"Shine the Light" delivered by Rev Mark Lenneville

Springfield Community Christian Church

March 11, 2018

John 3:19ff,

Shine the Light  Rev. Mark Lenneville

click here to see the video

I.              Passage:

A.  So a bit of historical context before I read the Wisdom lesson:

a.    The Gospel of John was probably written in, or around, or during, the years 90-120 AD. This was right after or during the reigns of some fairly notorious Roman rulers… Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian… (all REALLY bad people, cruel and sadistic and in some cases, clearly, mentally ill)…. Christianity was forced to become an underground movement.

b.    During this time, 90-120AD…Christianity was often viewed as being a part of Judaism, and yet, it was universally regarded as a heretical sect, at least by the Jews.

c.    Importantly, at least in the eyes of these Roman rulers, Christianity was viewed as a threat to the Roman government and Roman society. History is replete with stories of early Christians being tortured, thrown to lions for sport, and crucified.

d.    More than likely, by the time the Gospel of John was written, early believers had been forced underground and it was dangerous to lay claim to being a Christian. There were secret meetings, vocabulary, gestures, and symbols. Christianity was practiced in the shadows… in secret. People were afraid for their lives, their family member’s lives, and livelihoods. When the Gospel of John was probably written, it was a dangerous time to be a Christian. Both the Romans and the Jews wanted to identify “believers” and eradicate early followers of Jesus.

B.   So… even though the Wisdom lesson literarily appears early in Jesus ministry and early in the Gospel, the passage was probably penned during this time of oppression. I think that it is important to realize that when John places this Wisdom saying on Jesus lips, it was a bold and even radical statement about this new faith and how it should be practiced. It was a radical call to discipleship….to not do things in secret… and to not be afraid of the light of public scrutiny about what these early Christians believed and did… even in the face of overt, aggressive and hostile activity by rulers and others in the society.  

a.    It certainly was a radical and probably controversial idea that nothing is or should be hidden and that these early ideas, actions and beliefs could withstand the light of day and full public transparency. Early believers would have serious push-back, I am sure.

b.    The Wisdom saying for today is a clear call for followers to be bold... to claim the Truth (with a capital T)… and not be afraid of making public the claims of this nascent faith.

C.   According to the Gospel of John, Jesus was speaking to a Pharisee… a man named Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a member of the Jewish ruling council. Jesus told him about being born again; about being in the Spirit and not the flesh. He spoke of heavenly things and in the passages that come just prior to our Wisdom Lesson, we have the famous saying… “God so loved the world that he gave his only son that who so ever believes in him shall have eternal life.” These passages in John are fundamental teachings of Christianity, perhaps from Jesus Himself, but most certainly from his followers… the ideas and sayings all of which found their way into the orthodoxy of Christianity.

D.  Of importance, once you read these familiar passages, is what Jesus concludes his teaching with… his comment that sums things up. I think that these few passages found in John 3: 19 and following are important because they provide a valuable context for what developed into Christian orthodoxy.

a.    Jesus concludes his comments to Nicodemus with this summation:

E.   [SLIDE #1]  John 3:19 “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”

II.            Intro

A.  Have you ever walked into a totally dark room where you can’t even see the hand in from of your face? But, after a while, and as your eyes adjust, you start to see things in the room a bit more clearly. Perhaps not with absolute clarity, but you can pick out objects or people. And after a short while, things in that dark space become much clearer and you can actually move around and do things, perhaps even read some words, but certainly, somewhat see things.

B.   When I was in the parish, we had an evening worship service, during Lent, (today is the 4^th Sunday in Lent) and I turned out all the lights. We were in total darkness. Initially, we couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces. After spending time in this dark room, however, we could function fairly well. We could eventually discern things and people and we could even make our way around the sanctuary. Ushers could navigate up and down the aisles, the choir could see the choir director and the organist could “see” the keyboard and play some soft music. We sat quietly for a few minutes, letting our eyes adjust.

C.   As our eyes adjusted to the darkness, I talked about being in the darkness and how, over time, we often become accustomed to being in the dark. I recall telling the congregation that after a while, it becomes our new “normal.” Sure, enough, that’s what happened. We could see, albeit not very clearly, but we could see.

D.  Then, dramatically and without notice, I turned all the lights on. People covered their eyes. Many groaned and winced.  In a flash, things that were not very clear or totally visible, were now, very easy to see. There were a few minutes of adjustment and in some cases, discomfort, but for the most part, people adjusted.

E.   I had three observations that I shared with the congregation: First, it was interesting how we could get used to being in the dark and how those shadows became “normal” and at a level, even comfortable. We accepted the diminished light, the shadows, and the lack of clarity.  We could function, we adapted and adjusted. In fact, we might, had we had enough time, even started to believe that this darkness, with its grays and shadows were the way things were supposed to be. Secondly, when the lights came on, there was an initial period of discomfort. Thirdly, it took a bit of time to readjust our sight and our perspective but in the end, most people preferred living in the light and not in the darkness.

III.          Our government today seems to enjoy “living” in the dark and often operating in the dark. We often hear about what the President is thinking…in his distorted reality.. in this “dark” place… through his Tweets, attempts to cast blame, offer alternative facts, and make outright lies. When the light shines in the darkness, as of yet, he, his administration and the Republican Party, still seem to prefer the darkness to the light and seem to obfuscate reality by creating confusion and distortion.

A.  Of late, apparently those in power, have felt it is within their purview to ignore the Sunshine Law of 1976 which reinforces the need for transparency. This is a law intended to make sure that light shines on all government transactions. There have been many recent notable occurrences of ignoring this law or intentionally keeping the public in the dark. Here are some events… just to refresh your memory:  

1.    The President has contacted Putin at least 8 times. Our media, and therefore the American public, only heard about these phone calls and meetings through the Russian Press, because our citizens were not told of the meetings or the context or content of the discussions. This is not transparency. This is darkness.

2.    Recall Glen Simpson? He is the owner of Fusion GPS, a political research firm. He testified for 21hrs before three Congressional Committees about “The Dossier” penned by Christopher Steele, a former British Intel officer specializing on Russia. The contents of the testimony only came out and into the light because Senator Diane Feinstein preempted her committee and released the transcript. Her Senate Republicans refused to release the transcript despite the fact that Simpson and the Dems asked that the testimony be released. What were the Republicans wanting to hide? Why did they want to keep the pubic in the dark? Was it, as the Wisdom lesson suggests,  to create a cover for their evil deeds? Fortunately, Senator Feinstein understands what shining light in the darkness means.

3.    Let’s not forget about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017? This whole process seems so long ago but it was only in December when all of this drama unfolded. This whole process of sculpting this important legislation was done behind closed doors…no DEMS or public comments or testimony or input. The vote to enact this massive and consequential legislation passed along party lines, 51 to 48, with virtually no time for full-reading, debate or discussion… and was only able to pass because of a change in the Senate rules allowing for a simple majority and not a super majority. Where was the transparency?? Why did they feel it was good to sculpt this massive legislation in the dark and keep it hidden until just hours before the vote? Has darkness become the new normal?

4.    What about all the “Repeal and Replace of the Affordable Care Act” meetings? The DEMS were shut out. No public comment, expert witnesses or input. Fortunately, this did not pass muster. Why the secrecy? Why the darkness?

5.    This short list does not even address the dozens of instances when Trump or an Administration official is caught lying or having lied and it wasn’t made public until the light shown on their lies. Thanks to the Free Press, the Sunshine Law, and some people of conscience, we seem to get the information, albeit is dribble and dabs.

6.    Take a moment and think about … Pence, Sessions, Flynn, Papadopoulos, Nunes, Sanders, Spicer, Bannon, Price, Priebus, Gorka, Conway, Kelly and Cohen… to only name a few…and the list goes on, of people in our government caught in lies and “spin,”  seemingly intent of coving up their actions and deeds in a cloud of darkness. And the POTUS seems to live in darkness… his alleged affairs, secret payoffs to keep silent, unreleased tax returns, secret business dealings, scape-goating, bullying and taunting, posturing and more…all point to his desire to work and live in pervasive darkness.

1.    I am struck by what Steve Bannon said, [SLIDE #2]“Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power!” And I suppose that if you are into power, then darkness, obfuscation, opaqueness, confusion are key elements. Certainly, in my view,  this is NOT what our Founding Fathers would have wanted.

a.    [SLIDE #3] When our country was being born and when the Founders put together the Constitution, The “Federalist Papers” were written specifically as “talking points” and commentary and arguments as to the reasoning and rationale for including one idea over another. Even though the initial specific language of the Constitution was done in secret, The Federalist Papers revealed what was written and why it was written.

b.    Federalist No. 49 said, [SLIDE #4] 'the people are the only legitimate foundation of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter ... is derived.' Government is and should be the servant of the people, and it should be fully accountable to them for the actions which it supposedly takes on their behalf."

c.    IOW, in order for our form of government to function the way that it is supposed to function, the governed must be able to see what those who govern are doing and know the reasons why they are doing and saying those things that are said and done. The citizenry is not to be left in the dark and the government actions are supposed to be out in the open and subject to the light of scrutiny.

B.   And why is this?

a.    When the light shines in dark places and on dark actions… there is Truth, there is reality, and there are no alternative facts or fake news.  To live in the darkness distorts reality, shades the truth, corrupts the facts, and hides the actions and intentions.

b.    As Jesus admonished early followers… and as his words challenge us even today…we should not be afraid of the light. We need to come out of the dark. We need to not hide what we do or what we say or what we believe. What Jesus said and did was not evil, (although some like those in the government, in religious and in societal leadership, thought it was.) What Jesus did… feeding the sick, clothing the naked, being with those in prison and those who were oppressed or on the margins, he loved the unlovable, welcomed the stranger, he was kind and generous and caring… all of which could stand up to scrutiny, which, BTW, it has for 2k years. There was and is no current need for Jesus’ story, His actions or His words, to be hidden away or in the dark. They can and should come out into the light for they are not evil but good.  Let the light shine and do not be afraid or keep it hidden away.  Ahh, if only this was the mindset of current politicos!!

IV.         Now frankly, it is easy… and at a level… even seductive, and certainly compelling… to point the finger at others, especially our current government, and those who live in the public arena, those in Hollywood, business and in religious organizations…to call them out…to shine light on their misdeeds, to point out the darkness in which they live, to watch them squirm, to listen to the late night TV hosts make fun of them and their fear of the light and exposure. ….. And yet, when it comes to shining light in our own darkness, perhaps we are not as ready to turn on the light. Who here enjoys mucking around in the deepest, darkest, most secret places of your inner psyche… those often hidden places in our past?

A.  Like Dr. Ray, I have a background in counseling and was a licensed marriage and family therapist for a number of years.  I recall one young lady who came into my office and said that she was very sad, all the time, and couldn’t seem to shake it. She said, “All I want to be is to be happy again.” She asked me to help her to “feel happy.” I told her that in order to do this, we might need to take a look at, what Freud labeled as, the inner world of her sub-conscious and unconscious.

a.    Typically, most people are initially very willing to “go deep” until they actually do “go deep.” Within a matter of weeks most folks find all sorts of reasons to not come back for appointments or to be honest with their feelings, thoughts and actions.

b.    But this gal was different. She went deep. Brought out into the light, during our time together, were early childhood sexual abuse and later young adult sexual exploitation. She had buried these traumas to her body and psyche in the deep and dark recesses of her mind. This allowed her to not have to recall them, or for that matter, deal with them. And although this revelation of her hidden past, which certainly pre-dated the #METOO Movement, clearly revealed these past traumas and had a huge and pervasive impact on this young woman’s life and relationships. It took a long while, but by shining light into that darkness, this woman was able to heal and find the happiness and joy she sought. Shining light into the darkness was hard but worth it.

1.    At a level, this is what therapy and counseling are all about…shining light into the darkness.

2.    I marvel at those people who willingly and knowingly dive into their own darkness and shine light in those dark corners and expose those experiences of alienation from self and others.

B.   It takes real courage to shine light into the darkness…both personal and corporate. This is what Jesus was talking about…. Not being afraid to shine line in the darkness and having the courage to shine a light into the darkness. Others have said similar things:

a.    C.G. Jung said, [SLIDE #5] “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, (making darkness conscious)  however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.” He also said, [SLIDE #6] “Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”

b.    Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism, said, [SLIDE #7] “Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

c.    And the Buddha is purported to have said, [SLIDE #8] “To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a person can control the mind he or she can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

d.    Many of you have heard of Kevin Bacon. He is an actor and musician and starred in Footloose, Apollo 13, Flatliners and Mystic River and many other films. You wouldn’t expect him to be a philosopher, but I have found that many creative people dive deep into their own darkness and often emerge with some wonderful insight.

1.    This is what Kevin Bacon has to say about darkness:  [SLIDE #9] “I really believe that all of us have a lot of darkness in our souls. Anger, rage, fear, sadness. I don't think that's only reserved for people who have horrible upbringings. I think it really exists and is part of the human condition. I think, in the course of your life you figure out ways to deal with that.”

C.   How many of us willingly and consciously deal with the stuff that finds a comfortable living place in the private, secret and occasionally threatening places of our inner selves, that rarely, if ever sees the light of day? How many of us are afraid of the light being shown into our own inner darkness.

D.  For many of us, it is because of what Jesus had to say in John 3:19... we’re afraid on the light shining on our evil deeds. Or perhaps, and more likely… we are afraid of being judged, or that we might need to change, or apologize, or be honest, or deal with the circumstances of our past or the consequences of our present thinking and actions. Perhaps it is not because our deeds are or were necessarily evil, even though evil deeds might give us a clue that there is something deep down there in our inner darkness, but because, by going into our dark places, it might uncover that which has been buried or hidden or suppressed or for which we might be ashamed or feel guilty. Perhaps we might need to re-frame our reality and be honest about who we are or what we have become. Or perhaps we might have to deal with the lies others have told us about ourselves that have been hurtful or destructive and that we have come to believe are true about ourselves. Regardless, wandering into our own dark places, shining light in the darkness, being open and transparent…all demand courage. We, as people of faith, are called to have courage. We are called to be in the light and shine light in the darkness.

V.           Soooo… what is in your dark place? If Kevin Bacon is correct… all of us have dark places. If this is true, then my bet is that all of us have those parts of our inner self that could benefit from exposure to the light. It might be hard. It might be dangerous, but perhaps it is necessary. It is necessary to grow. It is necessary to not be afraid.  

A.  Mother Teresa said, [SLIDE #10] “Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway.”

B.   Now, I am NOT asking that you share your darkness with the congregation…right now. Perhaps you are depressed, resentful, feeling rage, or anger or fear of failing. There might be something in the dark recesses of your soul that is causing these feelings. Perhaps you might feel unimportant, small or “less than,” inadequate, or ugly. Perhaps you might feel a need to be controlling. Perhaps you are bitter, shame-filled, or feeling guilty. Perhaps you listen to your Internal Criticizer that constantly tells you that you are no damn good, you are not important or you are worthless.… and you have replaced our Internal Critic with your Internal Criticizer.  Perhaps you have addictions, compulsions, obsessions, PTSD, suicidal thoughts, sorrow, loneliness, grief, despair… Whatever it is, these might indicate that you are laboring in the darkness. By laboring in this darkness it is keeping you from being happy, joy-filled, peaceful and healthy.

C.   Frankly, some people enjoy the darkness. They enjoy living in darkness and they enjoy spreading the darkness wherever they go. You might know people like this.  Perhaps they get some feeling of power and control.  Perhaps they have found that the darkness has become normal for them and the fear of the light is so great that it will expose who they really are and as a result others won’t like them or love them.  They grow accustomed to being in the darkness. They like it and they wallow in it.  In the end, however, living in the darkness and with the darkness, only deepens the darkness and pushes others away and causes divisiveness and hostility towards others and towards self.

1.    This saying is often mistakenly attributed to Plato though we don’t know who originally said it, still: very insightful, [SLIDE #11]  “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when adults are afraid of the light.” How many of us are willing and perhaps…brave enough… to turn on the light and expose the darkness in our own lives? We do it readily to others, but what about ourselves?

2.    Muhammad Ali, that charismatic prize fighter and cultural critic said, [SLIDE #12] “A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he'll never crow. I have seen the light and I'm crowing.” Is this you??

VI.         Conclusion:

1.    The challenge this week is to lobby and be active in demanding government transparency. ALSO, and perhaps more importantly… take time and shine light on the darkness in your own thinking. The discovery of the true self demands transparency and light being shown into our internal darkness, so that we can move towards wholeness and healthiness. 

2.    Whether it was Eleanor Roosevelt, Confucius, or John F. Kennedy who said it, I don’t know for sure. But the saying is right on the money for our government and ourselves. [SLIDE #13]  “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”  Have courage. Light the candle. Shine light into that darkness.  click here to see the video

“Commandments or Helpful Guidelines?”

“Commandments or Helpful Guidelines?”    March 4, 2018

click here to watch the video

Dr. Roger Ray, pastor

Exodus 20:1-17         Then God spoke all these words: ²I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;³you shall have no other gods before me. ⁴You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁵You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, ⁶but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. ⁷You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.⁸Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. ⁹Six days you shall labor and do all your work. ¹⁰But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.¹¹For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

¹²Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. ¹³You shall not murder.¹⁴You shall not commit adultery. ¹⁵You shall not steal. ¹⁶You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. ¹⁷You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

You may notice the next time you change your sheets at home that all of your mattresses have a tag attached. A tag that tells you that the federal government forbids you to ever remove the tag.                 

So I cut it off. No SWAT team kicked in the front door. Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, has not called. I am certain that at some time, somewhere, there was a perfectly good reason for having a tag permanently affixed to bedding. I am equally sure that whatever that reason is, it does not apply to me and my mattress.

Similarly, there is a provision in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Kentucky that if anyone within the state is operating an automobile on any road in Kentucky, that they must send someone ahead on horseback or on foot to warn people that an automobile is coming through. Kentucky had the misfortune of holding a constitutional convention early in the 20^th century when automobiles were still a novelty, a noisy, intrusive, and bothersome novelty that often scared the horses and made the cows stop giving milk.

Laws are never written in a vacuum. They are written to provide guidelines that serve the greater good of the society. We set a speed limit on our streets and roads so that cars will not go so fast that they cause accidents. School zones and crowded neighborhoods get the speed limit down to 15 or 20 miles per hour. City streets usually hold it down to 30 or 40, while highways and interstates will go up to 60, 70, and even 80 miles an hour. But there is nowhere in America where we are simply turned loose, as you are on the infamous German Autobahn.

There are times and places, driving through rural Oklahoma, Kansas, or the Dakotas, where it seems a speed limit is unnecessary, or maybe it could be 100 or 110 miles per hour, though, as a patrolman in South Dakota explained to me last year, they don’t really agree with that. Lesson learned.

I suspect that the fastest cars being driven on the Autobahn are not being driven by Germans but rather by American tourists who simply don’t know how to behave without rules. When you grow up with rules, it is difficult to imagine life without them.

Look, most of us here were indoctrinated into a belief at a very early age that we are immortal creatures whose time on earth is short but this brief life is the basis of judgement for where we will spend eternity.

As absurd as the claim would seem on its face, we were assured by our parents, pastors, priests, and Sunday School teachers that it was all real. We went to church and saw our school teachers, politicians, bankers, doctors, and lawyers there and they all seemed to believe it too. So, fearfully, and unquestioningly, we were drawn into that mythic reality.

It has been a long time since anyone here nervously believed in a final judgement but most of us did at one time and that fear was used to compel us to be decent human beings. If you can remember the first time you had a serious conversation with someone about the possibility that there is not final judgement, no heaven above, no hell below, your first thought was likely, “then what keeps you from just doing anything?”

You were trained, consciously or unconsciously, to hear the ten commandments as a threat. It was fear of eternal torment that made you resolve not to lie, steal, commit adultery, or even to commit murder. There were always a lot of complicated matters about believing the right things, sacraments, rituals and the like, but basically, we had been trained to avoid egregious sins and to behave like decent people to avoid the fires of hell and to possibly attain to some eternal reward.

Once that moral threat and promise is removed, what is to keep one out of the brothels, opium dens, and gun shops…. Well, church never was good at keeping people out of gun shops but, you know, those other things.

As with many other laws, we have often found the loop holes in the ten commandments that still at least allow us to have killing machines even if we know that we are not supposed to use them. But I digress….

In modern times, thinkers began to question the church’s claims of authority and the threat of hell and the lure of heaven began to lose its grip on society. The

18^th century French philosopher, Claude Helvetius, who was one of the thought leaders who inspired the French revolution, plainly said: “Our inner conscience is not the voice of God, but the fear of the police.” Even without a supernatural deity threatening us with eternal punishment, society found it necessary to enforce powerfully negative consequences for behaviors that hurt the larger society.

The ancient Israelites conveniently put their laws into the mouth of God so that obedience had a very stark and divine consequence. Now our laws come from the mouths of politicians, many of whom seem to think that they are gods. Punishments come, as they often did even in ancient Israel, in the form of fines, incarceration, and, in the most extreme cases, execution.

It really is a shame that children are ever trained to be decent people in order to either be rewarded or to avoid punishment.

It may restrain us at some level of immaturity, but it also robs us of the much more natural inclination to love others and to want to be a good person.

We are a small church in a city full of big churches. I would argue that we have the best musicians and while I may not be the best preacher in town, I’m gonna say that I’m better than whoever is in second place, but we remain much smaller than most other community churches because we are not offering that golden ticket for the train ride to heaven, nor can we make you quake in your boots in fear of the final judgment.

I don’t know if that is a whole explanation for why we have a few dozen folks in attendance and many of them have a few thousand, but I am willing to bet that is the largest single reason. Even in an age of science and reason, a huge portion of the population is still deeply invested, not always consciously, but still meaningfully, in magical thinking…. Even if they are just hedging their bets.

Oddly enough, many who are able to see through the veil of ecclesial lies and snake oil, will fall headlong into every more silly and intellectually embarrassing practices to fill their need for some kind of magical control of the universe. I actually know grown ups who believe in Tarot Cards,

horoscopes, Ouija boards, and various occult practices as if the movie, Jumanji, was some kind of PBS documentary.

Of course, we have to take care not to be too harsh in our judgements, especially for those who grew up in Catholic tradition wearing a scapular under your shirt to keep a demon from jumping into your soul, or a crucifix, a saint’s medallion, or a rosary to protect you from all manner of evil.

And you know that Holy Water is not just a prop in vampire movies but that people actually ascribe divine qualities to properly blessed tap water,

and I won’t even wade into the muddy waters of iconography and statuary, much of which has real value as art but what they appear to do to the brains of the gullible is quite embarrassing.

And I am not even going to comment on the magical underwear that Mormons are supposed to wear…. Just acknowledging that such a thing exists should be all that needs to be said about that.

I hope that what I am trying to say here is not obscure. God didn’t write the Ten Commandments. They were composed by an ancient Semitic tribe that was moving from a wandering sheep herding society into being a settled agrarian society that needed rules that would hold them together and keep them from killing, raping, and stealing each other out of existence.

The Bible wasn’t written by God but rather it is a collection of texts from several nations, over several centuries, as they attempted to record what was their highest and best moral understanding of their existence. And they conveyed these stories, letters, poems, and philosophical writings in a way that was intended to instruct and persuade people to be good people.

Admittedly, it hasn’t always worked very well but it was, in all likelihood, better than nothing. The relevant question is that once we have awakened from the darkness of fear and selfish lust, who do we want to be?

Once you are not being manipulated with magical thinking . . . once you have risen above the purely selfserving motivations of traditional religion, what is it that you do believe? What does govern your personal behavior? What sort of world do you want to create? Because that is the more honest reading of the ten commandments in the first place.

I took a stab at just restating the big ten and I printed it in your liturgy today. I don’t mean for this to be a new ten commandments, I’m just showing you there is a way to state these principles with an understanding of what makes for good people living in a good society.

Rather than insisting that everyone must observe exactly the same religion in exactly the same way, doesn’t our modern culture demand a value that allows for freedom to choose your religion or to choose no religion at all?

I don’t know if a white, Protestant, boy from Kentucky can adequately channel Moses, but I just think if he were restating the 10 commandments today, it might look more like this:

I don’t know if that is entirely fair to Moses, but I am sincerely saying that we do not have tablets of stone handed down to us from on high. More than that, there is no carrot and there is no stick to prompt our civil conduct. There is only the hope that there is a divine spark within you, a sacred and precious desire to be good people who will create a good society, a society that can therefore must provide adequate housing, food, medical care, and education for everyone. A society that is capable of living beyond racial and national prejudices and can bring an end to war… and therefore we must.

We can discipline ourselves to act in favor of saving the earth and preserving human dignity without allowing capitalism to solely chart our course. Humanity is no longer in its infancy, it is time for us to grow up and make responsible decisions to fulfill our potential as a great society.