The Gift of Rules

         

My generation – those of us who came of age in the late Sixties and early Seventies – did not have much time for rules. Rules – laws, regulations, even the unwritten customs that governed how our parents lived – were viewed as mere legalism at best, oppressive totalitarianism at worst. We rebelled against dress codes, hair length, the draft, drug use laws, sexual mores, the unwritten rules about the proper roles of women and men in society, and more. A popular song summed it up for us, with its refrain, “Signs, signs, everywhere there’s a sign, blocking up the scenery, breaking up my mind, do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign?” We rebelled against everything in the name of freedom.

            So of course we – well, at least speaking for myself – have never been big fans of the Ten Commandments, the original engraved in stone set of rules. And a close corollary of this denigration of the Ten Commandments is the tendency to view the Old Testament as all about law, the New Testament all about grace, to think that Jesus was all about freedom, his Jewish tradition about a binding, legalistic ritualism.

            But when I understood the context of the Ten Commandments, I came to see them in a whole new light, and to understand that far from being an oppressive list of “thou shalt nots”, they instead are gifts from God, gifts designed to help the community thrive and flourish.

            Try to imagine what life was like for the enslaved Hebrews. They had no laws of their own – they were subject to Pharaoh’s rule alone.  Where they lived, what they did, when they woke and when they slept, all were dictated for them by their overseers.  Who was their god, the one who exercised total domination and control over everything in their lives? – Pharaoh. What was their sole task? – to obey unquestioningly, and to fulfill the work quotas.

            And then, suddenly and without time to prepare, they find themselves with more freedom than they know what to do with, a wandering group out in the wilderness, with no history of self-government, no law books, no rules or regulations or even ingrained customs by which they might order their society. All they know is the old way, a way of totalitarian control by an autocrat, where the chief values are unquestioning obedience and meeting production quotas.

            Which is where God steps in. With a set of rules, yes, but first, with a reminder. A reminder that this God is all about freedom.

            “Then God spoke these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery….”

            It is as if God starts off by saying, “Before we begin, let me remind you about who I am – I am the one who heard your cries when you were enslaved back in Egypt, and the one who acted on your behalf to bring you to freedom. No longer are you Pharaoh’s – now you are mine. No longer are you chattel to be brutalized and exploited by an Egyptian overlord; now you are mine, and I am all about giving you what you need, as a community, not only to live, but to live abundantly. So listen up….”

            When we get the youth group together each year, one of the first things we do is sit down and together come up with a set of rules by which we agree to live with each other. Rules like “no put-downs”, and “we will treat each other with respect”, and “no drugs or alcohol”, and so on. Everyone knows that these rules help us to live together as a youth group, they help prevent the kind of splits and divisions which can ruin a group. Do they restrict our freedom to do things – sure. But in the name of helping us build a life-affirming community.

            It is, of course, the same with those Ten Commandments. Far from being an arbitrary set of legalisms designed to hem us in, they instead are God’s vision for us of a flourishing, life-affirming community. And because those Commandments are linked to the Exodus, to God’s bringing the Hebrews up out of the brutality and exploitation of Pharaoh, they can be seen as a vision of an alternative reality, God’s reality, which God hopes we will we embrace.

            And so the first commandments remind us never again to submit to false gods, to the Pharaohs who would enslave us, either through military might or, as more often is the case, through the seduction of promises of wealth, or fame, or security, or a life of ease. And the latter commandments seek to enhance human community by putting limits on the acquisitive capacity of members of the community – the power individuals have to take by might or cunning from more vulnerable members of the community. As Old Testament theologian and preacher Walter Brueggemann reminds us, “”the protection of property is to be understood in the first instance not as a rule of property, but as a defense of the weak against the rapacious capacity of the strong.” (Theology of the Old Testament, p. 185).

            The Ten Commandments are, at base, not just law, but law rooted in God’s amazing grace, gifts freely extended to us, gifts embodying God’s wisdom, gifts setting out God’s vision for us of a world where God’s love is lived out by God’s people, in community, together. An amazing grace, not just for individuals who once were lost, but for the entire human community, that together we might truly see.

So this is the question for us.  Is it enough to just live by the rules, to “shalt not” when the Bible says “thou shalt not”? Or does God call us to do more, to not only see into the vision of a good life lived in community, but also to strive to make that good life in community a lived reality for all its members?