text:_ Exodus 20:1-20 Reflections

Imagine asking people on campus or at the mall about the 10 commandments. How many do you suppose they would remember? I'm guessing "Thou shall not kill" and "Thou shall not steal" would be the most common responses. Suppose you asked them what the first one was - the one God thought was most important and put first on the list. Would most people get it right? How about the second or third?

Now imagine you're God. (Only for a little bit, but try.) You've rescued a whole nation of people who have been slaves in Egypt for four hundred years. And they really are a nation, because as slaves, no Egyptian is going to ask one of them to join the country club or marry into their family. And as slaves, they didn't have to think about laws or government - they just did what they were told. They really need someone to tell them what to do.

How does God start? "I am YOUR God." Nothing here about conditions the people had to meet, or any choice that they had to make. God says "I am yours" - end of story. He wants a relationship with us. Not because of what we do, but because he created us. And because this relationship is the most important thing, God starts the ten commandments to help us understand this relationship.

You shall have no other gods.

Remember that the people were used to a culture where if you needed something, the first thing you did was figure out which god was responsible for that. The god of the harvest, the god of love, the god of fertility. And don't we do the same thing -- there are the parts of our lives where we depend on things other than God? What we do at work? How we deal with other people? Where the money comes from? How we deal with our family?

God says you don't need any of that -- just me. Trust me. Depend on me. I am your God, let me in and let me help. We are in a relationship, and I am giving you rules that will make the most of our relationship.

The next rule for our relationship is: You shall not make idols.

The first commandment took care of other gods, so is God being redundant? Or does God not want idols that represent him? Because if we make something that represents God, it makes God smaller and makes us think we can understand what God is all about. But he is bigger than anything we can imagine, able to do anything. So big that He can say "Trust me" and we can. And God is jealous of anything that interferes with our relationship. And if we do things to damage that relationship, it will affect our children, and their children and perhaps even the generation after that. Because what could be worse than damaging a relationship with as much love as God has to give us?

God warns us not to say things in His name that do not come from him. Leading others away from a relationship with God by misrepresenting him is not what God expects from us. And take a day off? The fourth commandment tells us to do no work (or let anyone else associated with us do any work) one day a week, which creates a weekly reminder that we can trust God with our livelihood. Six days of work is enough if we trust God with the seventh.

Now God has established His relationship with us, and the rest of the commandments turn to our relationship with each other.

When Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment (meant to be a trick question), he says the most important is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and with all your soul. And second is to love your neighbor as yourself. Sounds like Exodus, doesn't it?

The commandments are not just a list of "shall nots." They are all about relationships.