Written on September 26, 2008

For the Lectionary of October 5, 2008: Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

BOILING DOWN THE COMMANDMENTS by Larry Patten

In Mel Brooks’ film History of the World-Part 1 Moses strides down the mountain with three stone tablets.

“God gave us fifteen--” Oops. He dropped one. It shattered. Hmmm? “God gives us ten commandments.”

Charlton Heston, who must be what Moses really looked like, watched the commandments created, word-by-word, phrase-by-phrase. A holy fire blazed and cut each rock-bound letter. How many people are more familiar with Cecille B. DeMille’s 1956 The Ten Commandments than the Bible’s top ten list?

Once, at my United Methodist annual conference, with a thousand clergy and laity in tense debate over the values of faith, a young pastor stood and declared that all churches should have a copy of the Ten Commandments visibly posted in the sanctuary. Every parishioner, every Sunday, would be reminded of God’s laws. “It should be exactly as the Bible said!”

Another colleague took the floor and wondered if that meant the commandments would be written in Hebrew. After all, the English version of the commandments is rather Johnny-come-lately.

A character in a novel I’ve written, contemplating assisted suicide, mutters about a daughter-in-law who told him he would break the Ten Commandments if he acted out his wishes. She . . .

. . . lectured me that the Ten Commandments said Thou Shalt Not Kill. With her finger wagging at me, she said, ‘That means you killing yourself!’ He chuckled again, this time with a grimace. “I told her, ‘Which of the three versions of the Commandments is that?’ And I said, because I wanted to be a nasty geezer, ‘I prefer the Exodus 34 version where the last divine command is You Shall Not Boil A Kid In Its Mother’s Milk.’”

(I only include that quotation to hype my unpublished novel. Won’t some New York literary agent please fall in love with it and represent me?)

Whether we believe Moses looked like a Hollywood star—or visa-versa—or we debate original language, the Ten Commandments are a complicated gift of faith. Or are they?

In a church I served, someone left a Bible in a classroom. No name anywhere. Week after week, it remained. Abandoned. I finally grabbed it and stayed alert to anyone who might claim the Bible. Eventually it became part of my personal library. One of the first times I used it for sermon preparation, I discovered an odd thing.

A singular thin page was missing. And it didn’t look torn or cut out. I flipped through the entire Bible, studying each page number. Still, only one was AWOL. The absent page included Exodus 20.

Ah, the Ten Commandments.

Or, as my novel’s character mused, one of the three versions. If you haven’t looked recently at Exodus 34—on a page that was still intact in that odd Bible—it’s most interesting.

In the familiar Exodus 20:17, the tenth command was not coveting your neighbor’s possessions.

In Exodus 34:26, the final and tenth command cautioned not to boil a kid in milk. I assume this commandment referred to a “goat kid” and not your or your neighbor’s sweet-faced third grader? God knows, I hope so!

Regardless of which Ten Commandments I read (Deuteronomy 5 also has a version), I know they are radical statements. Simple laws. Easy to understand. Easy to read. And yet all of them hard to live out.

Let’s choose a commandment to demonstrate!

What have I coveted recently? That earlier “joke” I made about finding a literary agent? Joke-schmoke! I covet published novelist’s agents. Who cares about lusting after my neighbor’s wife (or his ox or donkey), I want Julie Spencer-Fleming or Sue Grafton’s agent. And I’ve spent miserable minutes (hours) envious of their success and bemoaning my undeserved and unpublished situation. Poor me!

The commandments radically demand open, loving, simple, true, clear, honest relationship with self and others. They call us to impossible tasks, and the only tasks worth undertaking.

And Jesus, darn that persnickety Nazarene, made the radical even more radical. I’m sure Jesus knew all the versions of the commandments. I’m confident he never once plopped a kid into mother’s milk. But when he was pressed to “boil” down the commandments to the essential he said . . .

Well, you know what he said, don’t you?

Yup, just before Luke 10’s “Good Samaritan” parable, Jesus claimed the law (including the ten big time commandments and the 613 mitzvahs sprinkled throughout the Torah) focused on two interconnected truths. Love God. Love neighbor.

Radical. Yes? A cliché? Yes. And, of course, no.

I occasionally play a silly game with my missing-one-page Bible. I turn to Exodus 20. Nothing! Can I list all ten without help? I usually can. But sometimes it’s only nine or eight and it drives me crazy because I can’t recall which ones I’ve forgotten. Like Mel Brooks’ Moses, oops!

But Jesus made it impossible to forget. Which means I have to work hard every single day.

in Peace,

Larry