Our Disciples of Christ in Community group (known as “DOCC,” pronounced “Dock”) has met twice now. Two weeks down, twenty weeks to go. We meet on Wednesday nights. After a delicious supper prepared by Gwen and Calvin Fields, we go upstairs for a presentation that I do, then the participants divide into two small groups to discuss how what I talked about is (or isn’t) relevant to their lives. What we’re really about is building community.

That’s what the Israelites are about in the book of Exodus, too. Last week, as you might recall, we watched their cloud of dust head into the desert as they fled slavery in Egypt. We talked about how they weren’t really a people with their own identity. After four hundred and sixty years of slavery, they still identified themselves as slaves. Their wandering in the desert is as much a metaphorical journey as a physical one; God is leading them to become the People of God, a journey that continues to be the challenge for all of us, even now.

We also discovered that what we whine about has spiritual power over us and pulls us back from becoming People of God. Out in the desert, the Israelites whined about not having the comforts of home in Egypt, and it had such power over them that, amazingly, they wanted to go back — into slavery! We discussed that what they needed, and were slow in developing, was commitment, commitment to the enterprise of becoming the People of God, a community.

That’s the first thing needed to develop community — commitment. So it was no accident that in our very first DOCC meeting, the very first thing I addressed was our commitment to one another. We went over the DOCC Covenant line by line, and I asked the participants whether they were on board. The first thing a community needs is commitment.

The second thing a community needs is rules. So, in DOCC, right after we agreed to the covenant, we went over the rules that will govern our lives together in the DOCC community. In DOCC, we call them the Torah. There are ten of them.

It’s no accident that there are ten. It’s no accident that they are called the Torah, the Hebrew word for law or instruction, and it’s no accident that I address our rules right after discussing the covenant. This is how community is made. Covenant, then rules.

That’s how God dealt with the Israelites. Last week we focused on the covenant, the commitment. This week, we get the Ten Commandments, the rules. Moses goes up the mountain and God said, “Here’s the deal. Here’s how you folks need to behave in order to be the People of God, the community. And God gives them the rules.

Now, I know that a preacher talking about rules strikes fear in many a heart. I think there are several reasons for that. First, let’s face it, many a preacher has stood in many a pulpit for many a century and used rules to beat up and abuse and humiliate people, and sometimes to incite some folks to hate other folks. I’m very naÔve about this, because I still just don’t get how Christians can do that when the gospels make it very clear that when Jesus got the tiniest whiff of rules being used to abuse people, he let those so-called “religious” abusers have it with both barrels. But I know it still happens, and I know it’s the reason some of you tighten up when I say we’re going to talk about rules. You’ve had religious people abuse you with rules, and that puts me a hole before I say the first word.

But there may be another reason other folks tighten up when I say we’re going to talk about rules. When we discuss commitment, covenant, it’s a pretty abstract conversation, and it doesn’t actually require much of us. It’s pretty easy to say, “OK, I’ll commit to that.” I’ll commit to democracy; I’ll commit to free speech; I’ll commit to the Church, I’ll commit to this relationship, whatever. That’s not so hard. Just stand there and say it. Feel it. Feel it deeply. That’s not so hard. After all, it’s not like you have to do anything, or that you’re going to be told that you can’t do anything. Just say it, feel it.

It’s not until we’re told that our commitment means that we have to do something, or can’t do something — in other words, that there are rules — that our commitment starts to really mean something to us. Rules that come from commitment don’t ask what you’ll say or how you feel; they govern behavior, and that’s when folks tighten up. When an abstract commitment becomes concrete with rules governing behavior, watch out! “Preacher, you’re messing with us now! You done gone to meddlin’!”

But let me tell you what commitment without rules is. It’s cheap, and it’s meaningless. If I said I am committed to democracy, but I won’t pay my taxes or obey the rules that make democracy work, you’d call me a hypocrite. If I say I’m committed to free speech, but I want to shut up anyone who offends me, my actions show that I’m not committed. When our political and religious leaders say they are committed to the sanctity of marriage, but engage in serial marriages, and affairs, and collect trophy wives, we’re quick to say, “It’s getting odoriferous in here! Me thinketh it stinketh a bit.”

God knows that commitment without rules, principle without behavior, is meaningless. So God gives the children of Israel ten rules to govern themselves by. There will be many more rules, 613 to be exact, but they will be bound to time and place and circumstance, and we will not feel bound by them. But these ten, the Ten Commandments, will stand like a constitution, a framework of rules that stand apart from time and place and circumstance and even today call us to a standard of behavior that puts our commitment to be the People of God into action.

You heard these rules read this morning. Most are framed in the negative, “Thou shalt not. . .” I’d like to go over them the way the catechism in our Prayer Book reframes them — in the positive, with a bit of interpretation. As I do, I’d like you to think how the world would look if all billion Christians did a better job of living by these rules. And then I’d like you to think about how your life would look if you did a better job of living these rules. Don’t get hung up on the fact that you can’t do a perfect job. Neither you nor I will ever live up to all of the Ten Commandments all the time. But that doesn’t mean we stop trying. What would the world be like, what would our lives be like, if we did just a better job of living these rules?

Here is an excerpt from our catechism:

The Ten Commandments

(Book of Common Prayer, p. (p. 847-48)

Q. What do we learn from these commandments?

A. We learn two things: our duty to God, and our duty to our neighbors.

Q. What is our duty to God?

A. Our duty is to believe and trust in God;

I To love and obey God and to bring others to know him;

II To put nothing in the place of God;

III To show God respect in thought, word, and deed;

IV And to set aside regular times for worship, prayer, and the study of God's ways.

Q. What is our duty to our neighbors?

A. Our duty to our neighbors is to love them as ourselves, and to do to other people as we wish them to do to us;

V To love, honor, and help our parents and family; to honor those in authority, and to meet their just demands;

VI To show respect for the life God has given us; to work and pray for peace; to bear no malice, prejudice, or hatred in our hearts; and to be kind to all the creatures of God;

VII To use our bodily desires as God intended;

VIII To be honest and fair in our dealings; to seek justice, freedom, and the necessities of life for all people; and to use our talents and possessions as ones who must answer for them to God;

IX To speak the truth, and not to mislead others by our silence;

X To resist temptations to envy, greed, and jealousy; to rejoice in other people's gifts and graces; and to do our duty for the love of God, who has called us into fellowship with him.

Q. What is the purpose of the Ten Commandments?

A. The Ten Commandments were given to define our relationship with God and our neighbors.

 

Rules! They can be used for horrible ends, to abuse, to destroy. But these rules lead to health, to wholeness, to reconciliation, to life, to community, to becoming the People of God. Wherever you are on your journey, can you do just a little better job of living by these rules? If we call say, “Yes,” what at difference it will make!