Homily for Lenten Evening Prayer, Week I 2017 With Awe and Love: A Lenten Journey with Luther s Small Catechism The Ten Commandments

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1 Homily for Lenten Evening Prayer, Week I 2017 With Awe and Love: A Lenten Journey with Luther s Small Catechism The Ten Commandments Martin Luther made the astonishing claim that anyone who knows the Ten Commandments perfectly knows the entire scriptures. What he did he mean? Does knowing the Ten Commandments mean that we can recite them perfectly and that we have memorized Luther s explanations of each commandment? Actually that would mean you were top of your Confirmation class, but I don t think that s what Luther meant. Luther understood that we need to know the commandments by living them in our personal lives, in our churches, and in our world. To live the Ten Commandments requires love. Love of God and love of neighbor. Which is exactly what Jesus is saying to the lawyer who questions him in the gospel of Matthew. Almost 500 years ago, Martin Luther devoted himself to preaching on what he called the chief parts of the Christian faith not once a year. But four times each year. It seems he was quite serious when he wrote in his Large Catechism which was intended for the instruction and use of pastors: A shameful and insidious plague of security and boredom has overtaken us. Many regard the Catechism as a simple, silly teaching which they can absorb and master at one reading. 1

2 After reading it once they toss the book into a corner as if they are ashamed to read it again. As for myself, let me say that I, too, am a doctor and a preacher yes, and as learned and experienced as any of those who act so high and mighty. Yet I do as a child who is being taught the Catechism. Every morning, and whenever else I have time, I read and recite word for word the Lord s prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Creed, the psalms and so on. I must still read and study the Catechism daily, yet I cannot master it as I wish, but must remain a child and pupil of the Catechism and I do it gladly. Let all Christians exercise themselves in the Catechism daily, and constantly put it into practice... they need to become children and begin learning their ABC s, which they think they have outgrown long ago. And, so, my fellow Christian children, we are following Luther s advice and admonition. In response to the prophet Joel s call to return to the Lord our God which we heard last week on Ash Wednesday We are returning to God this Lent and taking Luther s Small Catechism with us as our companion and guide. Tonight we begin where Luther begins with the Ten Commandments. Our Jewish brothers and sisters who received them first, call these the Ten Words God spoke these ten Words to his rescued and chosen people to shape their lives by and for love. Love for God and love for our neighbor. This is what God wants and expects from everyone. We don t often think of the Ten Commandments that way, do we. We are far more likely to hear and view the Commandments as the do not or shall not rules. 2

3 Of course this isn t surprising, since more than half of them have the word not in them. But that s not how God sees them. A few Sunday s ago we heard how God sees these Ten Words in a sermon by Moses found in Deuteronomy, just as the Israelites are about to enter the promised land: See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments... then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. It seems that God intends for these to be guides, sign-posts even to show us how God wants our life together to be like. But... Moses goes on (and there s always a but, right?) if your heart turns away and you do not her, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish... Now just as the word kill does not always or exclusively refer to physical death, we need to consider what may perish from our lives on earth when we live in ways that don t follow the Commandments. When we lie, cheat, steal, sleep around, dishonor our parents, murder, constantly envy and lust after other people s stuff, work nonstop, and cut ourselves off from God, things fall apart all on their own. Death and destruction physical, emotional, and spiritual are natural consequences of these choices. So to remind us of all this, Luther explains each commandment. He adds thing we are not to do, but he also adds things we are to do. So for Luther the Ten Commandments is not just a don t do list but it is really more of a to do list. 3

4 While I m not any better at the to do-s parts than the don t do-s portions, I still find Luther s explanations helpful even salutary in taking a deeper look at where I need to grow and mature and... yes, most of all, remember how much I need God s grace. Reading through and contemplating the Ten Commandments can make us feel overwhelmed with guilt and sometimes even shame. But that is not, I believe, God s primary intension. In fact, I have drawn hope and inspiration from an interpretation of the Ten Commandments that came by way of a novel called, The Daughter s Walk a very fine novel based in part on a true historical event when Helga Estby, a Norwegian American, accepts a wager from the fashion industry to walk from Spokane, Washington to New York City in seven months to earn $10,000 to save the family farm. She brings her daughter Clara on the 3500-mile trek. Later after their return, the daughter, Clara, takes her own walk, which leads to a 20 year separation from her family. During that time she is taken in by two, elderly sisters. One of the sisters, Louise, tells Clara about an insight she has had while contemplating the Ten Commandments. Her insight, is that it occurs to her that we can take courage and hope by seeing the Ten Commandments as a promise from God she hears the promise from the words you shall love the Lord... Shall being a word that will be fulfilled God will make us able to love him and others. Ten Commandments. Ten Words. Ten Promises. The saving grace of Christ fills us with the power that enables us to focus on the foundation of commandment-keeping which is love: 4

5 loving the Lord our God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. In our lives we are always accountable. There is always someone to whom we answer. When God created us as a sign of God s love, we were made accountable to God. That s why God has given us the Ten Commandments. God loves us so much that we are not left alone, without any guidance or direction, to fend for ourselves. The Ten Commandments, therefore, become our reminder of God s loving relationship with us, a relationship that, in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, never ends. We need to have faith in the love of God for us in Christ, and then we can give it and receive it so that God s hopes and dreams for all people can come about in, with, and through us in all the ordinary, every-day things of life. This is true for every person rich or poor, young or old, students, teachers, pastors, janitors, nurses, doctors, lawyers... and Indian chiefs alike. At the conclusion of his sermon on the Ten Commandments, Luther says: Now tell me whether we do not have enough good works to perform! But contempt of the Ten Commandments has caused [us] to invent other orders. Now let us weave all the commandments into a garland, the last into the first. In all of them you find these two things: you should fear God and trust God. If you fear God, you will not mistrust God... and you will not harm your neighbor. 5

6 Luther says in the Large Catechism that the Commandments are not reserved to certain special times, places, worship or ceremonies, but are common, everyday responsibilities of one neighbor to another and that is the best way to fear, love and trust God above all things. And so, the Ten Commandments is an invitation to the good life. A life of loving dignity and respect for yourself and for all people. This is what God requires of us and for us, this is what God says to us and for us, this is what God promises to us and for us. 6