Sometimes words matter.

In a book that is a mere 67 years old, Jean Kerr tells us about her life as a writer and a mother. In “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” she writes about a conversation with one of her sons, 8 year old Christopher:

“Don’t kick the table leg with your foot.”

“I’m not kicking, I’m tapping.”

“Well, don’t tap with your foot.”

“It’s not my foot, it’s a fork.’

“Well don’t tap with the fork.”

“It’s not a good fork” . . . et cetera, et cetera.

Kerr, Jean. “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies.” New York: Doubleday, 1957.

Let’s go to God in prayer.

God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.

Jewish people recognize 613 mitzvot, or commandments. These include what we call then ten commandments plus other teachings in the first five books of the Bible, which Jews call the Torah or the Law.

You may have heard some Christians pointing out that all of the Biblical commandments are still in effect.

They will usually cite something like Matthew 5:17:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”

Matthew 5:17, NRSVue

But then they will cite Acts 15:20 in saying that it’s only sexual immorality that counts.

Acts 15:20, where Peter says that Gentiles need only

abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.

Acts 15:20, NRSVue

and they still eat their meat rare.

And then there’s today’s reading, where Paul writes to the church is Ephesus about Jesus

abolishing the law with its commandments and ordinances

Ephesians 2:15 NRSVue

which seems to suggest that there are no rules at all.

In case you got lost here, I’ll summarize:

Matthew writes that Jesus did not come to abolish the law,
implying that all 613 commandments are in effect.

The writer of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles writes that Peter said gentiles need only “abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.”

And Paul writes to the Ephesians that Jesus abolished the law.

Jean Kerr’s son Christopher – whose name, by the way, means “Christ-bearer” – the boy who is tapping the table leg not with his foot but with a fork that is not a good fork, would definitely be able to work these conflicting directions to his advantage.

And we see a lot of this sort of thing today: people who claim that our nation is built on the ten commandments and want to post it in courtrooms, classrooms, and other places and yet make excuses for violations of most of those commandments.

So should we throw them out?
Follow them blindly?
Are they obsolete?

There are good reasons to question whether this nation is really founded on Judeo-Christian values. But even if we assume it is, what are those values?

I know I say this a lot, but it’s because it’s important:

Jesus said

In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Matt 7:12 NRSVue

and

³⁷“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Matt 22:37-40, NRSVue

And in the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a, Rabbi Hillel the Elder is recorded as teaching

what is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this—go and study it!

Shabbat 31a, Babylonian Talmud

Neither of these teachers said to ignore the laws. What they said is that there is a primary law to which all these other laws are subordinate, a law of love and reciprocity.

If you saw Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, you will know this ethic of reciprocity as “Be excellent to each other.”

Any ten of the commandments – and there are different lists in Exodus 5, Exodus 34, and Deuteronomy 20, not to mention the many ways they’re translated and numbered – are only examples of how to love God and love your neighbor.

It’s like saying that during dinner it’s impolite and annoying to tap the table leg with your foot.

That’s an example. Don’t do it because it’s impolite and annoying to others at the table.

That doesn’t mean it’s okay to annoy people by tapping the table leg with a fork, even, and I cannot say this firmly enough, even if it is not a good fork.

The law is to love one’s neighbor, and not be hurtful to your neighbor. The ten commandments, and the other 603 mitzvot, teach how to do that.

Even very observant Jews do not keep the commandments to the letter in cases where harm may occur. If a person is sick or injured on the Sabbath, on which no work – including driving – may be done, they will drive that person to the hospital because life is more important.

So should we post the ten commandments in every courtroom and classroom?

Or maybe we should make it all 613 commandments from the Torah?

Or maybe we could just use a law that is common to nearly every faith and philosophy, something that would teach children and adults how to live with each other:

from Ancient Egypt: “Do for one who may do for you, that you may cause him thus to do.”

from Roman Pagans: “The law imprinted on the hearts of all men
is to love the members of society as themselves.”

from Taoism: “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain,
and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.”

from Wicca: “An it harm no one, do what thou wilt”

from Zoroastrianism: “Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto others.”

from Bill and Tedism: “Be excellent to each other.”

and from our guy, Jesus: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

We could post one version of this.
We could post twenty versions of this.

And we wouldn’t have to answer first graders who ask “what is adultery?”

So my challenge to all of us this week is to see how Biblical laws, and even most secular laws, are built on a simple rule of reciprocity, which precedes and rules over every other:

Love each other and don’t be hurtful to each other.

If we don’t understand that one, we can’t understand any of the others, which then become meaningless.

If we understand that one, the meaning of all the other rules become more clear and vibrant.

Amen.

Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue