10 Commandments & the Sermon on the Mount

 

 

                              Exodus Tapestry Marc Chagall (1969) in the Israeli Knesset

Our Trenton United Church book study of The Sermon on the Mount by Amy-Jill Levine began last Wednesday. I touched on the observation by the late historian Barbara Tuchman that the Ten Commandments seemed "doable" while this body of teaching by Jesus was overwhelming (I paraphrase.) Yet Levine, who is Jewish, suggests that Jesus wasn't attempting to set an unattainable standard for his disciples and followers. As with Moses before him, Jesus went up a mountain to consider the depth and breadth of faithful living for the pilgrim people of God. Jesus, the Jew, is not attempting to supercede the Commandments or Moses but to honour their fullest meaning and spirit 

It was fitting that one of the possible lectionary passages for worship today is the Ten Commandments. Have you read them in a while? Here they are in the New Revised Standard Version: 

20:1  Then God spoke all these words:

2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before[a] me.

4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, 6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation[b] of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

13 You shall not murder.[c]

14 You shall not commit adultery.

15 You shall not steal.

16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.