Inspired by Exodus 20:12-17, Acts 4:5-12, Matthew 21:33-41
In the early 2000s a detective/investigative show appeared on television. It was called “NCIS” and it became quite popular. The show was about a team of investigators who solved crimes related to soldiers and sailors. The team was headed up by a no-nonsense Marine named Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Special Agent Gibbs was very disciplined in his approach to life and to his work. So disciplined that he developed a set of at least 50 rules to help him stay on track and out of trouble.
For fans of the show, it became a sub-culture to discuss Gibbs’ Rules and to identify them when they popped up. Many of the rules are quite practical and really common sense like, “Always wear gloves at a crime scene” and “Don’t believe what you’re told. Double check”. People became so enamored of this way of life that they tried to copy this style of living. I find this quite interesting because many people are acting like developing rules for living (rules that one would actually follow) is a new or innovative way of life.
What most people probably don’t realize is that fifteen hundred years ago, a man named Benedict developed rules for living together in sacred community. The man who would go on to become St. Benedict, developed rules for his monastic community that were focused on ways for them to foster deep relationships with each other, develop the importance of being a good community member, develop a life of prayer and contemplation, taught the value of work on behalf of others and the blessing of obedience both to higher authorities and to one’s-self. In the aftermath of the fall of the Roman Empire, when all around was chaos and darkness, Benedict’s life rules provided a sense of stability and normalcy. Many thousands of people found their way to monastic life during those turbulent times and discovered how to live freely with some sensible life rules.
Benedict’s Rules were not the first, however, and our scripture readings for today bring that into focus for us. Peter and John have been hauled in before the Sanhedrin, the ruling Council of the Temple in Jerusalem – for healing a man born lame. The Temple leadership question by whose power or name Peter performed the healing. Peter declares that the healing happened through the powerful name of Jesus whom they had crucified. Peter further declares that “salvation is found in no one else”. For us as followers of the Christ, this is a life rule worth remembering and sharing.
Jesus is telling parables to the temple crowd which includes the Scribes and the Pharisees. Jesus spoke of a landowner who created a wonderful vineyard and hired people to care for it. At harvest time, the owner sent people to collect the fruit. The tenants beat and killed them. The owner sent more and they were treated similarly. Finally, the owner sent his son thinking that the tenants would respect him. However, those life rules are not followed and the son is killed. Jesus asks the Temple leaders what is the most likely outcome from here? They said that the owner is well within his rights to destroy the current tenants and replace them with ones who will follow the rules.
The reading from Exodus is the listing of the Ten Commandments. The LORD God had brought the people out of slavery in Egypt to worship God on God’s Holy Mountain. The people were not a people yet. They had only known slavery and oppression for 400 years and had no life rules by which to live. Therefore, God provided life rules for conducting themselves toward God (the first four) and towards each other (the last six). God kept it simple so that the people could remember them, teach them to their children and perhaps even live by them.
Because that’s the issue with us humans, isn’t it? It’s not that we don’t have a lot of rules and regulations, laws and guidelines, written and unwritten rules that we all are supposed to follow – right?! It’s that God and the ruling powers give us the freedom to choose whether to live as free people under agreed upon rules or to go it alone and be incarcerated by our own will, desire, worldview – free only in the smallest possible sense of that word. This is the choice in front of the Hebrews as well. Will they feely choose to live by God’s rules for their lives, or go their own way?
Vicar Sam Wells has this to say about the radical role of the Decalogue to help rule our lives together. He writes, “…The Ten Commandments are a gift to those who have been set free, showing them how they can keep their freedom. They are not an assault course, a barrier to be overcome in order to gain freedom. Freedom is a gift from God, not something that can be earned by years of striving. The commandments are not a prison in which God places his people, a straitjacket to prevent them from getting above themselves. God has done what Israel could not do for itself - he has given it freedom in the crossing of the Red Sea. He now gives his people a second gift - the means of keeping that freedom. In the process he shows them who he is and what freedom is.
The sequence of events is as follows. God speaks and states a fact: his people are in slavery. This is not the freedom for which he has created them, the freedom to which he has called them. He asks a question: Do you want to be free? He then acts, and delivers his people. The map searchings and heart searchings in the wilderness are all exploring what it means to be free and what it means to worship God. The conclusion is that to be free means to be a people who worship God. The goal of freedom is holiness, belonging to God. At Sinai God reveals the destiny of his people: ‘You shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.’ In other words, just as a priest mediates God to the people, Israel will have the role of mediating God to the world.
Thus, to be holy, to belong to God and to mediate his being to the world, is to be free…There is only one way to be free, and that is to be a people who belong to God….”
God’s life rules are not meant to bind they are meant to show us the way to live freely in the love of God. When we are truly free of the idol worship and striving that characterizes most American lives, then we can discover our destinies and share freely the love of God with the rest of creation. The Ten Commandments, the teachings of Jesus, the life rule of St. Benedict and even the rules of Special Agent Gibbs, all give us rules by which to live. The only life-giving rules, however, come from God and ask for our freely given obedience in return. May we all choose to live by God’s life rules, amen!