May 18, 2025

Thou Shalt

If you approached ten people at random walking down the street and asked them to tell you what it meant to be a good Christian, what do you think you’d hear?  I’ll bet dollars to donuts that at least eight or nine of them would say things like: Good Christians don’t use swear words, they don’t lie, they don’t cheat on their spouses, they don’t treat people badly.”  Let’s face it, most people’s idea of Christianity is basically the Ten Commandments.  It’s a whole list of “Thou shalt not’s.” People’s idea of clergy is generally that they’re people who don’t use cuss words (I have to confess that the present party does not qualify in that regard).

I’ve heard arguments for having monuments of the ten commandments up in public places, and for teaching the ten commandments in public schools, and even for replacing our federal laws with the ten commandments, all usually based on the notion that those commandments are the core of Christianity and all one needs in order to live as righteous children of God.

“Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s whatever . . .”  It’s as if, by not doing anything awful, you can put up a fence of righteousness around yourself and pitch a claim to blamelessness.

It’s essentially what is behind a simple thing like eye-drops.  Most of you may not know that many years ago I had a case of the shingles above my right eye.  I wound up with post herpetic neuralgia that, among other things, causes my eye to have difficulty tearing.  So, I have for many years been using a certain brand of eye-drops.  I recently bought a new bottle and discovered a “new and improved” dispenser bottle.  The main improvement seems to be that you can no longer get just one drop in your eye.  Hard as you try to do that, you can’t keep from getting two or three drops.  It’s a great idea.  We consumers go through two or three times as much, wasting a lot of it, but they sell two or three times as much product.  Their argument, I’m sure, is basically this: “Hey, we’re not our customers’ priest.  It’s not our job to protect them from themselves.  We’re in the business of providing eye-drops.  It’s not our concern that they are buying more product.  It’s good business.  There’s nothing in the law that says: Thou shalt not sell products to people that they want to buy.  We didn’t break any laws.”

It’s emblematic of a larger issue in our culture.  It started, I think, with our economic allegiance to free-market capitalism that sanctified the profit motive and convinced corporate America that when everyone is exclusively pursuing their own interests, then the interests of the society at large will a priori be served. I see every morning when I need an eye-drop just how well that theory has worked out.

But the concept evolved from economics to all areas of life.  Somewhere along the way we decided that freedom means: I get to do whatever I want, and so long as I don’t break any laws, it’s all good.  We can use and abuse our employees, giving them part-time jobs with low pay and no benefits, so long as we don’t break any labor laws; we can yell and honk at people on the highway and flip them the bird if they get in our way, so long as we don’t run into them; we can give people extreme opinions on TV shows to rile them up and call it “news,” so long as we don’t run afoul of the FCC.

I think our grandparents would be ashamed – those who took great pride in their work, who knew that serving the community and the best interests of your customers was, in the long run, good business, and who lived by notions like “what goes around comes around.”  I think they would be appalled at what’s happening in America today.

Those who justify themselves by claiming to never break the ten commandments are missing the point.  You can pile up all the “Thou shalt not’s” you want; eventually, you’re going to bump up against a “Thou shalt!”

That’s the message of Jesus in this passage from the gospel of John.  It was delivered at the most sacred and intimate moment he shared with his disciples: the last supper in the upper room.  And before the weight of the religious authorities and the Roman army would come crashing down on him, he left them with these hallowed words.  He said, in essence, that following the ten commandments wasn’t enough.  Protecting one’s sense of righteousness by hedging yourself in with obedience to a bunch of “Thou shalt not’s” was not what would define them.  He gave them what he said was a “new commandment.”  It was not something to avoid in order to maintain ritual purity.  It superceded every “Thou shalt not” that had gone before with one enormous “Thou shalt.”  It was a requirement to extend yourself, to reach beyond the law, to go further than anyone had ever imagined in caring about and caring for others.  He said, “Love one another.”  And more than that, he said, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”  Now that’s a pretty tall order!

His love for us was to be our model.  He didn’t love us by not cussing, or not cheating, or not stealing from us.  He loved us by giving his very life just to teach us what riches and greatness can be achieved in life by giving of yourself.

And apparently the New Testament writers took him seriously.  The commandment to “love one another” is spoken or referred to fourteen times in the New Testament.  For example in the first epistle of John: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”

Christianity, according to Jesus is not measured by the ten commandments.  It’s not a list of “Thou shalt not’s.”  It is one “Thou shalt.”

There is a marvelous allegory for the devotion to which we are called in an account by Dr. Richard Selzer, the former surgeon and professor at Yale School of Medicine.  He tells of a husband and wife he encountered after surgery.  Dr. Selzer writes, “I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had cut the little nerve.

“Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wrymouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks.

“‘Will my mouth always be like this?’ she asks.

“‘Yes,’ I say, ‘it will. It is because the nerve was cut.’

“She nods, and is silent. But the young man smiles.

“‘I like it,’ he says. ‘It is kind of cute.’

“All at once I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with [the holy]. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works.”¹

Jesus does not call us to cover our tracks, and make sure we can be held blameless when things go wrong.  He does not call us to a timid, half-hearted commitment to follow the rules.  He calls us to be nothing less than the kind of spend-thrift lover that he is.  He said there is only one measure by which people will know you are one of his followers.  It is whether you go beyond what is expected of you, do more than is required by the law, seek out ways to be concerned for the well-being of your brothers and sisters – your neighbors, even the ones who are your enemies.

Some folks object to the notion that Christians are distinguished by the demonstration of such love.  Anyone can be a good and loving person, they suggest.  You don’t need to be a follower of Christ to be kind and generous.  Well, that’s true.  But you also don’t have to be an American to believe in freedom.  It’s simply that America is, or at least has been, the greatest promoter of freedom on the planet, so it has always been something of a distinguishing characteristic.

The Church of Jesus Christ leads the way in generosity, in compassion, in offering hope and help, time after time, in every corner of the world, in all circumstances of need and want.  Every time there is a disaster, money pours out from our churches around the globe.  Every time there is an injustice, there are Christians standing up and speaking truth to power.  Every time the forces of greed, hatred, and carelessness rear their heads, there are blessed good people in congregations of faith raising their voices, lifting up prayers, contending with the principalities and powers, offering sanctuary, and putting their lives and resources on the line.  That is our calling, that is our identity, and that’s how they will know who we are.

Let’s sing it together.

¹ Richard Selzer, Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery, Harcourt Brace, 1996