I discovered when I was a teacher that the longer my list of classroom rules, the greater the likelihood of a widening gap in my relationship with the students. Rules can suggest an imbalance of power, but can also call to a hopeful anticipation of relationship. Happily I learned that, with a few exceptions, kids know how to do school and eagerly seek to learn what is expected of them by their teachers.

Without exception, students do not care what a teacher knows until they are comfortable that the teacher cares about them. Secure in that comfortable neighborhood, most students will comply with the words of expectation, simply to please those who care about them. This is true with a teacher-student connection, but also true in any relationship. We are hardwired to please those whom we love, because we can reasonably expect pleasure in return from those who love us. Pleasing others can create a positive relationship, which makes life more than just livable.

The lessons of the third Sunday in Lent remind us of the “Ten Commandments” the list of rules given to Moses by G_d during the Hebrew exodus from captivity. In both Hebrew (debarim) and in Greek (decalogue), these are not called “commandments” but “words.” Yet, in a culture which more frequently regards these as “ten suggestions,” we as the body of Christ, the Church, should take the reminder today, as our words by which to live. We who ask forgiveness, “for what I have done and for what I have left undone,” would do well to let these words melt into our hearts.

I have always considered the law given to Moses as nine values of community preceded by a preamble from G_d. “I am the LORD your G_d, … you shall have no other gods before me” is a call to those who desire to hear, to those who wish to be in the valued community of the Divine and the faithful. Those, who do wish to conform to the call in the preamble, then follow nine minimum requirements for a Holy community. Should one not subscribe to this call, then there is little reason to continue, to hear nor assent to the words that follow. Should one refuse to believe that the only god, is G_d the Almighty, then that person will find excuses to not live within the requirements which G_d and His faithful hold dear.

While these may appear as a list of “do not’s” under the guise of “Thou shall not,” G_d has already given the hearer an out in the preamble. One may freely violate any of the nine, should they reject the first, although the community of the faithful may castoff those who reject the Creator’s desire for community. And many of the unfaithful also, endorse these nine as natural laws of the natural order and will also castoff those who do not conform.

Do not view the requirements of G_d’s law, as orders that burden and entrench the faithful in a maze of moral gridlock, but rather as a Divine gift and a gracious guidance. Rather than mandates set forth by an unyielding dictator, regard them as loving “words” from a living Christ calling me, calling us, into community. G_d’s “word to live by” is always addressed by a person to a person. G_d to Moses, Moses to the Hebrews, generation to generation. Jesus condensed the Mount Sinai inventory even more, and made it absolutely, personal. “‘Love the Lord your G_d with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two [words].” It is only through a positive and personal relationship of covenant and of communion, that a word to live by becomes livable.

Pax,
jbt