The God of Liberation and the Ten Commandments

Moses said to the people "Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, because the Lord brought you out from there by the strength of his hand."--Exodus 13:3a (NRSV)

How often do we forget that one of the main themes of the Bible as a whole and the life of Christ is LIBERATION?  For Jesus, liberation was about freeing us from sin and excessive self interest and moving us into a place where we can live his Kingdom on earth, perhaps even bringing freedom and liberation to others.  Many of the great abolitionists of the 18th and 19th centuries were men and women of faith, folks like William Wilberforce.

The thread of liberation runs through the Old Testament as well.  Nowhere is it more pronounced than in the Exodus narrative where Moses leads the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.  This occasion is still marked by Jewish people all of these years later in Passover meals and traditions.  This was also an important aspect of the life of Christ.  It was at Passover that he sat with his friends for the last time and instituted the new covenant of Communion.

The fact that God stands with the slave and raises the oppressed is a part of the Biblical and Christian narrative that is often downplayed or totally forgotten in modern times.  We're all slaves to different things, be it money, power, or social position.  Then of course there is the very real situation that many people on this planet still live in cultures that keep them down because of lack of money, lack of power, lack of social position and such.  The governments and systems of power that run our world are largely neglectful to the needs of the most vulnerable among us, those to whom Christ was the closest.

It's this God of Liberation that Brian McLaren introduces us to in Chapter 10 of "We Make the Road by Walking."  He follows the Israelites from Egypt to Mount Sinai where this God, the God who freed the people from their bonds, gives them commands for their new lives,  This is of course, the Ten Commandments.  At the heart of this chapter is a restatement of these 10 Commandments as opposition to continued slavery and the slave economy.  Let's take a moment to consider these commands.

1. Put the God of Liberation first, not the God of Slavery.

We read this first commandment as "You shall have no Gods before me," and chalk it up to the fact that God is a jealous God.  That's true, but is that really all that's going on here?  If we restate it as McLaren has, then no.  When we put the God of Liberation first, we are free to live our lives in his kingdom ethic, an ethic that not only frees us from the slavery of the culture that surrounds us, but also inspires us to stand up for the rights of others and the least among us, people to whom the God of Slavery seems very real.

2. Don't reduce God to the size of an idol--certainly not one made of wood and stone by human hands, and not one made by human minds of rituals and words, either, and certainly not one is whose name people are enslaved, dehumanized, or killed.

The first level of understanding this command, or the Sunday School level as I call it, is that you don't make an idol to worship out of anything physical or in your mind.  However McLaren looks deeper. Can we make an idol out of our religious traditions and dogmas, emphasizing them over God? Sure, we can and do.  Can we use these traditions and dogmas to oppress others?  I would say we absolutely do.  The "gospel of wealth" has come to America and given us all kinds of excuses not only to "lay up treasures on earth" but to look down upon people who are less fortunate.  Instead of seeing folks as worthy of a hand up, we tend to see them as lazy people looking for a hand out. The particulars of their situation are given little to no thought as we continue in our selfish ways.

3. Do not use God for your own agendas by throwing around God's holy name.  If you make a vow in God's name, keep it.

Again the Sunday School version of this is "don't take the Lord's name in vain."  Truly this is something that Christians who love God shouldn't do.  But again, there's more. In the 18th and 19th centuries the God of Liberation himself was used to justify keeping slaves.  Today many Christian fundamentalists and people on the far right continue to use God to push their own agenda.  We use God to attempt to deny same sex couples the right to legal benefits of a marriage contract.  We use God to justify a culture of selfishness and wealth, where we have now talked ourselves into thinking that the God who came to earth in a manger wants us to all be fabulously wealthy.  We use God to justify a culture of violence, where the ownership and use of weapons is seen as the highest expression of freedom.  We use God to keep women in lower stations: many Christian denominations still exclude women from various positions in the church .  This shows the world around us that we're not living our lives as God would have us live.  Many of my atheist or nonreligious friends, whose opinions I respect greatly, see this as the biggest practical problem with Christians.

4. Honor the God of Liberation by taking and giving everyone a day off.  Don't keep the old 24/7 slave economy going.

Oh we Christians love to use this to get out of having to work on Sunday.  The funny thing is that maybe you don't work on Sunday, but I bet each and every one of us patronize businesses  that require others to work on Sunday.  It's not just about Sunday either. We expect people to be there for us at a business when we want it, when it's convenient for us.  We don't stand up for the rights of people who work blue collar or service jobs: rights like sick pay, personal days, and a living wage. This perpetuates the modern version of the slave economy.

5. Turn from self-centerdness by honoring your parents.  Honor is the basis of freedom.

None of us do this all on our own.  We succeed only with the help of others.  For many of us, including me, that begins with our parents and our families.  These people, while never perfect, deserve a place of honor in each of our lives.

6. Don't kill people, and don't do other things that frequently incite violence, including: 7. Don't cheat with others' spouses, 8. Don't steal others' possessions, and 9. Don't lie about others' behavior or character.

While the previous commands talk about how we, as people living under God's liberation, interact with God and our families, these next four deal with how we interact with others in our lives day to day.  Certainly don't kill people, and don't do anything that might incite violence against you or others.  Don't cheat with someone else's spouse and ruin their marriage covenant.  Don't steal from others, and don't lie about or defame people.  Though many of us claim that we live in a "Christian Society" violence, adultery, theft, and dishonesty are all rife in our culture.  These practices should not only be shunned, but confronted.

10. If you really want to avoid the violence of the old slave economy, deal with it's root source--the drama of desire.  Don't let the competitive desire to acquire tempt you off the road of freedom.

A couple of entries back we discussed the temptation of Christ and the temptation to be slaves to things and the acquisition of things.  This comes into play here in Exodus as well.  The God of Liberation wants us to be from these desires.  We shouldn't be focused on wealth or things.  We shouldn't be focused on the desire for power, or the desire to fulfill our sexual drives at all costs. These desires often to lead to negative, destructive, and sometimes even violent behaviors.

As we see throughout the Old Testament, including just a couple of chapters down the road in Exodus, the ancient Israelites weren't pros at keeping these commands.  Each and every one of them is broken multiple times throughout the story of the Bible.  The Israelites conquer and enslave others. There are also many stories of theft, violence, adultery, and other behaviors exhibited by people who would become known as heroes of the faith.

They were not perfect, and neither are we.  Much like the narrative of the Old Testament, our live are often a daily battle between our own excessive self interests and the interests of God and others around us.  Where we can be gracious and merciful, we are often cruel and judgmental.  Where we can stand for others, we often go on our merry, selfish way.  When we might use some of our resources to help others, we are often overcome by the drama of the desire to acquire, so much that it may even destroy our own lives and financial situations.

But there is good news, there is the Gospel.  Later in the Bible a man came along who did not give into these desires.  This man truly stood up for the interests of others.  This man gave us an example of how to live our lives in humility and service.  We will never totally live up to the example set by this man, but that's ok, because his death and sacrifice help make up for our shortcomings.  Then because Christ lives, he is able to guide us, be alongside us, and help us start over when we fall short.

Christ is the God of Liberation, and through him we are indeed set free.  My prayer is that we all live in this liberation and seek to stand up for others: the oppressed, the sick, the dying, the poor, the orphans, and those who are discriminated against by our worldly systems of power.  That is the life of his kingdom, the life of liberation.