The Ten Commandments as a Way Station.
by Mike Stavlund
Old Testament Reading: Exodus 20:1-17
For Sunday, March 11, 2012: Year B—Lent 3
If you or I were coming down from Mt Sinai, what would the commandments be today? Would we even have any? It is hard to imagine that God intended for us to be so concerned with these ten laws, thousands of years later, literally and metaphorically chiseling them into stone, again and again, like some totemistic icon.
Are they instead simply arbitrary, meant for another time and place? A friend of mine insightfully suggests that–in our day and age–they are exactly that: proxy measures for righteousness.
Situational Ethics, Reconsidered
To be clear to my wife and everyone else, I’m not planning on contravening commandments number six and seven. But I teach undergraduate ethics, and understand something about moral complexities: I will bear false witness to help someone, I don’t honor fathers who are abusive, I have crucifixes in the house, and I sometimes preach on Sunday. And it might be a good thing for me to covet my neighbor’s new all-electric Nissan Leaf, basking in the blue glow of its charging station, waiting to be pre-warmed via iPhone app just before he silently jets off to work in the morning.
But I digress.
Moving Past “Morality”
Following the work of Jean Piaget, Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg developed his theory of moral development in the 1960s and 70s. In his basic pre-conventional stage, children are mostly concerned with their own ego needs. Those moving forward into the conventional stage are concerned with rules, laws, and other social conventions. In the third stage, post-conventional, people move past self-interest and even beyond social acceptance to become autonomous, principled moral actors. All of which suggests that fixation on codified rules and regulations belies a lesser level of moral development. Rules and laws are proxy measures for good, Godly behavior.
WWJD? And Paul?
And didn’t Jesus suggest as much? He boils the whole Decalogue and the entirety of the Levitical system into an enigmatic one-two punch: loving God and neighbor. And we don’t need to look any further than this Sunday’s gospel reading to see a clear example of him running roughshod over all kinds of rules, laws, and social conventions. Jesus might not break the ten commandments, but he certainly operates far beyond them.
And what, pray tell, is Paul trying to say about the law in Galatians 3:23-25, especially by the words: “But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian.” Is school really out for the summer? Is it out forever?
The Hardest Question
All of these specific questions of morality drive us inexorably to the Hardest Question: What is the spirit behind these ten laws? In what way does God want us to live?
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Mike Stavlund writes from a 5-car pile-up at the intersection of his Christian faith and real life. A husband of over 15 years and a father of 4 children, he lives with his wife and 3 daughters in a small house outside Washington, DC. He’s a part of an innovative emergence Christian community called Common Table, a co-conspirator with the Relational Tithe, and a proud part of the collective called Emergent Village. He blogs at MikeStavlund.com, and his first book, "Force of Will", will be published by Baker in the Spring of 2013.
