"Rule of Life" - Sermon by Rev. Brian Combs 10/8/14

Writing about the monastic life and the rule of St. Benedict, Terrance Kardong says, “It is really aimed at the person who has arrived at full self-possession- and found it wanting. Only such a one can embark on the risky journey of ego-reduction.”

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.”

Why are the Ten Commandments the foundation of faith?

Congregational Responses:

After being oppressed in Egypt, the Israelites didn’t know how to handle freedom, so God gave them the boundaries of behavior.

Most of us will chose our own commandments otherwise.

We need an agreement between neighbor and God about how we’re going to act.

With only a few months to live, ten tumors in his liver and terminal pancreatic cancer, Randy Pausch penned a book entitled, “The Last Lecture.” A manifesto of behavior, a guide to living for his soon to be fatherless children.

He advised: Know where you are; Start by sitting together; A bad apology is better than no apology; No job is beneath you; Be a communitarian; Send out Thin Mints; Get in touch with your inner Crayon box.

“The Last Lecture” was a New York Times bestseller for 112 weeks and has now been translated into 48 languages.

The human condition is often a desperation for direction. And we all have to chose between remaining a slave to Pharaoh or choosing to be a slave to the Law. “The commandments might be taken not as a series of rules,” says Walter Brueggemann, “but as a proclamation in God’s mouth of who God is and how God shall be ‘practiced’ by the community of liberated slaves.”

God could have stayed silent on Mount Sinai, hidden in the clouds. But, instead, God revealed the non-negotiable divine will as clearly as carved inscriptions on stone tablets. Since the Decalogue, we can’t ever ask again, “What would God have us do?” The top ten list is right here.

Why are the Ten Commandments the foundation of faith?

Because our freedom for joyful obedience is bound up in ceding our authority, by eliminating our selves as our own higher power, by “embarking on the risky journey of ego reduction.”

We all need to be under a Rule of Life. We all need to be under a Rule of Life. We all need to be under a Rule of Life. And this is our Rule.

In the “Book of Common Prayer,” there’s a call and response for the Ten Commandments that follows:

Call: You shall have no other gods before me.