| No Time Left for Pain |
May 7, 2000 |
Part of my job is the preservation of tradition.
Making sure that what is set and sacred is not perverted or cast out
of character.
So I was watching the A-Team on TV Land Channel.... and I have a
video clip...
The A Team was a rough and tumble shoot-em up show from the early
80's...
manly men misunderstood, running from the injustice of military
law, all the while stopping long enough to help the poor, the
cheated, to be a voice of what is right and true and good.
In this episode the A-Team faces down a rowdy crowd of
pipe-laying oil workers in the Pacific Northwest.
The bad guys are apprehended and before the A-Team must move on to
escape the military pursuit, they pause for a rest...in which the
guest star offers his talent.
And the guest star? Boy George. Uh huh.
It is perversion at its worst! Blasphemy! Oh the humanity!
And look at the effect it has on tough man Mr.
T...."Fool!".
He is reduced to giggling silliness by this affrontive music!
One of these things just doesn't belong here, one of
these things just isn't the same, can you guess which one is
not like the others, before my song is done?
For God's sake!
I ask this because today we're going to look at the 10
commandments.
They seem to be out of character for our world, seem to be in the
wrong place at the wrong time.
They just don't seem to fit...any more than Boy George at a
gathering of pipe-layers.
I thought this week of what do we have in common with the people
who first received these commandments from God...
I could think of
three things...
- We live in the desert
and look to the mountains for spiritual
retreat...
- We pain to be individuals in community...
don't know how to make
either one work.
- We don't like to be told what to do.
Read Exodus 20:1-17
A member of our church was telling me about an event at her
house.
She told me she was having dinner with the husband and kids.
The 9-year-old pipes up asking, "What does sponge-worthy
mean?"
"And I knew immediately that she has been watching a
Seinfeld rerun in which Elaine stocks up on contraceptive sponges
and discusses which men in her life are
"sponge-worthy."
Randomly select a television sitcom in the evening these days,
and you'll encounter the Same Old Stuff: sexual situations, adult
content, violence and raunchy language.
I remember the first time I hears the A word on TV....that is the
word beginning with A which refers to your hinder region...
I was 14 or 15...thought, "Wow, cool, we're making
progress!"
In fact that may be the main accomplishment of our culture in the
80's...
developing a worse language on TV...that and parachute pants...
It's been a long time since we were in Green
Acres;
now its South Park, and going farther south by the season.
This is why every new television set over 13 inches
now has a new technology installed that allows parents to block
programming they do not want their children to see.
It's called the V-chip.
Next year it will be in every brand-new set.
Right now it's available in adapter boxes for old TVs, too.
The V-chip is a sort of parent-in-the-TV gimmick to keep kids from
having fun.
Problem is, most parents don't know that their TV is
chipped or how to activate the V-chip. It is easy to
look at the Ten Commandments as God's way of embedding a moral
V-chip into our moral brains so that we see no evil,
hear no evil, speak no evil.
Moses goes up the mountain and comes back with the Ten
Commandments on stone tablets to post on a tabernacle pillar
somewhere.
Like, this is the answer for the lawlessness in the camp, for
disobedience in the ranks.
Post the commandments. Now we might have some peace and quiet.
Please!
We now have no shortage of Moses wannabees who want to do the
same thing.
Put them in the classrooms.
Hang them in the hallways.
Post them in the bathrooms.
Rep. Robert Aderholt of Alabama thinks we need to hang the Ten
Commandments in public view, and on June 17, 1999, The Juvenile
Justice Reform Act of 1999 (H.R. 1501) passed the House by a
roll-call vote of 287-139.
Tucked away in this bill is Section 1202 - the Religious Liberty
Rights Declared Amendment -- which proclaims it is the right of each
state, its respective courts and towns, to hang this commandment
list when and where they see fit.
Certainly no harm can come from keeping the world's most
respected moral code in view.
But who are we kidding?
Is this going to lower the crime rate, curb the violent impulse,
reduce teenage pregnancy?
No way.
It didn't change behavior 3,500 years ago in the Sinaitic
wilderness, and it won't do it today in a postmodern wilderness
inhabited by Goths, hip-hoppers, rappers, stoners, yuppies and Elvis
impersonators.
Unfortunately, many teens view the posting of the Ten
Commandments in their schools as hypocritical posturing by
adults.
A recent episode in the new sitcom Popular, puts this in
perspective.
A teenage girl is caught cheating on an exam.
She is immediately marched to the principal's office where she
receives a stern lecture.
The girl, rather than expressing remorse, shoots straight back,
saying in effect:
"Is this where I am now supposed to apologize and say 'I'm
sorry?' Well, it ain't going to happen.
Cheating is part of the real world.
My dad cheats on my mom, and my mom on my dad, and both on their
income taxes.
I live in a country whose president cheats on his wife and lies to
the American public and no one gives a rip.
So don't lecture me on cheating and expect me to care."
To make matters worse, not only do people go around
breaking them all the time (nothing new there),
nobody seems to remember what the Ten Suggestions really say.
A recent poll of 1,200 people, ages 15 to 35, discovered that
most people were unable to name more than two commandments, and as
the pollster Cullen Murphy writes, "They weren't too happy
about some of the others when they were told about them."
Perhaps the Ten Commandments need updating.
A British commission is considering "Punctuality,"
"Patience" and "A sense of fair play"
as possible additions.
Murphy quizzed Charlton "Moses" Heston on the
subject who told him contemporary commandments might include
"Do your best" and "Keep your
promises."
We could put together a series of commandments based on Madison
Avenue sloganeering:
"Just do it,"
"Just be,"
"Sometimes you
gotta break the rules,"
"Peel off inhibitions.
Find your
own road."
The National Parenting Center asked children to suggest
additional commandments.
Among their ideas: "No bombing for the heck of it,"
"Thou shalt not address people by their color" and
"No grabbing" (U.S. News & World Report,
November 18, 1996).
Enough.
The function of the Ten Commandments as the apostle Paul makes so
clear in
Galatians 3
and elsewhere is not to make us
holy, but to show us holy;
to act as a yardstick, a mirror to show us the error of our ways
and
give to us a place to start.
Public posting, while not harmful, is not the answer, especially
since many of us don't know what the question is.
America did not begin to trust God more after stamping coins with
"In God We Trust."
The Senate doesn't seem to have more or less wisdom these days,
even though the chaplain prays for it continually.
On the other hand, learning and memorizing the Ten Commandments
at home or church is a critical element in our moral and spiritual
formation.
And let me tell you how...
it's not something you should remember so you can be good
enough to get into Heaven in the sweet bye and bye. We should not
look on these as laws that if you disobey them you go to the warmer
place in death.
It's about peace.
We talk about peace that passes understanding.
We say we want it...but I'm not so sure we do based on the way we
order our lives...
I think if you are suffering dissonance in your life,
disharmony... there are three places in the bible where the
prescription for peace is laid out...each expanding on what came
before it.
The first is the ten commandments...
It is as if God is saying,
"You people in the desert are at odds with yourselves, each
other and me.
You are trying to make peace by controlling everything in your
grasp, but you really wouldn't know peace if it ran over
you..."
"Here is my prescription for my peace..."
Keep these, and you will know my peace.
Actually God says it this way,
"If you will obey my commandments and keep my covenant, you
will be close to my heart."
(Exodus 19:5)
The second is found in the words of Jesus
(Mark 12:30-31)
as he
offers the greatest commandment...
"Love God with all of your heart and mind and soul and
strength...
and love your neighbor as much as you love yourself."
The apostle Paul expands on love in
1 Corinthians 13:4-13
Writing to a community of people who didn't always get along and
found themselves tolerating each other...
Paul says...
When you get tired of tolerating each other, when you become weary
of fighting... try love, and this is what it looks like...
Love is patient and kind, love is not jealous or boastful or proud
or rude.
Love does not demand its own way.
Love does not maintain control by being irritable.
Love keeps no record of when it has been wrong.
Love is not happy about injustice, but is happy when truth wins
out.
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and
endures through every circumstance.
I think if you are suffering pain, 9 times out of 10 it is
because one of these has been broken...by you, or someone close to
you...
And I think we need to memorize and take with us the ten
commandments as a foundation for our life-choices...
When I worked at Dillard's in Scottsdale during college I was in the
credit department.
Got to be around all of the workers at some point.
The one thing, the one conversation that seemed to be going on, was
how to use others for one's own sexual conquest.
If I hadn't known differently I might have been led to believe
that the purpose of life was.... well, to put it directly... to get
laid.
We need the ten commandments in our lives to serve as an anchor.
James writes about the upset that comes when we are without an
anchor.
"A doubtful mind is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that
is driven and tossed by the wind.
People like that should not expect to receive anything from the
Lord."
James 1:6b-7
Like Boy George says, "I'm a man, without
conviction."
And if you ask me, that's what makes us most vulnerable to doing
dumb... and drifting right into suffering.
So I want to teach you a way to remember the 10 commandments...
Hold up one finger indicating that God is number
one: You shall have no other gods before me.
Hold up two fingers; pretend to use them as scissors
to cut out a paper doll which is like making an idol
which is not permissible because number two is:
You shall not make for yourself an idol.
Three fingers form a W for Word and reminds us
to take the Word of God seriously.
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD, your
God.
Four fingers with the opposable thumb held down
reminds us that without the thumb, work is
difficult. Try various tasks without using your
thumbs:
Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.
Hold all five fingers up together as if you are taking a
pledge to:
Honor your father and your mother.
Hold up six fingers and point the sixth finger at the other
five like a gun:
You shall not murder.
Hold up seven fingers and move the two fingers on
one hand together to symbolize that the two shall become one:
You shall not commit adultery.
Hold up eight fingers to be reminded of the ancient penalty
for
stealing (cutting off fingers):
You shall not steal.
Hold up nine fingers and turn your hands to hide
the thumb to remind us that we should not lie or keep things
concealed: You shall not bear false witness against your
neighbor.
Ten fingers reminds us when we get the gimmies and
try to get other's stuff:
You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.
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