Third Sunday in Lent, March 7 & 8, 2015 I think the Ten Commandments are God s list of essentials for living well, that is a life of goodness. Let us look at a few. What is it we need? Worship no God but me. Make no false images.. 15 Do not steal. 17 Do not desire another man's house; do not desire his wife, his slaves, his cattle, his donkeys, or anything else that he owns. What is it that we worship? : money, cars, security, control, prestige, the envy of our friends for our fitness level, our life style? I was reading a commentary on our readings and the commentator talked about a book by Garrett Keizer, called The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want: A Book About Noise (N. Y.: Public Affairs, 2012). (He also wrote the Enigma of Anger) It was the title of Lent 3, March 7 and 8, 2015 Page 1
the book that was interesting. It made them think of another book they had read, Needful Things by Stephen King. In his book, King weaves a haunted tale about how people can be so focused on what they think they need, they become blind even to the difference between good and evil. Do we confuse need and want? What evils do we accept as just the way things are? Can we not instead have a thirst and strive for justice, peace, equality? Remember to keep Holy the Lord s day. We need time for rest, time for prayer, time to grow into who we really are. We need justice. Both for ourselves and others, we need to be treated and to treat others with respect. We are all created and we all have a purpose. Our employment practices have finally come home to roost. Even here, in the U.S. labor is treated as a commodity to be used for the most profit. Some services close because of the weather. Work is canceled and workers, who essentially are being locked out of their jobs are refused their salary although they must hold themselves in readiness for the doors to their Lent 3, March 7 and 8, 2015 Page 2
jobs to be reopened when their employers can benefit.. Here I am thinking of bus drivers who pick up the elderly for day programs at nursing homes, resorts like the Villa Roma in Jeffersonville, who close because of lack of guests, restaurants whose workers are not paid a living wage and who live off tips rather than salary. When customer numbers slump, they must put in the same time at the restaurant but they can not make ends meet for themselves. Honor thy father and mother. Our culture makes it more and more impossible to do this. Our elders are no longer the source of how to live. Questions about technology? Ask a kid. According to Dr Atul Gawande, the author of the book about end of life planning we are using for this year s Lenten Series, as recently as 1945, most deaths occurred in the home. By the 1980 s, just 17% did. i We have been praying for a very dear friend of mine who died Monday. Nine days before she died she and her husband had not talked about where she wanted her funeral, whether she would be cremated or buried, the fact that she was dying, and Lent 3, March 7 and 8, 2015 Page 3
not going to recover. For many, the waning days of our lives are given over to treatments that addle our brains and sap our bodies for a sliver s chance of benefit. They are spent in institutions-nursing homes, intensive care units-where regimented, anonymous routines cut us off from the things that matter to us in life. ii Honor thy father and mother. Do not steal. Do not murder. Do not take from another what belongs to them, nor what they need to live a decent life. Do not underfund education. Do not underfund services for the mentally ill. Do not underfund services for the medically indigent, services for Veterans. Do not point an accusatory finger at some of the poor who have learned to use the system and overlook the wealthy bankers and industrialists and capitalists and politicians who live extravagantly because they too have learned to use the system. Lent 3, March 7 and 8, 2015 Page 4
Let us clean house as Jesus cleaned the temple. Look with new eyesight at what is accepted as the status quo in our culture and compare it with the 10 commandments or the three commandment of Jesus to love God, ourselves and our neighbor. i P 6 ii P9 Lent 3, March 7 and 8, 2015 Page 5