It is sometimes difficult to remember that this was not how the Israelites viewed these commandments. They had been slaves for generations in Egypt, and laws were something their human masters there had imposed on them. But now, miraculously, they find themselves delivered from captivity by their God, and now seemingly on their own in the wilderness.

Now they are at the foot of Mount Sinai, and Moses, God’s designated spokesperson, is called up the mountain….

First, the voice from the past. I was flipping through an old file looking for this or that when I came across a Letter to the Editor to the Cape Cod Times written by a former member here, the late Rev. Al Ronander. He wrote,

“[In a previous letter] Presbyterian pastor Henry Brinton notes that fewer men are attending church today, Protestant and Catholic….

The reason he gives: Men are not challenged to get involved in social activities and service projects. I agree with his observation, but not his remedy.

Attendance is down not for lack of being given things to do, but for sermons that don’t enlighten or inspire. Preachers who relate faith to real-life issues and give sermons that illumine the perplexities facing us will attract men, and women, too. Innocuous homilies and folksy services designed to make people feel good may appeal to some men and women, but not to the thoughtful, those who want to use their minds and find answers to life’s questions.

Vibrant, relevant preaching is still the key to a thriving church. And it’s the main task of those in the pulpit to provide it.”

Well, if this saintly reminder of the proper role of a preacher meant anything, it seemed to me, it meant that any sermon on the 10 Commandments in these economically fragile times called a preacher to denounce the rampant venality, greed, and disregard for the public welfare that characterized Wall Street over the past years in relation to the subprime mortgage debacle and the creation of such exotic and dangerous investment vehicles as credit default swaps and mortgage-backed derivatives.

Any sermon on the 10 Commandments surely would also have to condemn the non-existent governmental oversight and regulation of the mortgage and investment industries, the hands-off approach to the economy which has brought this once mighty nation almost to its knees, that has sent the stock markets into a tailspin, and that threatens to throw our nation into an economic downturn unlike anything we have seen since the Great Depression. It might include Will Rogers’ quip: “When Congress gets the Constitution all fixed up, they are going to start on the Ten Commandments, just as soon as they can find someone in Washington who has read them.”

Any sermon on the 10 Commandments would talk about how during the present Administration the disparities in wealth in this country have grown to be the largest since the Gilded Age, as wages for working folk and retirement account balances have stagnated at the same time as executive compensation has gone to astronomical heights.

And any sermon on the 10 Commandments would certainly fall short of the mark if it failed to deplore the partisan political shenanigans of this past week, reminiscent of Nero fiddling while Rome burned, maneuverings for short-term political gain which held up an economic rescue plan and caused the largest single day drop on Wall Street in history.

What we need, in short, what the 10 Commandments have to tell us today, therefore, is that we as a people, we as a nation, we as individuals, we stand in need of regulation. Sin is real, it permeates all that surrounds us, it would have it way with us. So it is time we got back to basics, and you don’t get much more basic than thou shalt not murder, or steal, or lie against your neighbor, or steal your neighbor’s spouse, or want whatever the Jones’ next-door might have. And while we are at it, let’s take care of our parents just as they took care of us when we were little, and let’s take back Sunday as a day of rest. God gave us these laws for a reason, and while some might view them as manacles, shackling us to prevent us from hurting one another or ourselves, they are manacles we need to wear.

Can I get an amen?

As I said, it was with all good intentions that I sat down to write that sermon, but even with Parson Al looking over my shoulder, I couldn’t coax it into being. Maybe it has something to do with my background as a corporate lawyer. Corporate lawyers often have a bad reputation within their companies, with the complaint being that they always are holding up the stop sign when new ideas come up. It doesn’t matter that there are often very solid legal reasons that a proposed course of action won’t work – no one likes to hear “no” all the time, and so the result is not that employees stop coming up with legally problematic plans, it is that they just stop coming to the lawyers to have them reviewed. I strove to be different, to get to know the company and its business and its hopes so well that when a plan was proposed that likely ran afoul of the law or presented legal liabilities, I could both say “no” to what was presented and at the same time make a suggestion of another way to accomplish the same end, but safely – and often this had additional benefits to the company over the initial plan. So much as I know we need laws and rules, my personal experience tells me that stop signs alone are not always the best way to achieve the objective.

But I think the other reason that “Just say ‘no’” sermon would not come out of my pen is theological, and comes straight out of the Ten Commandments themselves. You see, the first commandment is not a stop sign at all: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” There is no “thou shalt not” here, no rules for us to obey, no limits on human action. Indeed, the only limit here is on God – the God who delivered the Israelites from their captivity binds himself to this people: “I am the Lord your God.”

Here is the good news for us, for us who worry that we cannot keep all the rules, who can’t even remember what the 10 Commandments all are, who deep down fear that if we mess up all bets are off and God will turn her back on us forever. The one who keeps the first commandment is none other that the faithful God of our fathers and mothers, the one who forgives us when we fail to keep the others. The other nine commandments, they simply frame the grateful response we make to that gracious announcement of God’s abiding and faithful care for us. First comes God love for us, then comes our grateful response.

So can we really consider these rules to be manacles, shackles, unwanted and unneeded infringements on our personal liberty and cherished autonomy? That’s not how the ancient Israelites viewed them, they considered them to be God’s gift of love. God had promised them so much – descendants as countless as the stars, a special relationship with God, a land of abundance – and yet something more was needed, something which would help this people, until only recently slaves subject to someone else’s laws, be formed as a united people, with their own identity. And so this God who has just brought them out of bondage wants not to shackle them once again, not to bind them with arbitrary rules to keep them in line, but to offer a gift of love, no, ten gifts of love.

It is no different for us today. God offers us those same Ten Commandments, not as a two and one half ton granite block of onerous and restricting regulations on our free will, but as ten gifts of love. Ten gifts of love, freely offered to us that we might have what God promised them, what Jesus promised us, what the Holy Spirit makes available to each and all of us, even in these times when so much seems so uncertain and anxiety is so high: life, and life abundant. And like any gift, they are there just waiting for us to open them, to enjoy them, to put them to good use, that we together might have life, and life abundant, and that, like a parent smiling quietly as children delight on Christmas morning, our God might look down upon us with joy. ---------