Exodus 20:1-17

William F. Schnell

March 15, 2009

The movie, Religulous, has finally come out on DVD, which means that I have finally viewed it, being too cheap to attend cinemas with my high movie maintenance, popcorn-munching, soda-sipping spouse.  Religulous is a comedy/documentary about the dangers of religion in general and Christianity in particular.  It stars political humorist Bill Mayer, who happens to believe in God but who thinks manmade religions have little to do with God.

One might wonder what business a religious leader such as myself has watching any such movie that bashes religion so mercilessly.  First off, with the single largest religious movement in the country being into the "none" category, I think it behooves a religious leader to explore why.  Second, any religious foundation that is so fragile and uncertain as to collapse beneath the weight of the slightest challenge to its veracity is no foundation at all.  I welcome challenges to religious faith as absolutely essential to its strength and authenticity.  Finally, it is just plain fun to watch the debunking of things that might need to be debunked.

Bill Maher almost exclusively debunks the literal interpretation of the sacred scriptures of the world.  An example from the Judeo-Christian heritage would be Jonah existing for three days inside a whale or Noah and family building an ark approaching the size of an aircraft carrier.  Such accounts taken literally do tend to represent a stretch of credulity. Mr. Maher’s point is that such religious literalism prohibits rational thinking, promotes religious conflict and results in people flying planes into buildings and, ultimately, the end of the world by weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Maher’s conclusion: the world would be better off without any religion.

I would counter that, whether or not sacred stories are based upon literal fact, there are other ways to understand them. Fundamentally, the Bible is not a history book or a science book or any kind of textbook. It is a spiritual book that uses language in figurative and imaginative ways to communicates timeless spiritual truths which are relevant for all times and seasons, and which are universally accessible in all ages and stages of life. If you take away the insistence upon a strictly literal interpretive context, Mr. Maher has no movie.

I will confess that fundamentalists of all stripes--whether Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu or what-have-you—scare me. But the misuse of religion does not justify getting rid of religion. Most of the food we eat is over-processed. It has too much salt. It has too much fat. It has too much sugar. It contains preservatives, appearance enhancers and taste enhancers which often come at the expense of good nutrition. We eat too much of it which puts our health at risk. Many of us die prematurely because of it. All of this is true, true, true. Does the misuse of food lead to the conclusion that we should get rid of food?

As it is, we need food to live. We also need spiritual food to live. Religion is about preparing the ground, sowing the seeds, nurturing the plants, harvesting the crop and digesting the spiritual food we need for a life well-lived. I do not mean that literally. I mean that figuratively, just as Jesus meant his parables about the sower or the mustard seed to be understood figuratively so that everyone from little children to seasoned adults could be fed by them.

Again, there are other ways to understand scripture than the ways Mr. Maher is debunking in his movie. I will demonstrate that in our message for this morning about the Ten Commandments, which Mr. Maher specifically dismisses in his movie. I will offer a message that is as relevant for our day as it was in Moses’ day, which was about 3400 years ago. I will offer a message from the Bible that will be embraced by most everyone here. Indeed, I will offer a message that even Bill Maher could embrace.

Our message for this morning is the second in a series of three Lenten sermons on our Covenant with God. A covenant is a spiritual agreement just a contract is a legal agreement. Like a contract, a covenant has terms which are binding upon all the parties to that agreement. Last Sunday we focused upon the terms binding upon God in the story of Noah. Just as God saved the righteous in that day (represented by Noah and his family) so God promises to save the righteous today. God’s part of the bargain is to save the righteous from all that would diminish or destroy the good life he created us to have.

Our part of the bargain is to be righteous, and that is the focus of the second message in our series of sermons. The Ten Commandments are, as the biblical quote at the top of our bulletin puts it, our part of the covenant. He declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he commanded you to follow and then wrote them on two stone tablets (Deuteronomy 4:13). The Ten Commandments summarize what it means to live a righteous life and to fulfill our part of the covenant with God so that he can fulfill his part.

Mr. Maher said that the Ten Commandments were not relevant to this day because they did not address the pressing issues of this day such as gay rights. Gay rights is an issue today. It was not much of an issue when I was growing up. Then one of the issues was civil rights. In between there was the clash over the rights of the mother versus the rights of her unborn child. Before I was born prohibition was one of the big social issues during my parent’s lifetime. Before their lifetime another big social issue was slavery.

The Ten Commandments are not an exhaustive list of social issues for all time. The Ten Commandments summarize what it means for us to be faithful to our part of the covenant with God. It has been observed that the first four commandments (or three depending upon how you count them) have to do with our relationship with God, while the remaining commandments have to do with our relationship with one another. I will contend that they all have to do with our relationship with God, but we get ahead of ourselves.

The first commandment(s) have to do with putting God first in our lives or, as God puts it, having no other gods before me (Verse 3). The second is like it (which is why the two are combined by the Catholics and Lutherans): which is that we should not idolize any other influence so that it competes with God for our devotion. A god (little "g") is not necessarily a graven image or statue. A god is any influence that supersedes God’s influence in our lives.

Money can be a god in our lives. God may want us to give some of our money for the sake of the needy, while a false god called Mammon in the New Testament wants us to hoard money for ourselves, or to get more of it by all means legitimate or otherwise. Self-destructive compulsions, signified in the Bible as demonic possessions, can be a false god, such as certain drugs that promise pleasure but end up only brining pain. The self-centered indulgences of our own egos can be a false god, including religious egotism which dismisses all other religious expressions which may be different from our own.

God says that he is a jealous God, again using human language to communicate spiritual truths. God’s self-image is not so fragile and frail as to require our undivided devotion. It is we who require faithfulness before God can keep his end of the bargain to save us from ourselves and all other influences which would work to diminish or destroy the good life he created us to have. God is jealous for the undivided devotion of his children just as parents are jealous for the undivided devotion of their young children—for the sake of the children.

That is why God has provided for a Sabbath day of rest—a day to rest from worldly pursuits so that we may remain grounded in his Word and connected to him and faithful to our part of the covenant with him. Indeed just as the rainbow was regarded as a sign of God’s covenant with us in the story of Noah, so was the Sabbath Day regarded as a sign of our covenant with God in the story of Moses. That is why the Sabbath Day was so important to our dairy-keeping forbearers in this family of faith as described in our Memory Moment for this morning, and that is why the Sabbath Day is so important for us today.

Now we come to the remaining commandments that deal with our primary relationships—those between children and parents and those between husbands and wives—and our secondary relationships with one another as fellow citizens. We should know that the family is the basic unit of society which holds together the fabric of civilization. God has created humanity so that children need many years of nurture in a stable loving environment to grow up healthy and whole. I do not know of any children who would prefer any other arrangement than to grow up with a loving mother and father committed to each other. And I do not know of any such parents who would prefer disobedient, disrespectful children over those who were.

In this instance, God wants for us exactly what we want for ourselves because God is, after all, a parent with many children. As such he wants his children to get along with one another. We all know how irritating it is when our children fuss and fight with one another. Should God feel any different? Therefore God has commanded that we treat each other with respect. Translation: we do not lie about each other, steal from each other, certainly not kill each other or covet what belongs to others. The Ten Commandments may not be an exhaustive list, but they get the point across that we are to treat each other as we would like to be treated.

In fact, there is really no way we can express our love for God except by loving his other children—our neighbors—as ourselves. Saying we love God in so many religious ways means nothing to God if we are mistreating his other children. How would we feel if someone who professed to love us mistreated our children? We would not like it very well and neither would God. That is why Jesus linked love for God with love for his children in our New Testament lesson where he is asked to state the most important commandment of them all.

Jesus answered that the most important commandment was this: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." The second is this: "Love your neighbor as yourself." There is no commandment greater than these (Mark 12:30-31). Or as Paul puts it in our Call to Worship: The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the Law (Romans 13:9-10). Love is the fulfillment of our covenantal obligations.

If the only way to love God is by loving his other children, then all the commandments are about our proper relationship with God—our covenant with God and the terms which are specifically binding upon us. As I said in the beginning, even Mr. Maher would find this a refreshing message from God’s Holy Word as would anyone who is concerned about us blowing each other up. Getting rid of religion will not save us from ourselves.