Sermons

Do Ethics Really Matter?

John Wilkinson                            Third Presbyterian Church
March 19, 2006                           Exodus 17:1-20

I am an inveterate clipper of New Yorker cartoons. New Yorker cartoons remain a very personal thing: what is very amusing to one person may be much more less so to another, despite the first person’s insistence. Nonetheless, my habit may pay off this morning.

Absent the drawings, here are a few captions: Imagine a compass with the caption “Moral Compass 2003.” At true north, it reads: “Right (Probably.)” At true south, it reads “Wrong (For Now.)” East: “Aesthetic Decision.” West: “It’s A Matter Of Cultural Differences.” Northeast: “It Depends.” Southeast: “Completely Personal Choice.” Southwest: “Not Sure.” Northwest: “Who Cares?” Or a woman approaching a minister following worship: “How many bad habits do you have to have to equal one vice?” Or a corporate executive is preparing to share the contents of a glowing set of stone tablets that look surprisingly similar to the Ten Commandments. Another executive anxiously raises his hand: “Are these just guidelines, or are they actual new policies?”

Kathleen Norris writes “For years I dreaded hearing the Ten Commandments read aloud in church. They seemed overwhelmingly negative.” Their effect can be, Norris asserts, to portray God to be like a “petty Cosmic Patrolman.” She then tells a family story. “Going to the movies on Sunday was sinful, and my father never dared to do so until he was eighteen. The first time he was alone on a Sunday in a big city, happily anonymous, he went to three movies in a row.” (Amazing Grace, page 85-87)

Perhaps that is your experience and your perception, the Ten Commandments, sometimes called the Decalogue, as a narrow, restrictive set of rules issued forth by a cranky God in order to curb the people’s immoral, lustful, violent appetites. That may be. But that would seem to miss the deeper point of the commandments themselves, issued forth in the context of covenant and community and claimed and re-claimed to provide moral guidance and ethical direction.

The answer to the rhetorical question “do ethics really matter?” is, of course, yes. But the world in which we live does not always seem to be so sure.

As Women’s History Month follows Black History Month, the issues that divide us as Americans and persons of faith seem as intractable as ever. There seem to be many who think that the central problem with the Enron scandal is not that laws were broken and lives ruined, but that they got caught. And my beloved baseball, a microcosm if ever there was one, seems teetering on the brink of collapse, swollen and disfigured and denying, as if it itself were a body on steroids.

Ethics do matter; they must matter. But in order for them to do so, we, who have been given the gift of an alternative vision of how things may be, must activate ourselves to make a difference, in our lives, in the life of the church, in the life of the world.

And we have been given the resources. The Ten Commandments, to state the obvious, have played a central role within Judaism and Christianity at its broadest. More locally, in the Reformed and Presbyterian family, their role has been decidedly significant. For centuries in the Scottish tradition, the Ten Commandments have been read in worship by the people. We’ve defined our theological touchstones to be the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed and the Ten Commandments, all of which we will share, atypically, this morning. Our centuries-old Heidelberg Catechism affirms that while we cannot keep the commandments perfectly, we should seek to follow them as a way to begin to conform us to God’s purposes and ways. (4.114)

That’s the big deal in all this. Our perception of the Decalogue as a list of prohibitions falls short of the true intention – to give shape and form to Israel’s life, and subsequently, the church’s life, around the ways and vision of a God who is different than any other god, and whose call to transformation is absolutely unique.

The commandments begin with a reminder – I am the one who brought you out of slavery in the land of Egypt – and then a stipulation of primacy: no other gods. Everything else flows from there.

Walter Brueggemann writes that the “uncompromising utterances” of the Decalogue “sought to bring every phase of Israel’s life, personal and public, civil and cultic, under the peculiar will and purpose of (God.)” (Theology of the Old Testament, page 23) God’s desire, Brueggemann insists, is to establish a way of life, a set of social relationships, that is an alternative to Egyptian slavery. God has rescued Israel from that life and God does not want those values of slavery and exploitation to re-emerge, ever. Brueggemann writes that the commandments “are policies to create a society that practices (God’s) justice instead of pharaoh’s injustice, and to establish neighborly well-being instead of coercion, fear, and exploitation.” (183 and ff.)

This is not a one-time wish list, but the establishment of new traditions and practices that will stand in opposition to death and disorder.

You will remember when Alabama Judge Roy Moore fought so desperately to have the Ten Commandments displayed in his courtroom – a practice that the United States Supreme Court eventually overturned. The argument made was two-fold – that the Ten Commandments were the foundation of all human law, and that, therefore, they were a cultural, rather than a religious, representation. I believe at that point, ironically enough, that Judge Moore and his proponents actually undercut the impact and intention of the commandments. To say that they are simply cultural symbols is to say they have no teeth, and I am not willing to give that argument up.

The Ten Commandments are so much more that a list of restrictive admonitions, in much the same way that effective parenting is so much more than telling a child not to run with scissors or play with matches. The commandments seek to give shape to a community’s life, an alternative formation that oftentimes conflicts with the surrounding culture. Civil law, while advising against things like thievery and violence, has provisions for when adherence fails. The commandments, as a manifestation of a deeply held covenant relationship between God and the people and among the people themselves, know that human behaviors will not conform to God’s aspirations every time, but hold out the prospect for progress and grace.

It was our own theological forbear, John Calvin, who understood this as well as anyone, and who has handed down to us an approach that invites the commandments to serve not as a set of restrictions, but as a guide to holy living. Not only are we not to kill, Calvin asserted, a la the sixth commandment, but are we to seek to avoid all violence and aggression. And even more so, we are to defend the lives of our neighbors. Thus the commandments become so much more than a set of rules; they become a pattern for life that goes beyond the words to God’s purpose beyond the words. (See David L. Puckett, John Calvin’s Exegesis of the Old Testament, pages 88-91)

The evangelical social justice advocate Jim Wallis offers a contemporary interpretation of that argument when he takes conservative Christians to task, not because they do not believe in a woman’s right to choose, but because they do not apply that same principle when it comes to the death penalty. (See God’s Politics)

And theologian Harvey Cox reminds us that we miss the point when we read the commandments as a set of restrictive prohibitions. Our intentions matter as well, Cox writes, so that not only should we not take our neighbor’s things but that we should not even desire to do so. (“Best of Intentions” in Best American Spiritual Writing, 2005, Pages 23-24)

And not only should we not bear false witness – that is, we should tell the truth – but our hearts should be about seeking the truth in all things, big and small.

In a great article that connects the television show “The Simpsons” to the commandments, writer Jim Guida scores theological points by reminding us that this list is as much about what is in our hearts as it is about how we “behave.” (“The Ten Commandments vs. The Simpsons”) Bart Simpson is well known for saying: “I didn’t do it. No one saw me do it. No one can prove anything.” Sound familiar? And Homer, the father, confesses for all of us: “Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals…except the weasels.”

Some of you will remember the so-called “blue laws,” which prohibited business establishments from being open on Sunday. Can you imagine those in effect today? Sociologist Benton Johnson argues that we American Christians defaulted on our basic commitments, gave in to culture, when we ended that practice. Some of you, no doubt, did not play ball on Sundays, or go to the movies.

But I think we gave up something deeper, and we are paying for it now. A store that is open 24 hours, seven days a week, including Sundays, implies that there will be customers at those hours. And that implies people working, non-stop, all the time. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy, number “4” says, and rest. You, your children, your workers. Rest. We have given that up—both the law and the spirit of the law, have we not? The Church of Scotland website offered an interesting debate about keeping the Sabbath. One thoughtful, virtual church member wrote this: “I do not believe that the Ten Commandments are ever 'outdated'. If the Sabbath were 'kept', then the other six days for the Sabbath observers and for their fellows would be less chaotic, more productive and creative, and more mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually rewarding.” She gets it, it would seem to me, that the ethical demand of the commandments is not when stores are open, or when they are not, but rather the quality of life that we will live, we who have been invited into this covenant community.

My late Old Testament professor Robert G. Boling liked to think of the commandments as a kind of family list, gathered wisdom, which we might post on our collective refrigerator. Of course we will rest. Of course we will care for the elders among us. Of course we will not kill, but rather we will care for all of life. Of course we will not steal – property, land, spouses. Of course we will honor others by the words that we say. Of course, of course, of course.

And yet we fall short. It is never so much that we break the rules – that would miss the larger point of God’s desire to shape and form us into a covenant community. We fall short all the time – whether it is personally or communally, whether it is in deed or in intention. We fall short, and still God keeps open the invitation to relationship and grace.

The list, as Kathleen Norris reminds us, is about paying attention, about trust, about the capacity to love, about the underlying covenant.

To remember that would make all the difference – whether it is in the way we practice politics and make big decisions about war and peace, about how we practice business and make decisions about profit and integrity, about how we look at little things, like sports, and form opinions about winning and losing – think J-Mac and Barry Bonds – or about how we live each day, and make countless ethical decisions, ethical decisions that in their own way have to do with power and community and Sabbath. What we buy. How we parent. How we talk to one another, neighbor and stranger. How we do everything, and how that ripples farther and farther out.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism of the 1600’s asks, “What is the sum of the Ten Commandments?” The answer: “The sum of the Ten Commandments is: to love the Lord your God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbor as ourselves.” That will do nicely. Thanks be to God. Amen.