Because God is God!

There is all the difference in the world between regulation and legislation. The first binds and confines, the second liberates and enables. The phrase ‘being over-regulated and under-governed’ refers to the first in the absence of the second. Much is made of our ‘rule-based’ international or global world. But does that mean rule by law or the rule of law? Another important distinction.

In Chapel we have gone from the stories of the Fall and the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis to the Exodus with the revelation of God to Moses in the burning bush and the giving of the Law, the Ten Commandments. They provide a powerful way to reclaim the ethical imagination and its truth even for our post-truth world. The story of God’s revelation to Moses leads to the revelation of God’s will and purpose for our humanity universally considered. The Ten Commandments are the moral code for our thinking and doing. They are not simply something arbitrarily and dogmatically given but provide a comprehensive way of thinking about the dignity and truth of our humanity. They encompass the whole range of human thinking and doing. They speak about the nature of our relation to God, to one another, and to creation, and even to ourselves in our self-awareness. In that sense, they connect with the theme of our awakening to self-consciousness explored through the stories of the Fall and of Cain and Abel.

Most profoundly, they are about liberation. Our human freedom and dignity is not just in being liberated from what constrains, limits, or enslaves our hearts and minds but what we are liberated to - our being with God and one another in love and service. The Prayer Book Collect for Peace expresses this concisely: “O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom.” If we think of freedom only in terms of freedom from, negative liberty, as Isaiah Berlin called it, then we forget the more powerful and more liberating form of positive liberty, our being freed to an end and purpose which confers dignity and real freedom.

“I am the Lord thy God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage”, introduces the Law. It looks back to the revelation of God to Moses in the Burning Bush who identifies himself in two ways: The God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob - a form of tribal or familial identity, on the one hand, and I Am Who I Am - as the universal principle of the being and knowing of all things, on the other hand. The bush burns but is not consumed, signifying that this is not something natural. It reveals what is beyond the natural as its principle through God speaking to Moses. This is the idea of revelation: something being made known to us rather than something which we discover on our own. Yet what is made known to us tells us something about ourselves as intellectual and spiritual beings. Creation, too, is used in this novel way to point us to what is beyond creation, the Creator. This complements rather than contradicts the order of creation which reveals ‘the Mind of the Maker’ as Dorothy L. Sayers wonderfully puts it. Hearing and seeing are the two most intellectual of our physical senses which are commonly used to mean what we understand.

The Ten Commandments begin with the idea of liberation from literal slavery but extend to all of the metaphors of slavery; our slavery to sin, for instance. They speak to our capacity to understand what is being revealed. Because God is God, there are no other gods is the 1st commandment. Because God is God, He is not to be confused with anything in the created order, the 2nd commandment. The proscription against images will have a long history in the cultural imaginary of things Jewish, Christian (albeit in  various forms between Eastern and Western Christianity), and Islamic. It speaks, too, to the ‘selfie culture’ of our digital world. I often point out to students that they are not their selfie - it is only an image of you and not the whole or true you! God is the Creator who is not to be conflated or confused with what has been called into being and truth.

Because God is God, his name - revealed to Moses in the Burning Bush as I Am Who I Am - is not to be taken in vain. What does that mean? It is not to be used to curse others or to swear to things that concern our immediate interests. It is simply to be honoured and respected. Israel takes this so seriously that the name of God is unspoken and referred to by a euphemism, ‘Lord’. Because God is God, the Sabbath is to be honoured - referring to the end and purpose of creation which is not our use and manipulation of the world but our taking delight in honouring creation as God’s gift in which God himself delights. These four commandments, in this tradition of numbering, all belong to our relation to God. The next six speak about our duties to one another and to ourselves.

Because God is God, “thou shalt honour thy father and mother”, honouring our natural derivations which are God-given, regardless of the emotional dynamics of families. The freest thing we can do is at least to honour the simple givenness of our natural origins. Because God is God, and the author of all life, “thou shalt do no murder”. We are not the authors of our own being or anyone else. This emphasizes the ethical idea of life as more than a right but rather as a gift to be honoured and respected. Because God is God, the basis of the family in marriage is also to be respected; “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. Because God is God, property as the distinction between mine and thine is to be respected; “Thou shalt not steal”. Because God is God in whose image we are made as rational creatures, “thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour”. Lies are a contradiction for they depend upon the truth which they deny. Because God is God, “thou shalt not covet”. This speaks directly to our inner being. To covet is to desire what another has for ourselves. Thus the Law speaks to the whole range of our humanity in its relations to God, to creation and to ourselves.

There are different traditions of numbering the Commandments such as the Anglican, Calvinist, and Orthodox way above. The Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches follow Augustine for whom the 1st and 2nd are combined into one and the 10th is divided into two forms of coveting; persons and possessions. Regardless the weight and meaning is the same with respect to an ethical understanding of the Commandments. They speak to our freedom and dignity, to the ethical good of our humanity.