We have been working out way through the ten commandments; believe it or not, we are up to number ten. Don't be too optimistic I have another eleven in mind, but that's for another day. And, instead of re-reading all of the ten commandments, I simply want to read for you today, the tenth commandment, because, in my opinion, it's one of the commandments that we understand the least. And, that our culture struggles with the most. Exodus 20 beginning with the seventeenth verse: "You shall not covet your neighbors house, you shall not covet your neighbors wife, or his male servand or his female servant, his ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." That ends our scripture for today. My dictionary offers two basic definitions for the word 'covet.' I looked at various dictionaries, and they're pretty much in agreement. The first definition of covet is 'to wish for earnestly.'I covet for something so I wish for it earnestly. And, the second is 'to destire what belongs to another inordinantly or culpubly.'
Decades ago when I lived in North Dakota. I lived just down the block from the local newspaper, The Turtle Mountain Star. Now, don't laugh at that, it was wonderful. The editor at that time was a man named Roger Baily. He was a very good and faithful man. Who, in our private conversations, would frequently take me to task when I was critical of some forms of advertising. Suggesting that much of the advertising in our day and age preyed upon people's propensity to envy or become covetous of what others had. Now, mind you, I respect the fact that the editor of an independent small-town newspaper makes his or her living by selling advertising. It's the way it works. Roger gave very honest coverage of important controversial events in our community, and he lived a very reasonable and less-than-extravagant lifestyle. Roger's view was that advertising was...

I'm going to condense that down today to verse 16 [Exodus 20:1-17]: "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor." That ends our scripture. On my way in to church this morning I listened to part of an interview on the radio with former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. When the interviewer asked him about the importance of the Supreme Court and the law the court is meant to uphold; his response could have been written by Moses himself. He talked of how basic community and interpersonal relationships would break down without the guidance of the law. That same thing we've been talking about for weeks right now he reiterated himself. Because it is that pivotal to good governance and good relationships that we follow the structure and the guidance that God has given us in the commandments. Many of the biggest stories in the news this past week revolved around 2 topics. 1) Freedom of speech, and 2) Truthfulness in that speech. There were stories about protests and law enforcement action clearing out protestors around the nations campuses. In particular Columbia University. There were stories about former President Trump being fined nine-thousand dollars for violating a gag order imposed on him by the court. Free speech and honesty of speech, whatever your opinion of the politics involved, dominated the news in our country this week.
As I drove home from committee meetings this Wednesday night NPR was airing a debate on freedom of speech. It had been pre-recorded and the reason they were re-airing it was because spoke about freedom of speech removed from the current issues going on in our country; where people simply debated the necessity both for freedom of speech and honesty of speech. Easily all of half of all national political messaging today has become about attack ads disparaging the opposition no matter whom that opposition is, rather than about honestly describing problems and discussing solutions. One survey I read, I don't know how accurate it was, the average person is dishonest 21 times a day. I don't know how they arrived at that conclusion, but it's a sad conclusion. In the artificial intelligence world...

First and foremost the 10 commandments are always communal. They're aimed at people who had no guiding laws, no guiding truths. They just escaped slavery down in Egypt and now they're out in the wilderness. The oppressive task masters are gone and there is nothing to guide them, nothing to keep them on track about what is right and what is wrong and how to relate to one another. And, remember the whole idea of the years of wandering in the wilderness, the whole point is that those years are meant to be preparing these people to be the people of God and to occupy the promised land following the wisdom and the truth of God's guidance. So, yes, it's about not taking something that doesn't belong to me, but it's also about how to forge a God-centric community. Where people live in ways that are faithful. The eighth commandment isn't just about respect for personal property, as important as that is; it's about concern for others and how that concern for others is so so important in building healthy community. The Hebrew of the eighth commandment is really pretty simple. The Hebrew word is Ganah, it's fairly straightforward, however it is a broader term than we initially think. Yes, it prohibits taking another person's things, it also speaks about not stealing (this is going to be foreign to your minds because it's not how we think) it's about not stealing other people either. Remember these people were just slaves. And now we're not supposed to steal or take other people. Not just their possessions, but take them and enslave them. Enslavement was a real part of the culture for these people. When you enslave someone you're not only stealing their freedom, but you're stealing their progeny and you're stealing the results of his or her labor. And, this speaks very much to 'you will not do that - you beloved people of Israel.' And yet, the word is bigger than that, because it also encompasses so much more than possessions. It has implications for how we use our environment. Rapacious consumption of resources from the earth is stealing from the earth and stealing from future generations who are also dependent upon those resources that we're taking. Likewise, running up unsustainable debts that future generations are going to have to deal with - that's stealing...

Most of us, at least those of us who are children of the 60s, that's not everyone I know. We have a soundtrack of our lives that we often don't think of. The music that played in the background during fundamental years that formed our opinions. Thirty years ago there was a movie that came out - Forest Gump. That movie was all the more entertaining because it had a soundtrack that followed all of the historic events the movie touched on. I guarantee you no young man of draft age, who grew up during the Vietnam War, that doesn't go back in time whenever they hear the song, 'Fortunate Son' by Creedence Clearwater Revival. It takes them back in time. One of the more impactful songs for me had to be 'Turn, Turn, Turn' written by Bob Seger and popularized by The Byrds back in 1965. I actually said something not quite true...we say it was written by Bob Seger, but we know only the last two lines were written by Bob Segar. The other lines in the song were plagiarized from Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes. And, that is our scripture for today.
At Easter this year the message focused on how God stands ready, able, longing to offer us amazing new life. Better life than we can possibly imagine for ourselves. But, for that new life to happen so often, just like Jesus on Good Friday, we have to be willing to let go of some old things. Some things we've been hanging on to, some old ways that have to end before new beginnings can take place. For months now I've been talking to the Session here about how to end my time as pastor of the congregation...

What is the most important thing for people to know? How would you answer that question? That's the question a Romanian journalist asked a Christian writer at a live video broadcast over the nation of Romania. Of course, that is a country that is under rigid and oppressive communist rule. They are a people that are enduring unspeakable suffering. Or, what about us? We live in a different country, we live in a different time, we have different circumstances and yet some of the similar common suffering. We suffer grief and loss, we struggle with disappointments, sorrows, and crisis and frightening health test results. Exhaustion, depression, anxiety, and worry. And, so, what is the most important thing for a soul to ultimately know? The answer? The thing, the truth you and most need to know is this, at the heart of the universe is the face of God's smiling love on you, over you. And, that is the answer the Christian writer gave to the Romanian journalist. What is most important in this world is about a love that is unconditional. The unconditional love of God. The most important headline is that the heart of God is for you and for me. The most important reality is that nothing can ever happen to change the reality of God's love for you. For God so loved the world, God so loved you and me, that He gave His Son, gave Himself. For those of us, for you and me, who believe we get to live forever with divine love Himself. If you could summarize the message of the Bible from start to end, from Genesis to Revelations: That's God's love shining over you and me. How then do we respond to such a love? The Bible answers that question over 200 times, and the answer is, two words, Fear God. Live in awe of God. That is my hope this morning that you will be challenged to think about what it means to fear God. That you want to learn more about it and desire to live in the fear and the awe of God.

In the Bible in the time of Jesus the Sanhedrin was comprised of 71 people from throughout the entire nation of Israel. They all shared the same historic faith of what we call the Old Testament, and when they were together, they represented the full Jewish legal system. In effect, members of the Sanhedrin were not just religious authorities, but they were judges over the people. You might even call them the first century Jewish equivalent of our own Supreme Court. And, like our Supreme Court today, they too represented a wide diversity of perspectives. We know, for example, that Caiaphas, the high priest, who identified most with that group called the Sadducees, was obviously on the Sanhedrin and very likely so was his father-in-law Annus. We think that Nicodemus who was sympathetic to Jesus prior to and during his trial, was also a member of the Sanhedrin. We know that both Pharisees and Sadducees, who had very divergent theological and social perspectives...they were as widely different as Republicans and Democrats in our own nation today. They had wildly different ideas of how to approach living out this thing called the faith. There was that level of diversity on the Sanhedrin. So, considering their day and age, the Sanhedrin was not only a very diverse group, but they were obviously very much not all of the same mind. When we think about the arrest and trial of Jesus, clearly Caiaphas rammed through the outcome he wanted...even circumventing a fully transparent process of the Sanhedrin, so that Jesus would be convicted. They arrested Him at night in the Garden of Gethsemane, where there were no crowds present. They tried him at night with only a portion of the group [the Sanhedrin] there. I have to believe that some members of the Sanhedrin were already pretty put-out with Caiaphas. He made this major decision and rammed it through...