Sure! Let’s Talk About the Ten Commandments!
While I was in Ireland this summer, folks kept asking what is going on in America. Every night a new surprise lurked on the news and one of them was the State of Louisiana passing a law, requiring every school to post the Ten Commandments.
In doing so they made some additional commandments like (my interpretation of the actual law):
Thou shalt use an “easily readable font.”
Thou shalt use a eleven by fourteen inch paper,
Thou could frame it if thy like extra credit.
Thou shalt post in every public school classroom, yes all of them even if kiddos can’t read yet. Yes even in college. All of them. Thou shalt.
And they give this language to be used…exactly!
"The Ten Commandments
I AM the LORD thy God.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
(Adultery… that’s going to be awkward when a bright second grader asks what it means and the school has banned research based sex education discussion).
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor's."
And that’s not all, there is a prepared set of paragraphs naming the context. Except it does not explain to any of the students about old English or how we probably wouldn’t use the words manservant or maidservant anymore, rather it is about the context of a 300 year old text book and how America once included the Ten Commandments in public education. It concludes with a chat about dictionaries… which you know are very useful these days, and notes how this all stopped in 1975.
Paragraph to be include with the 10 commandments posters:
The Ten Commandments were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries. Around the year 1688, The New England Primer became the first published American textbook and was the equivalent of a first grade reader. …The American Spelling Book, contained the Ten Commandments and sold more than one hundred million copies for use by public school children all across the nation and was still available for use in American public schools in the year 1975.” https://legis.la.gov/Legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1382697
Guess what? It’s not just the Ten Commandments.
There is also the desire but not the requirement, the encouragement but not the mandate that the schools will display the Mayflower Compact from 1620 and The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 which says “religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” But also notes that free male citizens of a certain age are the folks that count in the process to statehood.
When I was in Seminary (2004) there was a flurry of lawsuits surrounding Ten Commandment monuments in public parks and outside public buildings, the most notable of which was the Texas State Capital.
And it always makes me wonder, did the donor think someone might be setting out on a crime spree…only to walk past the Ten Commandments and have a change of heart. Like, "Oh I was going to was totally going to steal that car but now I’m going to pick up a pizza and chill.” Or “I was feeling murder-y but crap I just didn’t realize it was so wrong.”
It’s not impossible… but it is unlikely.
Is all of this really about the Ten Commandments? Because we can talk about them.
First, they are clearly written for men, so I guess if we are going to take this literally, you only need to pay attention if you are a he/him (everyone else check out…here).
Second, there are different translations and different orders (occasionally coveting is broken up), there were different orders even before Jesus was born. So this poster is really pretty WASP-Y in its translation and ordering. Honestly, there are two different places the commandments appear in the Hebrew Scriptures, both Exodus and Deuteronomy.
And while they have slight differences (the two spots in the Bible and the translations) the posters are missing something important… the very foundational phrase “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of bondage, out of slavery in Egypt.” This frames everything. It is about God’s liberation, Divine Love that will not stand by for the oppression of sacred souls.
The Hebrew people are gathered in the wilderness, they have named their relationship with God and then, scholars are quick to point out these words follow, define what the relationship looks like. The first half is about centering yourself around this understanding of divinity and the second half is about how you treat the folks around you.
Scholars are quick to say this is a list laws without attached punishments, more carrot than stick, you are to be inspired by God to love God and neighbor. The most unique feature of this Hebrew law code is its author; God wrote it. God is king and legislature. There are plenty of other law codes around the Hebrew people and while the human leaders might be divinely inspired and/or have special connections with their Divinities, there is not a sense that a Divinity wrote the laws.
You see when the Hebrew people receive the Ten Commandments or statement or words as it might be translated and they respond in fear. Fear might be also be understood as awe and wonder. They have witness lightning and thunder and a cloud of divine presence around Mount Sinai. It is wild and scary and I am just not sure a there is a “readable font” you can use that will really terrify school children like the original experience.
The other distinctive feature is how deeply liberation figures into this law code, it is framed from the start (even if that’s the part that moments and posters cut for the word count) and its part of keeping the sabbath. Keeping the Sabbath is about your relationship with God and rest for everybody and everyone is named explicitly. Because Pharaoh does not offer a sabbath; exploits, controls and commits genocide.
We could explore the Ten Commandments as Christians and doing that means looking at them the way Jesus taught folks to look at them. When Jesus talks about following the ‘law’ to religious and political leaders he calls them out.
Well…actually he calls them Hypocrites.
‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.
You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel! -Matthew 22:23-26
He is looking to the religious political leaders of his day (because remember they are the same) and saying you are following the law and breaking God’s heart at the same time. You can follow the “law” so exactly and at the same time with such distain for your community. You tithe mint and dill and cumin, you tithe so exactly that you measure out herbs but you offer no justice or mercy.
See we can look at the teachings of the past the way Jesus taught and when we do we might look at the Ten Commandments and ask hard questions.
Jesus began his ministry with a mission statement of liberation for the oppressed and good news for the poor (Luke 4) so when we read the Ten Commandments as Christians we must center this question. How is this Good news for the poor, the vulnerable?
“Thou shalt not steal.” Maybe it’s the obvious things, like cars or computers, but perhaps it is also the abundance, wealth and health of employees, continents and whole peoples. Perhaps thou ‘shalt not kill’ reminds of us of a true crime podcast and certainly it should. But perhaps Jesus would push us to question our participation all that deals death and destruction. Where can we end the violence of war and the harm of the death penalty? Perhaps Jesus would push us to explore the commandment even further because poverty may not sound like a gun or cut like a knife but it does kill. Thou shalt not steal.
We can take a look at the Ten Commandments and ask the questions Jesus might ask of us as folks trying to live the way he lived.
Like, why do folks want to invest time and money in posting the 10 commandments but not in early childhood education, universal childcare, student loan finance reform or free and healthy school lunches? Why post the 10 commandments in schools where young people may have “other Gods” and what other ‘gods’ do Christians worship is it power or wealth or control.
Because when you worship power, justice looks like a sin.
This might be to easy of an answer but this law seems to be about having the power to do it.
I bet this is surprising, but I occasionally receive emails from folks who long for an America when everyone was “Christian” and all the “good things” that went along with that…for them…in their memory. They frequently talk about women staying home and kids being better behaved and everyone going to church and don’t get me started about the things people are wearing these days. And most of the time these letters filled with sexism and racism and blatant white Christian nationalism but they are also the ramblings of folks who seem confused and frustrated and maybe a bit lost in the present.
And while they never want to talk, I just long for the chance to explore what they actually miss about the past.
Because maybe what we might miss about the past, that is coming up in these letters and these laws (at least for the masses that follow their manipulative leaders into the fray) might be a time when one income could support a whole family. And that’s something I want to talk about if we don’t have to make it about women staying home.
Maybe they miss a time when home ownership wasn’t so far out of reach for so many people and college wasn’t a life time of debt, that’s something I want to talk about.
Maybe they miss a time when the work week was a really 40 hours and there was time for folks to be in bowling leagues and Rotary Clubs and church groups. That we can talk about. Maybe they miss a time when the economic disparity was smaller and those with extreme wealth paid a much higher tax rate. And I promise you, I want to talk about that.
Because maybe we don’t miss the ability to pray to Jesus at football games or post the Ten Commandments as much as we miss the community that we had more time to build.
So if folks want to really look at the Ten Commandments, let’s do it. Maybe the past calls us to a richer conversation about the future. A conversation that takes accountability for the sins of the past and works to extend abundance to all our neighbors. Which I think is probably a bit closer to what Jesus would do.