sabbath observance and circumcision – so attacked by Paul – are the two major external signs of the Jewish religion. All very important if you are a persecuted people in a foreign context . . . but one can become somewhat obsessive about it too. As a child, I remember a certain legalism over this matter – of course it was Sunday observance now, and not Saturday. But could one play certain sorts of games on Sunday, or really do your homework, let alone housework , or go to a shop and so on? Well, no – and it is true Sunday was a very different day of the week from the rest of the week.
So why this commandment so important?
Jews and Christians have divided the Ten Commandments into two tablets – the first four commandments dealing with awesome claims about God’s person, God’s holiness and our relationship with God – the first tablet; the last six are about the intrinsic worth of the human persona as a creature of God, who should be sustained in their human life in all its ambiguity, in human community where there are rights and responsibilities – the second tablet. Jesus, as others had done, succinctly summarised this with love God, and love your neighbour as yourself.
The fourth commandment is a link between these two so-called tablets. It is about honouring the majesty of God – on the seventh day God rested, so says the creation narrative of Genesis. It recalls not just God’s sovereignty the First commandment, God’s freedom, the Second Commandment, God’s holy name, the Third commandment, but now God’s holy time (the Fourth commandment). However, God’s rest leads into a concern about human rest and also human worth: the link. The Sabbath serves to acknowledge and enact a peculiar work and dignity of all creatures – especially we humans. Thus there are limits to the use of human persons as means to an end. It is a day of special dignity for all (for animals and slaves even!) when God’s creatures can luxuriate and enjoy being honoured ends and not mobilised as a means to something else or for someone else. The Sabbath becomes a periodic and disciplined disengagement from the systems of productivity where the world uses people up to exhaustion.
It surely is a profound truth that, as people are swept up in a world of busyness and obsessive behaviour, we need from time to time to live differently. However, here is the rub – that such Sabbath keeping of itself doesn’t get added to the burden of everything else in our complicated lives. But Sabbaths are good! Sabbaticals are good. The analogy is like how we manage to destroy Christmas – a fantastic time of the year, by exhausting ourselves to do all the right things and do what is expected of us for the proper celebration of the occasion. We can lose the purpose of Christmas, and we can lose the purpose of a Sabbath, if we become doctrinaire about it.
One commentator simply says:
The healing of creation, and of our lives as creatures of God, requires a disengagement from the dominant systems of power and wealth.
The children of Israel had just left bondage – the tyranny of slavery – here was the chance to get it right; and not re-impose some economic or social tyranny on themselves. They needed a break, we need a break, and a different rhythm.
As with most things – it really can depend on our own attitude when we consider the importance of the law. The 10 Commandments are not everything – our Christian understanding of who Jesus is for us certainly becomes more significant. However, the Commandments are dismissed at our great peril, and properly understood, are life-giving and affirming of our relationship with God and each other.
It is a great shame any time it becomes legalistic . . . but that is us humans for you, and the promise of Christ is so exciting.
