MORE THAN

In an article entitled, “Living by The Word” in The Christian Century, New Testament scholar Thomas Long recalls the story of Jack Casey. When he was a child, Jack was terrified of having some of his teeth extracted under general anesthesia. As he was going under, the nurse who stood beside him said, “Don’t worry. I’ll be right beside you no matter what happens.” Sure enough, when he woke up, she was right there, still standing beside him. She had kept her word.

Twenty years later, while serving as a volunteer fireman and ambulance attendant, Jack’s team was summoned to the scene of an accident. They came upon a pickup truck which was upside down, the driver pinned behind the wheel. Jack crawled inside the truck in an attempt to free the terrified man, but his efforts were to no avail. Meanwhile, gasoline was dripping all over both of them. The threat of fire was imminent, because rescue workers were using power tools in an attempt to free the driver. The driver continued crying and screaming about how afraid he was of dying. Remembering what the nurse had said to him when he had felt helpless in the face of his own terror, Jack said to the driver, “don’t worry. I’m right here with you. I’m not going anywhere.”

Afterwards, the driver was amazed. “You were an idiot,” he said to Jack. “You know that thing could’ve exploded and we’d both have been burned up.” Jack’s reply was simple. He couldn’t leave him. Like the nurse, Jack had kept his word.

“That’s the way the commandments work,” adds Long. “First comes the experience of being cared for, the experience of being set free . . . then there follows the life shaped ethically . . . by the freedom created by that God.”

The commandments are prefaced by the good news of God’s powerful actions on behalf of the Israelites: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” In doing so, the Israelites saw who has the real power – not their taskmasters, not the sorcerers of Egypt, not even Pharaoh. In doing so, the Israelites learn that this is a God who keeps His word.

So how will their memory of what God has done for them impact the way they live?
How will they treat God?
How will they treat one another?
More immediately, who is this God, and what does this God expect of them?

The first three commandments offer a clear sense of who this God is. God has shown that God has no equal, that there is no other god who can do what God can, and that serving any other god will not be worth the effort. . . so why follow a lesser god? It’s pointless to have any other gods before the one true God. To do so would be substituting that which is worthless for that which is priceless.

But this God, unlike the lesser gods of the Egyptians, cannot be owned or controlled. So not only is it pointless to make an idol to bow down to, it is futile to think that the one true God can be made into an image which they can then turn around and control. Unlike the gods of their taskmasters, this God can’t be domesticated. This God will not be made into a means to an end.

To that end, the Israelites are also to avoid using God’s name simply as a means to an end. That would be an effort to control a God who cannot be controlled.

So God teaches the Israelites a lot about God’s self in the first three commandments:
God is sovereign.
God is free.
God’s name is holy.

But what about the fourth commandment? It is probably true that, in our sophisticated society, many folks already think that the last six commandments – the ones about not stealing, coveting, or committing adultery and so on, are a bit severe, if not unrealistic. But imagine how the fourth commandment – “remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy” – comes across in our fast-paced, super-sized, buy now and pay later society.

But who is this God who gives this commandment? According to Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, this God is “not a workaholic. God has not need to be more secure, more sufficient, more in control, more noticed. It is ordained in the very fabric of creation that the world is not a place of endless productivity, ambition or anxiety.” So God’s call to the Israelites is a call to rest. If God rests, then the Israelites are to do no less.

Moreover, the fourth commandment serves as a great equalizer –
The rich as well as the poor are to rest.
The free as well as slaves are to rest.
People as well as animals are to rest.

The call to rest isn’t just about getting a good night’s sleep. It goes much deeper than that. It goes to the heart of who the Israelites are as people of God. It is about knowing that the God who created them, and freed them wants them to live deeply into the fact that they are more than what they do.

This is in stark contrast to what they experienced under Pharaoh’s rule:
If they didn’t get a good night’s sleep, they still had to do as Pharaoh commanded.
If they were ill, they still had to do as Pharaoh commanded.
If a family member died, they still had to do as Pharaoh commanded.

But now that they are to live according to the ways of the one, true God:
No longer are their lives to be filled with frantic activity.
No longer are they to be defined by how much they can produce.
No longer are they to serve gods who can never be satisfied.

Although God expects them to follow His ways – they now have a choice. This is because their relationship with God, unlike their relationship with Pharaoh, is built on a covenant – an act of trust and love.

The same is true for us. When you and I are immersed in the waters of baptism, we die with Christ to the bondage of living according to the rules of the Pharaohs of our world, and we emerge as a people who are to live as the people of God. Although we are not expected to be legalistic about the Sabbath day – like the Pharisees who complained that Jesus did work by healing on the Sabbath – we are expected to take regular times to rest, to reflect on our lives, and to savor the fact that –

Our being is not to arise from our doing;
Our doing is to arise from our being.
And our being is defined by the one who created us, frees us, and goes forward with us.

Still, the Israelites – as well as you and I – can go back to living as though we are still in bondage. But consider a few of the consequences of living in bondage –

A consistent lack of sleep can leave us feeling irritable and can make us less than pleasant to be around.
Continually working long hours leaves us with little time or energy to enjoy the people we love. Taking jam-packed vacations leaves us feeling more tired when we return than when we left.

Then there’s the devastating consequence of living in a society where folks who produce faster, quicker and better are more valued than those who may not be able to do as much – elderly persons, children, those who are ill.

Like the Israelites under Pharaoh’s rule, we live in a society which will use us up to exhaustion. I think that’s especially true for most of the eleven million undocumented workers in the U.S., many of whom work unbearably long hours, at minimum wage jobs, with no health insurance and no pension or vacation packages. Sabbath is not a choice for them.

Still, for the undocumented workers who live and work here, this is the promised land. So, as Richard Perkins, director of the Episcopal Migration Ministries, reported a few days ago, “to criminalize millions of undocumented workers and to assume their deportation will largely solve our immigration problem is to miss the mark entirely – many of these persons are already productive members of our workforce and to return them to the grinding poverty – to return them to the grinding poverty – (which I call the Pharaoh named “Grinding Poverty”) – which forces them to leave is both impractical and immoral.” Pharaoh can rear his ugly head – even in the promised land.

Where would the original immigrants to this country be if the Native Americans were powerful enough to send them back to the conditions from which they fled?

As people of God, you and I are called to oppose Pharaoh – in all his forms. A recent meeting of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church illustrates this well. The council “expressed its opposition to any immigration measure that would make it unlawful for faith-based or humanitarian organizations to act to relieve the suffering of undocumented immigrants.”

So how will we live? And what will we model to those who come after us? As we continue on our Lenten journey, will we take regular periods of time to be with God, to reflect on our lives, to remember that all human beings have intrinsic worth and dignity – that we are more than what we do?