SCRIPTURE: Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
TEXT: 8When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, THEME: Live the 10, intend to live. INTRODUCTION As we follow the progression of the God’s relationship with the Israelites through Exodus, they are off to a rough start. I mean there seems to be a lot of complaining and now quarreling from the people’s side and God has been relatively passive taking a lot of guff, and reserved, while answering their concerns, displaying that they can come to God who hears and answers. SCRIPTURE But now, as they are deeper in the desert, their dependence upon God is greater for their survival with; fiery pillar for warmth, pillar of cloud for shade from the sun, water, daily portions of mana and quail. The people of God see God as a kind of dispenser of Goods and services. But wait God wants more from this relationship, so God shows the Hand, God is playing. It may look like a bunch of commandments, a check off list of things not to do, but it is more than that, it reveals God’s passion for us. The Lord our God is passionate about us. We are so dear to God that when God saw how miserable our lives were in Egypt, God intervened, and called Moses to challenge Pharaoh and lead us back to the Promised Land. This is where our ancestors came from and where future generations will find their roots. God is passionate about our Love being only for God. Let’s get to know each other, what we are like, our character, our heart, it pains God when we waste time on ventures seeking out our own gods, any god that we built from our own picking and choosing will be inferior, shallow, lack continuity and saccharine. Such a god becomes a target to be blamed rather than helping us take responsibility for our own actions and contributions to our situation, rather than being partners in a fulfilled life. God is passionate about our self-care. The universe is systematic. From days to seasons, revolving around the sun, universes are held in magnetic fields circling each other in endless harmony. Feel the rhythm and the pulse that works for six days and takes the seventh day for rest, as a marker to spend time on relationships. To stop creating, to nurture our body, our mind, our spirit, and our soul with rest. To have time to invest in our relationships with God and worship. To spend time with our relationship with Creation. Time to spend with those who are the most important to us, to love, to be rejuvenated, reconnect, to minister and to enjoy. God is passionate about life. Creating life is out of love, the destruction of life come from a disrespect of love. We can honor the sources of life in parents, creation, God, and Apply skilled mastery to the lives placed in our care, the planet, our parents, our children, those in our circle of love. God is passionate about relationships. We work through the conflicts we have in relationships. There are tools and attitudes that God recommends for the basic peaceful enjoyment of each other such as truth telling, honesty, being content with what we have, being able to celebrate the accomplishments of others, being happy, sharing in joy and although not listed here, doing the work of reconciliation through forgiveness. God’s passion for this relationship with us is dynamic. When God jumps up and down, it looks like thunder, and lightening, sounds of trumpets and smoke. It’s like the first time we’ve seen fireworks, or been in a hurricane, or in a thunder storm. So powerful, our fear rises, but we are safe in God. God was a little too enthusiastic for the people of God. They wen’t quite ready for God to be so accessible. I know some people gather here that if God showed up and said come to me, that they would be running and screaming up the aisle, (Yes, Heather I talking about you). So for right now, the Israelites ask for Moses to stand between them and God, until they learn to trust God and not to be afraid to live passionately with God. APPLICATION This passage expresses God’s passion for us and of how God wants us to live in relationship with us. If obedience to the commandments were the only thing that could hold us in relationship with God, being the people of God would be impossible to do. God’s passion for us is more about how we live treating each other and living vibrantly with God. How do we take these commands and live them as a blessing? Move them from ‘thou shall nots’ to ‘thou shall do’s’. Have the 10 become an innate part of our living instead of a list of obey. See God’s passionate love for us and live that way of loving passionately. (Instead of seeing God as wanting to catch us doing something wrong to punish us.) This is how to live a happy, fulfilled life, not as a criminal trying to avoid punishment. The rhythm with our time, is a rhythm of relationships and a rhythm with our money and a rhythm with our stewardship of stuff. Recycling, reuse, reduce are the beginning rhythms with creation. Be like Jesus. On one level we see Jesus as obeying the 10 throughout his entire life. But on another hand, Jesus is an incarnation of living the 10. It is fluid, flowing, not forced but lived. Even when walking through the wheat field and grabbing the crown of wheat in his hand, pulling off the kernels and sharing them with the disciples as they ate a few like a hand full of granola. We can be like that. Live the 10, intend to live Segway: Bryan Sirchio, UCC pastor-musician-composer: Mission Moments https://bryansirchio.bandcamp.com/track/live-the-10> CONCLUSION We don’t want to be hurt in relationships, so we set up boundaries and communicate expectations to build a common understanding. This is what live the 10 is all about. It is about God’s Passion for us and how we can live with this blessing, of a relationship with God changes the way we live and treat others.
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