Who Is the God who Spoke the Ten Commandments?

Who Is the God who Spoke the Ten Commandments?

Second after Trinity

Collect of the Day: O LORD, who never failest to help and govern those whom thou dost bring up in thy steadfast fear and love; Keep us, we beseech thee, under the protection of thy good providence, and make us to have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

First in Series on the Ten Commandments

Homily Text:  And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of  the house of bondage (Exodus 20:1,2).

In the 1970s and 80s the stock brokerage firm, E.F. Hutton, had a series of clever television commercials. Two people would be talking in a social setting, such as a party or restaurant. One would tell the other what his stock broker advised, and ask, “What does your broker say?” The other would respond, “Well, my stock broker is E.F. Hutton, and E.F. Hutton says…”. The room would go entirely quiet, and people would lean in to hear what the person would say. Then an announcer with an authoritative voice would say, “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.”

There is a much more important question than what for us to ask: “Who spoke the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai?”

1. God Appears

About seven weeks after they left Egypt the children of Israel arrived at Mt. Sinai. The Lord told Moses to consecrate the people in preparation for the Lord speaking to them on the third day. God told Moses to warn the people that no one should attempt to go onto the mountain upon pain of death.  

On the third day, there was thunder, lighting, and a thick cloud of smoke covering the mountain. There was also a very loud trumpet blast. That was enough to make the people in the camp tremble. Then Moses led them out of the camp to the foot of the mountain.

As the Lord descended to the mountain, he revealed himself by fire and smoke. The whole mountain shook. The sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. It was the kind of experience that makes your hair stand on end. And then the Lord began to speak: “And God spoke all these words…” What follows is the Ten Commandments. Our Prayer Book tells us to read them in the liturgy at least once each month.

God spoke no more than the Ten Commandments themselves, because the people were so shaken by hearing God speak that they asked that in the future he speak to them through Moses. The fire, smoke, quaking of the mountain, and God himself thundering forth the Ten Commandments was more than they could take. They were experiencing was the fear of God.     

The writer of Hebrews describes their experience that day as seeing a…

…blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them.  For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear” (Hebrews 12:18-21).

In the first weeks of my seminary days I experienced something called Senior Preaching. On Fridays a senior went into the pulpit and preached a sermon before the student body and faculty. Sermon completed, he then sat on the front pew. Three or more faculty members would take his sermon apart. They were unsparing, even brutal, in their criticism. It created feelings of fear and dread, because I knew that in 2 years it would be my turn.

It made your knees shake to have your sermon critiqued in front of your fellow students and all the faculty. But that was nothing compared to what the Israelites experienced that day God spoke from Mt. Sinai. This was God himself speaking accompanied by signs in nature of his holiness, power, and majesty. He is not a God to be taken lightly. The fact that these Commandments are the only words God spoke directly to his people underscores how important these words are.

Today people have a very benign idea of God. God is a father who wants no more than to see his children happy. Or, a friend who wants only to be there for you. Or a life coach who just wants to help you achieve whatever you want out of life. But God is an infinitely great, holy, and majestic God before whom in our hearts we bow in reverence and awe.

This is the God who speaks – whose very words – are the Ten Commandments. It used to be that when E.F Hutton spoke, people listened. How much more, when God speaks, should we, his people, listen. 

2. The Lord Speaks

It’s good for a speaker to introduce himself. It helps us to identify with him, understand who he is, and why we should listen. What did the Lord tell the Israelites about himself?

·        “I am the LORD.” The word translated “LORD” in our Bibles is the most personal and intimate name for God. When God tells people this name, he is speaking as the God who has a relationship, or covenant, with his people – a God his people can know and count on.

When the LORD appeared to Moses in the burning bush to call him as the leader of the Israelites and send him to deliver them from bondage, Moses asked:

“If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”  God said to Moses, “I  WHO I AM .” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM  has sent me to you.’”  God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations” (Exodus 3:13-15).

God’s name is “I AM” – the self-existent, unchanging, sovereign, faithful God who made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be their God and bless them. He is still the same God and always will be. He has not forgotten his promises to their forefathers, but now renews his covenant commitment to this generation.

This same LORD, the great I AM, has come among us in the person of Jesus Christ. In him we see the holiness, glory, power and majesty of God, more fully revealed than what Israel experienced at Sinai. As St. John wrote: “We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” And St. Paul tells us that it is not just those who saw him in the flesh who see in him the glory of God, “ For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 3:4).

·        “I am the Lord your God.” There, were many gods in the ancient world even as there are today. The land of Egypt had many gods and goddesses. Two of the most prominent were Re, the sun god, and Isis, the fertility goddess. They were going to Canaan where they would be constantly tempted to worship the male Baals and his female Ashserahs. The Israelites might ask, “Who is our God?” The answer the Lord gives is, “I, the LORD, am your God, and the truth is that there is only one true and living God, and I am he.”

When the Lord says, “I am the Lord your God,” he uses the singular “you.” I am the God of all of you, and I am the God of each of you.” It is important for us as a church to know that we are a community in covenant with God through Jesus Christ. And it is essential for each of us to know that he is our own God, whom we personally trust. With Thomas we fall to our knees before the risen Christ and say, “My Lord and my God .”

·        “I am the Lord your God who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” He is not only their God, but their Savior and Redeemer. By great miracles of judgment on Egypt and salvation for Israel, he had set them free after 400 years of slavery, led them out of Egypt, delivered them at the Red Sea, and would lead them to the land promised to Abraham. The God who gives the Ten Commandments gives them to a people he has saved so that they can know his will and follow him as their God.

In Christ God has redeemed us from Satan, sin, death, condemnation, and hell. Our sins are forgiven, our hearts are renewed, the Holy Spirit lives within us. God, our Redeemer, speaks these same Ten Commandments to us: “I am the LORD, your God, who has sent my Son Jesus Christ to redeem you. Now, as my redeemed people, express your gratitude and love by obeying my commandments.

At this Table we confess our failures to keep God’s Law and ask and receive his pardon, and we renew our commitment to walk in the way of his commandments and do his will.

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Two Lives, Two Destinies

Two Lives, Two Destinies

First after Trinity

Collect of the Day: O God, the strength of all those who put their trust in thee; Mercifully accept our prayers; and because, through the weakness of our mortal nature, we can do no good thing without thee, grant us the help of thy grace, that in keeping thy commandments we may please thee, both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Gospel: St. Luke 16: 19-31 (BCP: p.211) There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house: for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

The minister of my teenage years said more than once, “The most sensitive nerve in a man’s body runs from his wallet to his heart.”  The story of a rich ruler underlines that truth. The man asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus pointed him to the Ten Commandments. The man professed he had kept them from his youth. Jesus said, “Well, there is just one thing you lack. Sell all your possessions and give the proceeds to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.” This answer made him very sad, because he was very rich.

The parable from today’s Gospel is a story about another rich man that ends even more sadly. The parable tells us about two lives and two destinies.

1.  Two Lives

There are two men, who can hardly have been more different in their lives – one was rich, the other is poor.

1.1.   Rich Man. The rich man had a great life. He wore the best clothing. His underwear was made of fine linen. His outer clothes, like those of royalty, was dyed purple – a very expensive dye in the ancient world, made from a mucus secreted by sea snail. Perhaps he inherited his wealth. Perhaps he earned it with work and wisdom about money. But it seems he had come to the place that he did not have to work. He not only wore clothes like a king; he ate like a king. Every day was a Christmas feast for him.

1.2.   Poor Man. The poor man had a miserable life. Whether because of illness or malnutrition he was very weak and was laid at the gate of the rich man’s estate every day. In rich peoples’ homes a piece of bread was used   like a napkin. They wiped the grease from their fingers with the bread, then threw it on the floor. After the meal, the servants swept up the pieces of bread and any scraps on the floor from the table. They took the sweepings out to the street where packs of dogs that roamed the streets would wait. The poor man was there with the dogs waiting for the scraps to be thrown outside the gate. 

Part of the man’s weakness and humiliation was that he had a terrible skin condition that covered his body with sores. The same dogs that waited with him on the food scraps, licked his sores.

The poor man’s experience at the gate of the rich man confirms the observation of Proverbs 18:23: “The poor use entreaties, but the rich answer roughly.”

The only thing we know about the poor man that we do not know about the rich man is his name – Lazarus.

1.3.   Death. The one thing that the rich man and poor man have in common is that they both died. Lazarus died. Nothing is said about a burial. That does not mean he went unburied, but that only the bare necessities of burial were done. The rich man also died and was buried. Probably he had a nice funeral with flute players and professional mourners and was put into a nice grave – perhaps like that the rich man, Joseph of Arimathea who had a cave in a garden he owned. But, both the rich man and Lazarus were as dead as Marely – dead and door nails.

One of the hardest things for us to get into our minds is that death comes to us all. No one escapes it. I will be 70 years old this year. I look in the mirror and say, “Is that a 70 year old man? I look back over my life and wonder, “Have I really lived 70 years?” Then I think about the fact I am 70 and ask myself, “Seventy plus how many? How many more to live? Still I have trouble coming to terms with the reality that I am going to die.

2.  Two Destinies

As their lives could not have been more different, so their destinies after death could not have been more different.

2.1.   Lazarus. The poor man, Lazarus, died. Though he had lived a miserable life, and had only a poor man’s burial, he was escorted by angels to a place called Abraham’s bosom, or, as some modern translations have it, Abraham’s side. The picture Luke gives us is the poor man in the closest possible proximity to Abraham. The importance of Abraham, the Father of the Jews and the Jewish nation. But here is a man, who was the lowest of the lowly on earth, who after death is exalted to a place of great honor and comfort, right beside Abraham. After death he was in the place of salvation and blessedness.

2.2.   Rich Man. The rich man also died.

2.2.1.    Torment. He lived a life of comfort and luxury and received an honorable burial. But after death he is in a place of torments. Two aspects of his torments are mentioned. He is surrounded by flames and his tongue is parched. He lifted his eyes and very far away he saw Abraham with Lazarus at his side. Abraham and Lazarus seem to be sitting near a refreshing stream of water.

The rich man called Abraham “Father” and pleaded for mercy. He asked Abraham to have Lazarus, whom the rich man seems to think of as a servant, dip his finger in water and cool his tongue. Abraham addresses the man as “Son” but said that what the rich man asked was impossible.

The rich man had received many good things during his life on earth, while Lazarus received many bad things.

Now the roles are reversed. The rich man is in anguish, while Lazarus was comforted. Moreover, there is a wide chasm that separates the place of blessedness and the place of torment. Those in the place of blessedness with Abraham cannot go over to the place of torment, even if they wanted. Those in torment cannot pass to the place of blessedness, no matter how much they long for it. At death destinies become irrevocable.

2.2.2.    Brothers. Then for the first time in the story the rich man thinks of someone other than himself. He has five brothers still alive on the earth. He asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers to warn them so that they will not end up where he is. But Abraham says, “They have the Old Testament Scriptures – the Law and Prophets. Let your brothers listen to them.”  The rich man, says, “But if someone somehow could return from death – perhaps like the ghosts who appeared to Scrooge – my brothers would then repent.” Abraham ends the conversation by saying that, if they won’t listen to Moses and the Prophets, they would not listen even if a man were raised from the dead and called on them to repent.

3.  Teaching

The rich man and Lazarus is a parable – a story used to teach lessons. We must be careful not to misuse parables. We don’t use parables to establish doctrine, but clear doctrine may help us understand what the parable teaches.

3.1 Destinies. The story illustrates that there are two destinies - only two possible destinies - after death. One is punishment and torment, and the other is blessedness and comfort. To put it in popular terms, there is heaven, and there is hell. No one will experience the fulness of either destiny till after Christ’s second coming and the resurrection of both the righteous and unrighteous, but final destinies are become irrevocable at death. We should not indulge, nor allow anyone else to indulge, in the hope that there is some change possible after death. It is a sobering thought, but a reality we cannot deny: Death is final, and destiny is fixed.

3.2. Faith. What is the difference between the two men that determines their destinies? The poor man, after death is at Abraham’s side, while the rich man, though 3 times he calls Abraham “father” is I the place of torment. What made the difference? Is it just that the poor are blessed after death while the rich are tormented?

No. The key to understanding the two men and their destinies is their relationship to Abraham relationship and to God.

What’s the most important thing we know about Abraham. According to Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). Abraham’s righteous standing before God was not based on his good works. He righteousness was received by faith. St. Paul picks up on this in Romans 4, where he says,

“… if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.  For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”  Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.  And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness… (Romans 4:2-5[BS1] )

The Jews are descended from Abraham by birth. But his true descendants are those who, like Abraham, believe and are counted righteous. Abraham is the father of all those who believe, whether Jews or Gentiles.

The rich man’s problem was not that he was rich, but that he lived for wealth and the life of wealth. He did not entrust himself to the Lord and his promises. He got all the happiness he would ever have in this life, because all he lived for was this life. On the other hand, Lazarus, the poor man, was a true child of Abraham, because he believed the Lord and his promises. Though he never had treasures on this earth, his destiny was to share in the inheritance God promises to Abraham.

People live according to their faith. Those who trust in riches will live for what riches can buy. Those who trust in the Lord, may or may not have riches, but they will live for the Lord because the entrust themselves to him for salvation.

3.3. Word. The real difference between people is whether their hearts are open to the word of the Lord. Paul writes: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). Whether there is no readiness to hear and believe the word of the Lord, not even miracles will not convince. The rich man thought if in some way Lazarus could appear to his brothers, his brothers would believe. But Abraham said, “No, not even if some rose from the dead,” would they believe. Do you remember what happened when Jesus called a different Lazarus - Lazarus his friend, the brother of Martha and Mary -  to come forth from his tomb, and he did? Did the hostile Jews believe? No, they intensified their plot to kill Jesus and wanted to kill Lazarus, too. And new those who will not hear the Prophets and Apostles, the Word of God, will not believe – even though Jesus Christ has been raised from the grave to immortal life.

Sacraments today are similar the miracles of Biblical times. They do not create faith, but they confirm and strengthen faith. The Gospel says, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ In Holy Communion says Christ says, “Yes that is true. Here, take this bread and wine you can see, touch, and taste. They are the tokens of body given for you and my blood shed for you.”

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Triune Blessings

Triune Blessings

Trinity Sunday

Collect of the Day: Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity; We beseech thee that thou wouldest keep us steadfast in this faith, and evermore defend us from all adversities, who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen.

Homily Text: 2 Corinthians 13:14 (21^st Century KJV, p. 320) The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.

Women are incomprehensible. I do not mean that we men do not understand them all at, but that we cannot fully understand them. Women confront us with mystery.

This morning we confessed that there is one eternal God who eternally is three Persons. One way the Athanasian Creed expands this is by confessing that God the Father is incomprehensible, God the Son is incomprehensible, and God the Holy Spirit is incomprehensible, yet there are not three who are incomprehensible but one Incomprehensible.

We can say that the doctrine of the Trinity itself is incomprehensible. It’s not that we do not understand what we mean when we confess God is three Persons, one God, but that we can never fully wrap our minds around what it means. God’s Triune nature is far beyond what our finite minds can grasp.

In 2 Corinthians 14:17 St. Paul makes the Trinity very practical, by pronouncing upon God’s people a blessing from each of the Persons.

.   1. The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ

1.1. Paul blesses us with the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace is not one thing, but the whole of Christ’s work of salvation for us. We will understand grace better if we first understand ourselves better.

·         We are sinners, who were born in sin, who are naturally in rebellion against our Creator, who please ourselves rather than God, who transgress God’s will in our thoughts, our affections, our words, and actions. That is why we often say that grace is unmerited favor. Grace is not something we can earn, or make ourselves ready to receive, or cooperate with. We might better say that grace is de-merited favor. It’s not just that there is nothing about us to merit grace, but that we have earned the very opposite of grace – judgment and condemnation.

·         There is a text in this second letter to the Corinthians where St. Paul describes Christ’s grace: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might be made rich” (8:9).

o   Christ demonstrated his grace towards us, by becoming poor when he was rich. He was rich in his equality with the Father, rich in[BS1]  inter-Trinitarian fellowship with the Father and the Spirit, rich in heavenly glory, power, and authority, rich in his full Godhood.

o   Yet he was willing to become poor - not by giving up his Godhood, but by taking humanness to his Godhood. He became one with us in sharing our sin-weakened, mortal humanity and by submitting himself to all the trials and temptations of this life – like us in every way but sin. He lived a perfect life. Then he submitted himself to being condemned by man’s judgment. He went to the cross, where he submitted himself to something worse - God’s wrath against sin. As St. Paul puts it in Romans, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”

o   And why? So that we who were poor, weak, and ungodly, might be made rich – rich in sins forgiven, rich in righteousness before God, rich as adopted children of God, rich as fellow heirs with Christ of eternal life and glory.

1.2.  St. Paul wants this grace to be with us – always, continually, without interruption, because it is only by grace that we can live with confidence and die in peace knowing our sins are forgiven, and we are reconciled to God.

2.      The Love of God

2.1 When we read the word “God” in the New Testament, it means almost always, “God the Father” in distinction from God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Paul blesses us with the love of God the Father.

2.2 When we read the Bible, we find an almost unbelievable, thing. God the Father loved us from eternity, and his love for us is the reason Christ came to die for us. In Romans St Paul says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (5:8). Christ did not make the Father love us. Rather, because God loves us , he sent Christ to die for us. When we were still sinners, in rebellion against the Father and deservedly under his wrath, the Father already loved us. When we were unlovable, when there was nothing in us to attract the Father’s love and everything to repel it, he already loved us.

2.3. In the Bible love is never just a feeling and is never expressed only in words. Love will always express itself in loving action. St. John wrote: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 St. John 4:9,10). God the Father sent his Son into a world in rebellion against him, into a world that, if it could, would reach up to heaven and pull him off his throne. He sent him to be the propitiation for ours sins – the sacrifice that by bearing God’s wrath against our sins, turned that wrath away from us, so that we could be reconciled to the Father.

2.4. The love of the Father for us is not fickle, but steadfast, unchanging, and constant. St. Paul also tells us in Romans: ^“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (8:38,39). If God loves you, he cannot stop loving you, and you cannot make him stop loving you. You may wander away; you may fall into grievous sin. You may suffer consequences. The Father may discipline you. But he will not stop loving you. He will always find you and draw you back with ropes made of love.

2.5. Paul wants us to know that the love of God is always with us. Whatever, happens, we should be able to say, “I have a Father in heaven, who loves me always, and, if he did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for me, how will he not with him graciously give me all things?”

3. The Communion of the Holy Spirit

3.1. Paul blesses us with the communion of the Holy Spirit. The word “communion” in the New Testament is a translation of a Greek word you may have heard – “koinonia.”  That word means “to share” – to share in something with someone else. Holy Communion is an excellent example of the meaning. We share in the bread and wine. But we do not do it alone. We share in the bread and wine with our brothers and sisters in Christ. This word is often translated fellowship.

3.2. The Holy Spirit is the Creator of fellowship. Pentecost each year reminds us that Christ pours out his Spirit on his church, each of us and all of us together. The Sprit is the One who connects us with the Father and the Son. It is the Spirit who, when we partake of the holy bread and wine with faith, joins us to Christ and all the blessings of his death for us. We have fellowship with the Holy Spirit who dwells within us all, and the Holy Spirit gives us fellowship with the Father and the Son.

3.3. But the Spirit is also the Creator of the fellowship we have with one another. Because we are joined to God, we are joined to one another. We don’t create this fellowship. The Holy Spirit creates it and entrusts it to us. St Paul tells us to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3) We maintain our fellowship despite any differences, such as personality and political differences. We maintain fellowship despite offenses we may experience. We share in each other’s lives: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another” (Romans 12:15,16). St. John tells how practical our fellowship should be: “But if anyone has this world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:17,18).

3.4. St. Paul wants us to be assured of the communion or fellowship of the Holy Spirit so that we will know we are have fellowship with God and can live in fellowship with one another.

St. Paul says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. When you read 2 Corinthians, it is a little surprising that the letter ends this way. No church other than the church in Galatia caused Paul more pastoral grief than this one. Some in this church had hurt him badly. But Paul blesses them all with the grace of Christ, the love of God, the communion of the Spirit. If these blessings were for the Corinthians, they are for us, too. The bread and wine of Holy Communion are pledges that we have the grace of Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Spirit.

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