We’re in the middle of a sermon series, so at this point you’re probably getting tired of me telling the story, but here we go…
It is said that when the sculptor Michelangelo was asked,
“How did you sculpt such a magnificent masterpiece?” regarding his statue of David,
he replied: “I chipped away everything that wasn’t David.”
And for this season of Lent I’m doing something of the same
—chipping away at our conceptions of the Creator/Creation relationship,
until all that remains is the “New Covenant” that the Prophet Jeremiah writes about,
the New Covenant we Christians describe as God’s relationship with the world,
established by God through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension.
I’ll be doing this by describing what God’s covenant is not, and what God’s covenant is.
In the first two weeks, I let you all know that:
1. God’s Covenant is not a weapon of war, but the proclamation of peace.
2. God’s Covenant is not exclusionary rules, but trust permeated by hope.
And today, I want you all to know that:
3. God’s Covenant is not Diktats to the Enslaved, but Freedom in Community.
Then the final two weeks we’ll see how:
4. God’s Covenant is not Wages for Human Work, but Our Whole Life, a Gift from God.
5. God’s Covenant is not a fragile, scattered, shattered relationship, but continually being drawn into internalized, intentional, renewed relationship.
Prayer
God’s Covenant is not Diktats to the Enslaved, but Freedom in Community.
Imagine, if Pharaoh had won! If he had withstood the plagues and recaptured the Israelites.
Imagine the harsh terms of surrender... as it was, his relationship to the Israelites was excessively cruel.
Pharaoh would elevate himself above them to an even greater extent than he already had, he would be a self-styled god-king.
As the beginning of Exodus tells us, he did not know them, nor did he desire to…
they were at best nameless people
—numbers nothing more.
Slaves—forced to work non-stop,
providing daily quotas under worse and worse conditions, no moment for rest.
The innumerable enslaved, tossed aside when used up,
“kill the baby boys so they don’t become too numerous,” he had already ordered.
Lead them along with lies
—sure we’ll let you go worship…
sure we’ll let you go… surely not!
His promises were continually repealed.
Repealed because of his suspicions… he just knew their intentions
—he knew that if he gave them an inch, they would desert, or turn traitor.
Now here’s the weird thing—there is a tendency to confuse Pharaoh’s character, as I’ve laid out, with God’s…
When many people describe God
—especially the God who provided the 10 commandments
—they often describe God as a:
haughty, disinterested, relentlessly vengeful, lying, suspicious sovereign…
it’s almost like Pharaoh actually won!
But I know that’s not the case,
because God’s Covenant is not Diktats to the Enslaved, but Freedom in Community.
Like all good tyrants, Pharaoh would impose commands, stiffly enforced…
but, as our Jewish siblings remind us from time to time, God offers the 10 Words,
not as Commandments, but as a gift, a blessing even…
A blessing of relationship
—aids to assist in loving God and Neighbor
—a gift from “the LORD Your God.”
An assumption of a prior and ongoing relationship between God and you all... us all.
A tyrant would create statues and monuments to self
—idols little and big strewn throughout their empire as means of control,
-instead, a Word protecting against such things, the absolute relativizing of Idols,
shrinking them all down to size,
releasing them back into the wild, as just another thing in creation
—redeemed from their enslaving power.
A tyrant would hide their name behind pomp, and not acknowledge their subjects,
-instead, we are called by name and invited to lift up pleas and praise to the LORD our God, who is our loving parent.
A tyrant would warp time itself to their advantage
—take an example from the Soviet Union
—early on, they created a 5-day week and gave each citizen one of 5 days as a day of rest,
in order to ensure people could not gather together
—it weakened social cohesion and fostered exploitable divisions
(in fact, some have suggested that AI generated scheduling of work in many sectors is having similar effects here in America)…
-Instead God invites the Israelites into a day free from work for all
—where divisions might lessen and understanding might increase,
as Barbara Brown Taylor writes in her book, “The Practice of Saying No”:
“Sabbath suspends our subtle and not so subtle ways of dominating one another—when a Walmart cashier and a bank president are both lying on a picnic blanket at the park, you can’t tell them apart.”
…Sabbath must be for everyone, or it is for no one.
A tyrant would turn child against parent and parent against child
—think of the Hitler-Youth in Germany or the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution…
-Not so, God’s Word to family: instead honor,
after all, it is from our parents and all those who raise us,
that we learn what is dangerous and what is safe.
It is from them that we establish, or don’t establish, a sense of love and trust.
We’re like little sponges and what we sop up will enter into our lifeblood for the rest of our lives
—our basis for fear, love, and trust, are established in childhood.
For good and ill, all authority figures shape our views of God
—thus we ought to not only honor them, but also pray that they, while filled with foibles and folly, might reflect, on occasion at least, the one true authority, the one true parent of us all
—that they might reflect at least a little of God’s authority,
which is found in humility and weakness.
A tyrant creates arbitrary, inconsistent, and abstract rules designed to ding you,
so you are always on the alert, always owe them something,
because you messed up, and they can now hold it over you, forever
-Not so these Words about everything from Murder to False Witness…
no, they are words to help order life for these folks now freed,
caught in the tension between community and autonomy,
responsibility and freedom,
freedom from and freedom for…
These words etch out the contours a community
where people are life-giving and build each other up,
are faithful and truthful.
Finally, as Orwell warned us, a tyrant does not stop with our body,
but seeks to stifle our soul as well, “Thought Crime” the phrase he coined in his book 1984.
-Not so God, these words about coveting—these matters of the heart,
they free us from jealousy and resentment, for contentment and harmony.
This might feel a little melodramatic or a bit belabored,
comparing Tyranny to Divinity,
but I assure you it is for our good,
and that of our neighbors, as well
—after all, how we think about God shapes how we act toward other people,
and if we replace God with Pharaoh…
God help us... God help them.
But, if we let God’s Words capture our hearts
—then we can imagine a community released from its idols,
knowing God by name,
abiding in rest, liberation and holiness,
caring for one another in deed and intentions of the heart.
Dear faithful siblings, God’s Covenant is not Diktats to the Enslaved, but Freedom in Community. Amen.
