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Who Makes the Rules? by Rev. Carol Simpson, Associate Pastor 26 March 2000 TEXTS: Exodus 20:1-17; John 2:13-22 © 2000 C. M. Simpson

Our Old Testament Lesson this morning is the familiar passage where God gives the Ten Commandments to Moses, and through Moses, to his people. This is the passage in which God sets down and spells out laws designed to permit human society to function in a just and orderly manner. The first four give guidelines for our relationship with God, while the next six concern interpersonal behaviors, how we should act toward one another. The latter are so basic: Do not murder, do not steal, do not lie, do not commit adultery, etc... they are so basic that they almost seem simplistic. Why then, does human society have so much trouble behaving in a civilized manner? In part, the answer lies in the fact that we have thrown out or at least changed, many of the rules that God gave us so long ago.!

What do we make of a country, like the United States, which claims to be a Christian country, with the phrase "In God we trust" on all its currency, but where one out of every three homes contains a gun? Political leaders, CEO's and even heads of churches have been convicted of embezzling funds. So much for "Thou shalt not steal!" Lying is done under oath in front of TV cameras, and as for adultery, well......some might even call it the national pastime, and here in Europe, the reaction to President Clinton's recent affair seemed to be: "So what's the big deal?" How far we have strayed from those basic commandments! Who makes the rules we live by today? Consider this example.

In the wake of a recent rash of violence in churches in the US, a law was passed in Kentucky in July 1998 that makes it legal for a pastor in that state to carry a concealed weapon in church if he or she has a permit. The new law, speculated one Methodist pastor from Ohio, might open up all kinds of new lines for Kentucky pastors.

Such as: "Repent, or I'll shoot!" Or....

"And now, which points of my sermon did you disagree with?" Or perhaps.....

"Tell me again why it is that you don't want to volunteer to teach Sunday School?"

Just imagine what a similar law in France might do for our ability to recruit chairs for the Bloom Where You're Planted program every year! And think how our pledges would go up if the Pastor stood in the pulpit brandishing his gun and invited everyone who was not planning to double their pledge to stand up! The further we stray from God's rules, the more absurd life gets!

Jesus, obviously, never carried a gun. He was the gentlest, kindest man who ever lived. At least most of the time. Read the Gospels and you will find Jesus stilling a violent storm, healing a sick woman, helping a man filled with demons, giving the gift of hearing and the gift of sight to those without, listening to the plea of a foreign woman, using his hands to welcome and bless children. We like the picture so far. But then suddenly we come to today's lesson, from the Gospel of John, and we see a complete about-face: we see Jesus literally throwing people out of the Temple, scattering coins and overturning tables. He even has a weapon--a whipcord, and he is using it to drive sheep and cattle and moneychangers out of the temple yard. He's screaming at the people selling doves, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" T his is not the image of Jesus we are used to; it is not an image we love. What got into him this particular day? What caused him to lose his cool? He was outraged because people were breaking God's rules.

Jesus loved the Temple. John tells us that after the dust settled, the disciples remembered a verse from the Hebrew Bible: "Zeal for your house will consume me." That explains it. Jesus felt passionately about the Temple. But before we go any further we need to clear up one gross misconception often associated with this passage. It was not the sale of sacrificial animals at the Temple or the practice of changing money that upset Jesus . Remember, even Mary and Joseph, his earthly parents, had purchased birds for a temple sacrifice after Jesus' birth. Sacrifices were part of standard Jewish religious practice, and Jesus was a good Jew. Thousands of Jews came to Jerusalem every year for Passover, and many of them couldn't afford to bring goods or animals to be sacrificed all the way from home. So the Temple officials made it easier for them by selling sacrificial animals and other objects right there, in the Temple. Roman coins were not acceptable for the Temple treasury because they bore the image of the emperor, so the Roman money needed to be exchanged for Temple script. The concept was benign, but the actual practice had become corrupt. The rate of exchange was rigged. The worshipers were being exploited, ripped-off.

The moneychangers cared nothing about the Temple or God. They cared only for themselves. The system was all wrong and Jesus knew it. And he set out to do something about it. This is why many of the Temple authorities plotted to get rid of Jesus. Jesus was not crucified for saying, "Consider the lilies of the fields and the birds of the air." He was crucified for upsetting the status quo. Jesus' desire was to purify the temple, to put God's rules back at the center, to make the Temple what God intended it to be. You see, he was a reformer. His intent was not to discard the Temple, but to set it right. And that is a message that's important for us today as well. It is easy for the church, like the Temple of old, to lose its way.

Bennet Cerf told once about a book called The Ten Commandments which was to have been published for the armed services during World War II. Unfortunately, the book was deemed too long. "How about using only five of them," quipped one of the editors," and we could call it A Treasury of the World's Best Commandments." When I heard that story, I wondered which five commandments the editor would have chosen to eliminate! Actually, that's what many people would like, isn't it -- take out the five which are hardest to live by and feel good about keeping the others! Take the fellow who walked out of church one Sunday, shook hands with the Pastor and said, "Reverend, You really inspired me with your sermon on the Ten Commandments. Starting today, I'm going to keep one Commandment a week, until I get through all ten!"

We laugh, but that man was probably dead serious and no doubt considered himself to be a good Christian. Three great religions of the world, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, have at their heart these sacred laws of God which we know as the Ten Commandments. They are not the Ten Suggestions or the Ten Recommendations! They are commandments given to Moses on a mountaintop as the Law of a Holy God. They were given with the intent that they be taught and obeyed, not on a haphazard or voluntary basis, but daily by everyone.

The Ten Commandments are the foundation for civilized behavior among God's people. They are a gift from God to those who have been set free, showing them how they can keep their freedom. Biblical scholars more or less agree that they were put into their present form during the period of Exile (587-538 BC). The first through the fourth are concerned with religious duties: "You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for your self a graven image...You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain...Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy."

The third and the fourth seem to give us lots of trouble today. Some commandments are clearly easier to keep than others! In the culture of the new millennium, the Sabbath is often anything but holy, so it's refreshing to consider these two stories: Thirty-five years ago Sandy Koufax--a Jewish pitcher with an awesome left arm, announced that the wouldn't play on the holiest day of his year, Yom Kippur. Koufax's employer, the Los Angeles Dodgers, respectfully pointed out to him that Yom Kippur fell on the first day of the 1965 World Series, and they asked him, "Couldn't you pitch just a little?" Koufax gave them an uncompromising "No!" Later in the series he pitched two shut-outs to lead the Dodgers to a 4 games to 3 Series victory.

Or take the case of Eli Herring, a 340 pound tackle for Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He went one step further. In his senior year, sporting a 3.5 academic average, and judged by many to be a top senior offensive tackle in the pro draft, Herring, a devout Mormon, turned down a possible multi-million dollar deal with the Oakland Raiders because he, too, wouldn't play on a holy day. The difference is that his holy day is Sunday, and it comes once a week, on the very day when many pro football teams have their games. Herring meditated over his dilemma, and I would suspect that he prayed some about it too. He had two basic choices: He could sign up with the NFL, play ball on Sundays, fill his life with fancy cars and houses, or he could teach math for $20,000 a year and honor the Sabbath. He chose the latter option and announced to the NFL that if drafted, he wouldn't serve.

Who makes the rules by which we chose to live? I remember very plainly the conversation I had with my mother shortly after my Dad left her for another woman. She recounted that she had asked him what kind of example he thought he was providing for his grandchildren, who were four and seven at the time. His response was: "There are some rules which need changing and I'm going to change them!" When we ignore God's rules, people get hurt, and the fabric of society is weakened. The Ten Commandments which God gave to Moses so long ago are the rules by which we are all called to live. We are not supposed to make up the rules as we go along or to change them to suit our whims the way kids change the rules of board games, making up new ones to give themselves certain advantages.

Morality and personal integrity demand that we adhere to these basic principles without compromise. But we must also keep in mind that the Ten Commandments are not by themselves enough to define Christian behavior. Christ commanded, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind...and your neighbor as yourself." It isn't enough just to keep the Ten Commandments. We need both personal integrity AND compassion. We need to have both morality AND love for the least and the poorest, purity AND a passion for justice, the Ten Commandments AND a strong social conscience.

We can change the rules, but when we do, we jeopardize the fragile fabric of human society. We can change the rules or make up new ones, but they will never be as effective as the Ten Commandments handed down by God. We can change the rules, but when we do, we turn our back on God and shred the fabric of human society.

Who makes the rules by which we choose to live? Do we make them ourselves? Do we allow our bosses, our neighbors, our communities, our friends or others to dictate our behavior, or do we choose to adhere strictly to God's rules? There is only one way to be truly free, and that is to be a people who belong to God. God has given us life, purpose, heritage, destiny, gifts, truth. Yet we still compare ourselves with our neighbors and want what they have &endash; Israel's perennial mistake. Without God they could have goods and gratification; but they could never be holy, and they could never be free. And neither can we! Let us follow the example of the parents and children who stood before us this morning affirming their faith and choosing to live by God's rules. Then and only then will we truly know the freedom God intends for us and be able to live in God's grace. Amen.

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