Jesus Teaching
Jesus summarized the Ten Commandments into two, says the Rev. William D. Cotton. "Love God with everything you've got" covers the first five, and "love your neighbor as yourself," covers the rest.
My first experience with the Ten Commandments was listening to the preacher, who served our little church in the Lone Oak community in east Texas. On Communion Sunday he would read all of the Ten Commandments and hold forth for a time. Later at Sunday dinner, our family would discuss how to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. My parents believed that the day of rest ought not to be a burden or a killjoy. Baseball was allowed! I wondered about chores, and if I was off the hook, but “if the ox is in the ditch (on Sunday) pull it out.” We didn’t have an ox, but pigs and chickens had to be fed. I fed the chickens!
Later I discovered that Jesus did a bit of shorthand with the commandments and turned them into two. Love God with everything you are covers the first four, and Love your neighbor as you love yourself covers the last six. I had not thought about my parents as my neighbor!
On another occasion we were taught to keep the fourth and the tenth and the rest would be covered. That made sense to me. To remember the Sabbath is to know that this is pleasing to God. It also means that we are more than our work—and work should not be the only definition of who we are!
The last command “Thou shall not covet” seemed to cover all of those commandments that get us into trouble with our neighbor.
By the time of Jesus the Hebrews, a people of the law, had become trapped by hundreds of laws recorded in the Pentateuch. Religion had become a way to survive those ancient codes. Efforts were made to lift the burden of the law by the Hebrew prophets, but for the most part the Pharisees had put the people into straitjackets— how to survive the laws that had replaced faith.
The art of cherry-picking was born, which means find a bit of scripture that proves your point, disregard the context, and make it a new rule or test of faith. And it can become a word to keep folks in line or out. Sometimes such material sneaks into our Book of Discipline and becomes Church Law.
Jesus will appear as one who seeks a new righteousness that exceeds that of the Scribes and the Pharisees. He will restore the Shema, and add to it that we should love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us—the rule of agape love.
Now if we can only stop the cherry-picking within Methodism we might just survive as a Church. I read recently of the Nashville Group, that are betting everything on keeping a group of harmless people out of our fellowship. When will we ever learn? Lord Have Mercy!
The Rev. William D. Cotton is a retired United Methodist clergyman in Iowa. This post is taken from his weekly e-mail letter, "Memo for Those Who Preach."