The Commandments
The Ten Commandments come in different expressions. The two major Scriptural sources are Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5: 5-21. St. Augustine, in the fifth century, used these biblical expressions to formulate the Commandments as we have them today. The Hebrew faith, Orthodox Churches and some of the reformed Christian Churches have different expressions of the Commandments.All share the same basic message.
The Exodus and Deuteronomy statements begin with the exact same words: “I the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.” (Ex 20:2 and Dt 5:6)
The point of God’s self-description is that the Commandments begin with love and they lead to love. God is giving the newly freed people direction how to live in community. They are the guidelines to life-giving relationships. They are not a set of rules and regulations that restrict and hinder. They are the pathway to freedom and love.
Over the centuries we, as a Church, lost our focus on this fundamental meaning of the commandments. I studied a theology that probably the furthest out of focus with this Biblical message of love. I was in my final year of studies when the Council began.
Here are two of countless examples of this distortion that lost its way in a slavish commitment to an exaggeration of the minutiae of the law.
The first was the case of the stolen chicken. The deep theological reflection was this. Who had the right to the eggs if the thief had cared for and fed the chicken? Were the eggs his or the true owner of the chicken? This was the type of material we were studying while the children were being hosed in Birmingham in the great breakthrough of the Civil Rights Movement.
A second example was a footnote in our 19th century Latin textbook on moral theology. I remember this footnote because practically everyone got it wrong in the test. The question was, “When is it a sin to go to the beach?” The answer is when you do not go into the water. This was a clear expression of the mentality of the time that was obsessed with negativity toward sexuality rather that seeing it as a great gift from God.
In our day, the commandments need to free our hearts in our search for God. They need to guide us in establishing priorities and values that bring us into love for God and for our neighbor. Over the centuries the Church got distracted and often taught us to use a teaspoon in measuring the items of justice and love in our lives. The measure God uses is a thunderstorm that rains down love and mercy without limits or conditions.
Pope Francis is constantly calling us to keep our eyes and heart on Jesus. In this way we can cast away the petty teaspoons when dealing with the measure of love and let our heart be open to the relentless storm of justice, reconciliation and mercy we encounter when we walk with Jesus. The God of the Exodus continues to call us into freedom in the covenant of love.
In The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis declares that the first message of the Gospel to new believers must always be the lesson of God’s love revealed in Christ Crucified and Christ Risen. After this encounter of love with the saving Christ, only then, should the moral consequences of this Christian commitment be set out. The context must always be the invitation into love.
The Jesuit Poe goes on to say that the challenge today is not atheism. The Church is challenged to meet people’s thirst for God. “Unless people find in the Church a spirituality which can offer healing and liberation, and fill them with life and peace, while at the same time summoning them to fraternal communion and missionary fruitfulness, they will end up by being taken in the solutions which neither make life truly human nor give glory to God.” (The Joy of the Gospel #89)
John of the Cross put this matter quite simply. He said only when the heart has a greater love will it forsake the enticing love the fragmented heart creates ceaselessly. This greater love is Christ Crucified and Christ Risen. In the way of love we will discover the true freedom of the commandments.
