My sermon texts for this Third Sunday in Lent are Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm 19:7-14 (yes, we shortened the Psalm for this week), and John 2:13-22.
As I was preparing for this week, I found this commentary from Rolf Jacobson helpful, particularly this insight: “God first establishes the relationship with us. Only then does God make a claim on our behavior.”
The artwork here was drawn by one of our very talented students and given as offering in our children’s worship bags a couple of weeks ago, and I think it’s appropriate for the season of Lent as we move towards Christ’s suffering on the cross in just a few weeks.
For the last few weeks, we’ve been looking at covenants, those sacred promises God makes in the Bible. First, we heard God make a covenant with the whole creation, promising Noah that a giant flood would never again destroy the earth.
Last week, we heard about Abraham and Sarah and the covenant that Abraham would be the father of many nations. We heard how God kept that covenant, even though it seemed impossible, and we talked about how faith is believing the truth that nothing can prevent God from keeping God’s promises.
Both those covenants were primarily about what God committed to do. God committed to not flood the earth. God committed to give children to Abraham. I’ve talked for the last couple weeks about how the faith God gives us sets us free to believe God’s promises, and how when we’re set free and we trust God, it makes a difference in the way we live.
This week, we hear what that difference is. We hear how God wants us to live.
Now, the Bible has all kinds of commandments, lots of instructions for us. Traditionally, the Jewish rabbis taught that there are 613 commandments God’s people should follow. That’s a lot to follow and remember!
And of course, we don’t follow most of those today. That’s not just because we got tired of following them or something, but because in the New Testament, in that story of Peter and Cornelius (check it out in Acts 10), we’re told we don’t need to worry about things like not eating pork or shellfish, or having the right number of tassels on our cloaks, or a lot of those laws about purity.
But God does calls us to live a certain way in the world, and as God’s children, we still have commandments we ought to follow, especially these ten commandments from Exodus 20.
Hopefully most of you remember them from confirmation. Maybe you have them memorized, perhaps even with Martin Luther’s explanations from the catechism. They give a good summary, good instructions for life as God’s people. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today, what life as God’s people actually looks like.
The commandments start with God telling us who God is. “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Obviously you and I are not Jewish, but this is our story too. God has set us free; God has brought us out of slavery.
So before giving us these commandments to follow, God establishes what our relationship is. God is the one who saves us, who sets us free. And that relationship doesn’t come from these commandments; the commandments come from the relationship.
That means following these commandments doesn’t lead to salvation. God doesn’t love you more if you succeed at 8 commandments instead of 7. God doesn’t stop loving you because you keep all of the commandments except for sometimes you have some trouble with that one about stealing.
God gives us the commandments because God loves us. They’re a gift! The commandments are there to show us how to live well. Actually, though, the commandments aren’t really even for our benefit. As Rolf Jacobson writes,
“The law is not about us — it is about our neighbors. God gives you the law, not so you can get more spiritual or have your best life now, but so your neighbor can have her best life now.”
When the 10 commandments are pictured on Moses’ two stone tablets, they’re usually split into two categories. The first three commandments are about our relationship with God, how we’re to worship only God and not idols, respect God’s name, and remember the Sabbath, the Lord’s day.
The next seven are about how we live in relationship with other people, with our neighbors. That’s where we find the commands like do not kill, don’t violate the marital relationship by committing adultery, don’t steal from or lie to your neighbor.
We need these kinds of laws and rules to keep us safe, to protect us from ourselves. These commandments are all about how to live together, and they all flow from the first commandment. When we understand who God is and we keep God in the rightful place in our lives as our creator and savior, following all the other commands flows naturally, because we want to protect our neighbor.
Often, we think of the 10 commandments as burdens, the “Thou Shalt Nots.” It’s so interesting to study what Martin Luther does with them in his Small Catechism. He takes a command like “Do not kill” and explains that not killing your neighbor doesn’t just mean not shooting them; it includes looking out for them and protecting them. Not bearing false witness not only means not spreading false rumors about your neighbors, but also standing up for them and interpreting whatever they do in the best possible light, giving them the benefit of the doubt.
God didn’t give us these commandments to take all the fun out of life, or to give us an impossible standard to live up to.
Of course if we’re relying on following the law for salvation, they’re an impossible standard. The law shows us we are sinners who need Jesus to come and save us by grace. But since Jesus has come, and he alone followed the law perfectly, and he’s taken our punishment and died in our place, we don’t need to rely on following the commandments to save us.
Instead of God giving us these commandments to save us, we’re given these commandments because God has saved us. The commandments are a gift, because God wants us to live a good life in relationship with our creator and with our neighbors.
Look at what Psalm 19 says about God’s law. The law of the Lord is perfect and revives the soul. God’s law makes the heart rejoice. It’s more desirable than gold, and in case gold isn’t desirable enough, the writer adds, even much fine gold. Have you ever thought of God’s law as sweeter than honey dripping from a honeycomb? That’s what the Bible says!
What would change for you if you thought of God’s commandments as a gift rather than a burden?
What would change for our world if our neighbors could see Christianity as a way of life that’s not about condemning others, but about opening people’s eyes to a better way to live, a way to live in response to the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ?
God’s laws call us to refocus on God, to put God first, and as we’ve talked about for the last couple of weeks, putting God first means putting ourselves second. Recognizing that God is God and you and I aren’t is freeing.
I’m not going to go into it very much, but when Jesus chases the moneychangers out of the temple, that’s what he’s doing. He’s calling the people back to remembering that they’re in God’s house, calling them to remember why the temple is holy. He’s calling them back into relationship with God, to remember the purpose of the law, rather than just going through the motions.
The commandments call us to move past our greed and selfishness, and open ourselves up to loving God and loving other people, to living differently.
This week, I challenge you to reflect on the 10 commandments, and maybe even the other 603 commands from God, and to think about how they challenge the way you live.
How do they help you in your relationship with God?
How do they help you in your relationship with your neighbor?
And may the peace of Christ, which passes all of our understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen