Liberated For Bondage

Title: Liberated for Bondage

Date: October 5^th

Author: Ryan Koch

Texts: Exodus 20.1-20; Psalm 19; Philippians 3.4b-14; Matthew 21.33-46

The ten commandments, perhaps no one other text is as well known in the Bible. It is so well known that in pop culture, we find movies, poems, and songs written about it (like songs by Notorious B.I.G and Jeff Tweedy which present satirical readings of the commandments) And the popularity of this text is not unwarranted. In the Bible, here alone does God speak to the whole assembly of God. Here alone does God write on a stone tablet for the people.

However, this popularity and importance begs us to ask the question, what are we to do with the ten commandments today? (pause) It seems to me that both the majority of Christians as well as our culture perceives these “words” as simply moral guidelines beneficial for all humanity, rules helpful for maintaining the moral fiber of this country. I mean every time I think of the ten commandments, immediately I remember an interview between a congressman, Lynn Westmoreland and Stephen Colbert. So Colbert brings Westmoreland, one of the main proponents of putting the commandments in the courthouses, into his studio to discuss why this issue is so important to him (Seriously if you haven’t seen this clip, if you want a good laugh, find it on youtube)¹. Not only does Westmoreland state that he feels America would lose it’s moral compass without these teachings, but when Colbert asks him “can you think of any better place for the ten commandments than in a public, legal building,” how does the congressman reply? Without any hesitation, he states “no.” The clip concludes with Colbert asking the congressman to name the ten commandments. Quickly you find Westmoreland flabbergasted. After thinking for a long time, the congressman states, thou shall not lie, kill, and steal… thats it. (pause) That is all he could come up with. The number one supporter in congress of placing the commandments in the courthouse, hadn’t taken the time to learn them. If this doesn’t demonstrate how we lack a proper understanding of the commandments and how we have relegated them to the sphere of natural knowledge, then I don’t know what does.

So how can we understand the ten commandments in a way that doesn’t just turn them into moral guidelines? I think the key is found in that verse that far too often is skipped over – the prologue which reads “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” We learn here that the God of the covenant can only be understood from the framework of a God who liberated his people from the tyrannical reign of Egypt. To understand these commandments properly we must remember that they are rooted in a God who hears the cry of the poor and oppressed, who refuses to forget God’s people and the covenant made with their ancestors long ago, and it’s a God whose power and authority triumphs over the rulers of this world. Only from the covenantal context of the Lord’s liberating this oppressed people can we begin to understand the power and value lying behind these ten commands.

For this reason, it is most helpful to read the commandments as the liberating God’s attempt to teach the Israelites what it means to be free. It’s an attempt to shape the moral life of the community so that they can experience the life of freedom which God intends. This is why we find Moses in Deuteronomy reiterating the commands to the Israelites when they are poised to enter the promised land. Moses wants the later generations of Israelites to take forth this vision of freedom wherever they go. And I think it is why when later generations ask about the meaning of the commandments, no interpretation is given. Instead, the people are re-told the story of God liberating his people from enslavement. Why? Because the law arises out of the liberating God of the Exodus. Only from this perspective can we begin to wonder how obeying the law begins to teach us what true freedom entails.

Now I’m sure that the ten commandments presents us with a number of different visions of what a liberated life looks like. Perhaps in discussion today you all can help me think of others, but this evening I want to describe three concepts of freedom which have grabbed my attention this week.

So firstly, the ten commandments remind us that freedom means living in community, it means learning how to live with our neighbors. This is clear from the fact that here and only here does the Lord speak to the entire assembly of God and from the fact that over half of the commandments deal with how to faithfully honor one’s neighbors and their property. Yet, this understanding of freedom is increasingly hard to understand at least for me in the midst of our society. Today we are told to think for ourselves, to doubt everything, to be unique, to always be new and improved, to follow your own dreams. All of these dogmas push and pull me away from my communities, away from the people that are closest to me so that I can follow my own paths. And as Matt brought out in discussion last week, being immersed in the competitively charged environment of Duke Divinity only makes life in community harder. Yet the ten commandments remind us that if we truly desire to be free we must continually resist these individualistic temptations and learn to intertwine our lives with our neighbors; with our communities. They remind us that our community should be our primary context from which our identity grows.

Secondly, the first three commandments – having no other gods above the Lord, the call against creating idols, and the insistence of not misusing the name of the Lord – all warn against domesticating the Lord by limiting God to our preconceived notions of this world. To shun “graven images” means that God’s power for life must not be captured in ideologies or programs.² When we make images of God, we attempt to fit God squarely within our own world and world-views. We place ourselves at the center and then fit God into our reality. Yet far too often when we treat God in this way, we turn God into a thing that becomes useful to us – in essence, God becomes a reliable ally to our interests.

Similarly, the commandment against misusing the name of the Lord highlights the power of naming in the ancient world. Many ancient near eastern cultures believed that if you knew the name of a God, you could then control it’s power. For this reason, some scholars believe that when Moses asks for the Lord’s name, God responds I am who I am or as others render it, I will be who I will be… really helpful right? Perhaps the reason that God answers this way is due to the fact that any simple name given allows the Israelites to limit God’s identity and power. And you know even in the modern world we have maintained this intimate interconnection between naming and identity. This connection is clear in our modern conceptions of slavery. One of the first things a master did after receiving a kidnapped slave was to change the slaves’ name. This act stripped the slave of his or her previous identity giving the master control. This same temptation is constantly confronting us and we succumb to it when we narrate and capture God within the systems of this world.

However, one can only domesticate the power of the Lord when they fail to remember the radical character of God presented in the Exodus. It is only possible when we forget the powerful, dangerous, even untamable God that has power of the chaotic sea, that reigns down manna from heaven and also bring forth water from rocks. And here in the ten commandments, God reminds us that if we desire to be truly free we must not evade the power of the Lord by limiting God to our own world-views. Instead, we must embrace a God who cannot be bound, contained, or swallowed up by any of our worldly structures. No, those liberated must repetitively re-imagine a God who is beyond territories and worldly constructs, who invites us to continually question the systems of this world.

Lastly, through a number of the commandments, God reminds us that true freedom calls the people of God to care for the exploited, the poor, the weak. This truth can be most clearly perceived from the commandments concerning honoring your father and mother as well as coveting your neighbor’s field and house. In the modern world, most interpretors have assumed that the commandment of honoring your parents mandates young children to be obedient to their parents. (and I’m sure some parents can appreciate this reading!) The problem with this interpretation is that all the other commands are directed to adults.³ For this reason, the command is more properly understood as calling adults to care for their elderly parents. In both a wandering society like that of the Exodus and also in an agrarian society, the elderly would have had the hardest time surviving. Not only would it be nearly impossible for some of the elderly to pick up their tents and move everyday, but it would also be extremely difficult for the elderly to share in the family’s labors of farming and hunting. Yet, this commandment reminds Israel that they cannot just discard those who can no longer fend for themselves. Instead, the God who liberated the oppressed reminds the assembly that freedom disallows one to oppress others.

A similar understanding is found in the commandment against coveting your neighbor’s house and field. While the exact meaning of this command still evades interpretors, the prophets understood this commandment as prohibiting the exploitation of the common agrarian farmer by the powerful and wealthy landlords who desired to consolidate land to gain more wealth. For this reason, we see the Micah proclaim: They covet fields and rip them off and houses, and seize them. They oppress by extortion a fellow and his house, a man and his ancestral allotment. Or Isaiah lament: Alas for those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no place left. And you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land! Read from this perspective, the tenth command protects each Israelite’s claim to a stable, healthy livelihood. Which shouldn’t surprise us, since the Exodus story describes a God who desires that the people have enough food to survive (pause).

And what about all of us who are gathered here, tonight? These understandings of freedom are equally applicable to us due to the fact that our identity like the Israelites is rooted in an act of liberation. We, like the Israelites, were slaves liberated by God, children welcomed into God’s covenantal people and this act happened not by something we did. It happened only due to the faithfulness of Christ, the one who lived a fully obedient life, who embraced the cross, who defeated Death, who conquered Sin through the resurrection of our Lord.

Like the Israelites, it is this narrative that sets us apart. Karl Barth puts it this way, “God calls us and orders us, and claims us, by being gracious to us in Jesus Christ.”⁴ The life of freedom presented to the Israelites, where freedom entails living in community, letting God explode all human-made categories and ideologies, and caring for the poor and exploited, this life of freedom is the lifestyle we are all called to partake in. But this life of freedom is only possible when we remember the liberating acts of God. When we remember the might acts of a God who sets us free.

This is why we will be partaking in the Lord’s supper together in a few moments. Here we must face the haunting reality of Christ’s crucifixion because every time we eat this meal we utter the somber words of Jesus’ death. And as we eat this supper, we come together as a community committing to entangle our lives with one another, to hold each and every one of us accountable for the sinful acts which we commit, and here at this meal we also learn to call each other our sisters and brothers. Moreover, at this table all get the same portion no matter whether one is rich or poor. Thus, here God reminds us that true freedom does not permit the exploitation of the poor by the rich. Lastly, we come, not limiting God to the images or elements of bread and wine, but instead believing that in the gestures of sharing and consumption of these elements, God is teaching this community how to become more and more like the Son, Jesus Christ. Amen