[Propertalk] 3 Lent b 2018 - part 1

[Robert P Morrison]

Well, after two weeks off, although I worked on this on the East
Coast, I feel a little rusty!
I hope you're getting through the storm well!
Bob

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY   THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT
b 

	EXODUS 20:1-17      4th MARCH, 2018 

	1 CORINTHIANS 1:18-25    PSALM 19 

	JOHN 2:13-22 

	 Quick! What’s the fourth commandment? (Sabbath). DON’T LOOK!!
OK, what’s the fifth one? (Honour father and mother). I said,
don’t look!! 

	 You man you don’t have them memorized to bring them to mind at an
instant’s notice? Don’t feel band. I didn’t intend to make you
feel any sort of a failure. This is NOT how I operate either. I’ve
had trouble memorizing things for most of my life. Partly its because
when I’m pressured, my cerebral hard drive freezes, and I have
trouble with the back-up mechanism. 

	 When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai, he had a problem. Kindles and
Note Pads were a little in the future, and lending libraries didn’t
get that far out of the major urban centres, so books were – well,
why bother saying it. As long as the local rabbi could read the
scrolls, then he could trach those who had to read a passage for their
bar mitzvahs. But there wasn’t a huge call for books. So people were
taught to remember. Whether the teacher was fierce or gentle, by
careful repetition, people developed the ability to store and recall
what was stashed in their memories. 

	 This is not to say that they’d remember what the fourth or the
fifth commandments were either, but, if asked, the good Sabbath schul
student would have been able to have recited them, if not in exact
order, then at least all of them would be recalled. And THIS is how I
try to work. Not to memorise, but to get the essence of each
commandment ingrained in me – THAT’S what I need. If someone says,
for instance, what this is that verse is, I can’t latch on to it.
But if someone asks what God feels about – well, worshipping Olympic
athletes, or the Beavers, or a particular music composer or performer;
THAT I can talk to you about without having to say Exodus 20:4-6,
because it’s been impressed on me just s strongly as it was
impressed on the Hebrew people and the people of Jesus’ time. 

	 This is exactly what God want. God isn’t really that impressed by
those who can cite chapter and verse, no matter how accurately. At
least, I’m pretty sure that this isn’t what turns God on. What IS
delightful to God, though, is the person who has the commandments
ingrained within them – and not just the ten “biggies”, but
also, or maybe even more, by the way that loving, and caring for and
respecting one’s neighbours is engraved on our hearts. 

	 Take a thought about all the pious hand-wringing we’ve witnessed.
“Oh, that’s so sad. That’s terrible. I’ll pray about it.
I’ll think about it” But that is absolutely meaningless unless
it’s transferred into action which impacts people’s lives
positively and actually provides safety and compassion. 

	 I can imagine Moses coming back into the camp and saying, with a
huge smile, “Good News! God wants to help us, and we’ve been given
these laws to help structure our lives for our own benefit as well as
that of everyone else.” I can imagine the people saying,
“Terrific!” and then going back to abusing spouses, or cheating
customers at the make-shift markets, or spreading gossip and rumours
to make it appear that they were all so important. 

	 What IS the point of the commandments, what is the point of us
having civil laws; what is the point of us having a set of laws
governing driving, if we’re not going to make them our rule of life,
and pay attention to them? Finally, it doesn’t matter if we can cite
the code, or whip ODOT’s highway manual out of the glove compartment
of our vehicles, if we don’t obey it. 

	 That’s why, on Ash Wednesday, the prophet Joel’s words were
repeated to us, “Rend your hearts and not your garments.” There
needs to be some serious self-examination going on here. 

	 So here’s another question: which of the commandments is the
longest? Which one needed the most explanation? The answer may be
starting. It may be that the others seem pretty clear. Don’t kill
your parents, for instance. That would cover two. Doing that’s not a
good idea, no matter what. But the one with which God seems to have
spent the greatest amount of time explaining to Moses and the people
is …. 

	 “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.”  

	 What a surprise! Almost five lines in this morning’s scripture
insert. Do we REALLY need God to tell us to slack off? I mean,
seriously! But, yes, it’s absolutely vital, firstly that we
understand it and, secondly, that we observe it. 

	 I remember seeing a sign at an espresso bar. It was really quite
simple. “Coffee,” it read. “You can sleep when you’re dead!”


	 Think for a moment where thee Hebrews were when they received the
commandments. They were in the middle of their trek through the
dessert. Egypt was miles behind them. The land which they;;d been
promised was miles ahead. They were in the middle of nowhere, muddling
through, looking for ways to brighten their lives as they dealt with
the mundane rituals of life. They must have been sending their days
whining about the heat, the dust, the bugs, the snakes, their
neighbours in the next tent; they’d whine about whining if that made
any sense or made them feel any better. At the same time, they must
have been straining at the leash to get the journey finished. So
keeping time to rest, to refresh their bodies as well as their minds
and their spirits must have been the last thing that interested them. 

	 It’s just like many of us today. I don’t think this phenomenon
is new, but we have a relatively recently coined term for what we do
– multi-tasking. We don’t know how to sit still. We don’t know
how to be quiet. We don’t know what to do with our bodies and minds
when we do nothing with them. We’ve forgotten the meaning and
purpose of sabbath. We don’t like it when the loudest sound may be
the stroking scuff of a shoed-foot on the carpet, of the pulse of our
blood in our ears. 


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