Loving God, you call us into relationships of love that always begin with your love for us.  Help us to continue to grow in that love, for we continue to learn from Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

   When we began the Narrative Lectionary in September, the first three weeks featured promises that God had made.  Now, we are in the middle of three weeks that feature promises that God has kept.  Last week we recalled the promise that was given to Abraham telling him that his descendants would be slaves in a foreign land but would be brought out of that land by the power of God.  This week, it has already been three months since the people of Israel left Egypt, and they are now gathered together at Mount Sinai in the midst of the wilderness.  In this case, we remember the promise that God gave to Moses when God called Moses to go and lead the Israelites out of Egypt.  We find this promise in Exodus 3:

[God says,] “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” (Ex. 3:12)

    And so today we hear about Moses going up the mountain to meet with God and to receive the covenant.  Likely most of us think about receiving the ten commandments when Moses goes up the mountain, and we’ll get to those in a moment.  However, the covenant (or agreement, or treaty) contains more than just commandments.  In fact, it begins with what God has already done for the people.

    We heard a little bit of this in today’s reading from Exodus 19, as the people are reminded of what God did to the Egyptians and how he brought them out of slavery and across the Red Sea.  In fact, the image that is used is quite beautiful: “how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself” (Ex. 19:4).  It is the image of a mother eagle carrying her children on her back.  Notice, as well, where the people are taken.  It doesn’t talk about coming out of slavery, or coming to the mountain, or even coming out into the wilderness.  Instead, God has brought the people to himself.  God has brought the people out of Egypt in order to establish a relationship with them – both a parent-child relationship and a relationship of love.

    And so, the ten commandments, and all of the other laws that are part of the covenant given at Mount Sinai, come out of this relationship with God.  It is as if God is saying, “Because you are my children, and because you have experienced my power to set people free, therefore, this is how you are to live.”  The commandments are a reflection of the relationship with God that already exists.

    At the same time, the ten commandments are far more than a list of rules and restrictions.  While some people might hear the commandments as a list of restrictions on their freedom and lots of rules about what not to do, life in a community of people where the ten commandments are actually followed would be truly life-giving.  For, the commandments are really all about being in a right relationship with God and with the people around us.

    As we were already reminded earlier today, Jesus boiled down the commandments to two related things: love for God and love for one another.  “On these two commandments [said Jesus] hang all the law and the prophets” (Mt. 22:40).  So rather than giving people a list of 613 commandments to follow (which is how many there are in the Torah, or the Jewish Law), Jesus summarized all of the commandments by pointing out two of them: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Mt. 22:37, 39).

    So how many of you are good at keeping these two commandments, or even at keeping the ten commandments, for that matter?... At our Bible conversations this past Wednesday, we soon concluded that none of us had kept all of the commandments.  In fact, anybody who thinks that they have kept all of them need only read all of Matthew 5.  A small part of Jesus’ teaching there goes something like this: Looking at somebody with lust in your heart is just as sinful as adultery, and insulting somebody or calling them names is just as sinful as murder.  We are also not very good at loving and trusting God above all other things or at keeping the Sabbath as a holy day.  In fact, each commandment could easily be a whole sermon by itself, as there are so many examples of how we fail to keep them.

    This is actually a bit of a scary thought when we pay attention to the great big “if” that is part of today’s reading from Exodus.  The word of the Lord that is recorded there goes like this:

Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.  Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation (Ex. 19:5-6).

The wording here is important.  Note that Israel will be God’s treasured possession, but not God’s only possession – since the whole earth belongs to God.  Also note that very similar words get used later on to refer to those who believe in Jesus – “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet. 2:9).  This is not to say that God has somehow forgotten about the Israelites, but it does point to the new covenant that comes into effect through Jesus.

    The thing is that the people of Israel were never able to keep all of the commandments, and in that respect they are no different than we are.  In fact, many of the Old Testament passages that we will hear in the weeks to come deal with how the people have constantly broken the covenant that God made with them at Sinai.  God’s answer to this inability to live in relationships of love with God and with other people was to send Jesus – who is the only one who has lived in perfect love.

    Because of Jesus, we are put into a right relationship with God – not by keeping all of the commandments, but by putting our faith in Jesus Christ.  This is not to say that we don’t strive to live according to the commandments.  We still do that, but when we fail, we have the ability to come to God through Jesus Christ, and to lay our sins before God and receive God’s forgiveness.

    God does not withhold forgiveness from anybody who comes and honestly repents and seeks absolution.  In fact, God is always more ready to forgive than we are to ask.  The challenge for many people when it comes to forgiveness is not only to believe that God really has forgiven them, but also to have the grace to forgive themselves.

    It seems that most of us have the language of the law pretty well ingrained in us – the language that says that if you are good and if you keep the commandments then God will accept you and love you.  However, the language of grace is far more life-giving and more biblically sound: Because God loves us and has saved us, therefore we are set free to live in love through Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Pentecost 17 (NL 1)                        Exodus 19:3-7; 20:1-17
October 5, 2014
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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