We are at the third week in Lent, and for some people this may feel like a slog, but for others perhaps they have come up with a way in which they are moving closer to God in this Lenten season. Almost half-way through Lent, they may be hitting their stride. In either case, our readings from the lectionary today may seem a little daunting. There are rules or so it seems, given in the Old Testament reading from Exodus. In the Gospel, Jesus gets mad, and in the epistle, Paul seems to talk in circles, again. Yes, the lectionary seems a bit daunting for Lent 3 this year.
As Christians, we could learn a lot from our Jewish brethren about the theology of the Ten Commandments. The Jewish faith envisions and refers to the commandments more as the ten best ways, or you could think of them as best ways of being. There are different ways of numbering them, but I believe God is calling us into a more fulsome embrace of these ten best ways. Pretty much everyone knows that Jesus at some point summarizes the commandments into the Two Great Commandments to Love the Lord your God and Love your neighbor. When we look at these ten best ways, we see that we can divide the best ways into those that are of God (theology) and those that are how we treat our neighbor (ethics). We can and should ponder how these are in conversation with each other. What I mean by this is that one does not honor God if one does not honor our neighbor out of love. Likewise, one does not truly honor one’s neighbor, if we don’t also see God in our neighbor, otherwise it is just being nice or having civic duty. If God wants us to flourish, we need to want our neighbor to flourish.
In the Gospel, it is these very same Ten Best Ways by which Jesus disrupts the money changers and which fuels the reasons behind Jesus overturning the tables, a demonstration of honoring God. I believe Jesus has reasons to get angry. The Gospel of John characterizes this as “zeal for his Father’s house.” However, let’s think about this, it is not just “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Instead, this is enacting appropriate honor to God— a correction of putting the importance of money in front of the importance of God.
We have in common with Jesus that our beliefs come out of the Jewish tradition; more aptly said, Jesus is well situated in the Jewish tradition. The Ten Best Ways were his guiding principles. They are our principles as well. Additionally, of course, Christ Jesus is our savior. For those outside our tradition, that never sounds like a good thing. Celebrating a savior who wins by losing is tangled logic for many. Paul summarizes it well with “we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”
Still my hope for you and me is the following: as the ten best ways, let these commandments not be onerous. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are reconciled to God–grace abounds for when we fail, and we will fail… There are occasions when it is hard not to be swayed by foolishness, there are occasions when we trod all over the ten best ways,—we forget our God and we harm our neighbor usually when we convince ourselves there is not enough of whatever to go around. We forget that God feeds the birds, gives life to the lilies in the field, and instead rejoicing in this, and realizing there is enough for everyone, we convince ourselves that God cares more for us that for our neighbor. We are not faultless; there are times when we too are deserved of righteous anger. Still, even with our casual following of the best ways, we are not asked too much. Life may sometimes be difficult, but not because what we are asked is onerous.
Life has not been so bad; it is not that hard.
Verse 8 in the psalm, perhaps says it best:
“The statutes of the LORD are just
and rejoice the heart; *
the commandment of the LORD is clear
and gives light to the eyes.”
Here we are in Lent and entering Spring in the Northern hemisphere, where there is literally more light to the eyes and we are asked to slow down and exam our lives. Perhaps what might be easiest and a gift to each us and our relationship with God, is to take this Sunday and take our rest, our sabbath. It’s one small part of these Ten Best Ways, but if we but rest on the Sabbath, rather than achieving or amassing, rest and take stock of where we are and where we could do better. Perhaps this is a gift for us from God, and a better use of our time that either than giving up our hands in desperation that doing what God desires is hard, or pretend we have no faults, that we don’t need to do better, that we don’t have a problem, that this time together with God can be a time of prayer for strength to do better and live more fulsomely. May God give us strength to offer this prayer, and make this change.