The Ten Commandments: Version 2.0

Sermon

This is the first Sunday after New Year’s Day, and at churches and synogogues all across the country, there are sermons about resolutions for the new year-- little rules for living.  

We all make them; we all break them.   But every now and then -- and I’d say at least every couple millennia -- you really need to take a step back to look at the rules that form our foundation. After all, as Unitarian Universalists, we pledge ourselves to the endless search for truth, and the right of each of us to believe as mind, heart and conscience dictate. If we take that seriously, we need to look not only at the stars, but at the ground on which we stand. And where it’s not solid, we need to shore it up.  

So today -- and I think it’s long overdue -- let’s turn our attention to The Ten Commandments.  

The Ten Commandments are in the news. We hear that they are the foundation of our judiciary, so they should be displayed in courthouses and other public places. That they form a common ground that all Americans should be able to agree on.  

And wouldn’t it be great if we did have a short, easily remembered list of thou shalts and thou shalt nots that really would serve as a touchstone for good versus evil; for right behavior and wrong behavior? Ideally, something universal that would let us say “This is what we stand for, and what we believe all people of the world should stand for.”  

Well, the Ten Commandments certainly aren’t serving that role today. Few people even know them, which already kind of makes you wonder... I mean, 3500 years we’ve had them, and we still don’t know them? There are only ten. God himself chiseled them into tablets and said Live by these Rules! They’re the only part of the Bible that is supposed to be literally written by God. Yet according to one study, only 68 out of 200 Anglican ministers could name all ten. That’s just 34 percent. I haven’t seen any surveys on how many Americans can name them all, but I would imagine it to be somewhat lower than a majority.  

Also, remember that the price for breaking the Ten Commandments is death; were that actually enforced, perhaps they’d have a higher retention rate. Still, there’s no getting around the fact that the Ten Commandments are singularly unmemorable. One reason is that it’s hard to tell where one commandment leaves off and the next one begins. Various religions divide them up differently.  

So to refresh our memories, let’s start off today, by going over the Ten Commandments; those of you who already know them, please bear with me.   The first four deal with our relationship with God; the other six deal with our relationship with each other.  

The first four are:  

1. "I am the Lord your God; though shalt have no other Gods before me...”   Note that no one at the time that the commandments were written doubted that there were many gods; God is saying only that out of all the Gods out there, you shall put none before me. It would have been radical back then for any people to say “There’s just one God.” In fact, if you go to Genesis and read Chapter 3, verse 22, which is when Adam tastes of the apple of knowledge, God says:   “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil!” One of us.  
   
   Okay, well, this commandment is going to be problemmatic if we want to create laws for everyone, since it states that all religions that don’t worship Jehovah are wrong.  
   
   Many people argue that this Commandment is fine for everyone except Atheists, because it doesn’t specifically name any particular god, so you can just insert the name of whatever deity you wish to worship in there.  
   
   This ignores the fact that it’s written in the first person and, supposedly, Jehovah said it. So you can’t just pretend it pertains to any god. So it’s fine as a statement for some religions, but not useful as a universal law, and certainly not useful regading our courts of law and government.
   
2. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image."
   These nine words are the only ones scholars say was in the original version of the Bible. Now graven means only “cut into a desired shape.” In many versions of the Bible, the commandment goes on to prohibit any likeness of anything that is in the air, on earth or in the sea; specifically prohibits worshipping such objects -- which many people use as an escape clause -- and of all the commandments, this is the one God cares most deeply about, because breaking it not only condemns the person who makes the graven image, but also that person’s child, grandchild, great-grandchild, and possibly great great grandchild for the offence.  
   
   Breaking this commandment was punishable unto “the third or fourth generation.” God was not quite sure how far to take it, but clearly breaking this commandment would make God, to quote Monty Python, “quite irate.”  
   So, your grand dad can steal, murder, lie, etc and you’re okay; but if he makes a graven image, you, too, are condemned, along with your kids and their kids.  
   
   I think God may have a very good reason for this. Because humans have an extraordinary need to invest supernatural powers in inanimate objects, often in very destructive ways. We make fun of primitive people who don’t want their picture taken because someone might take the picture and do things to it, which could harm their spirit or soul. But we civilized people cringe at the thought of someone burning, or soiling or otherwise besmirching a piece of cloth dyed with particular colors that represent our society.  
   
   Similarly, despite a specific prohibition, that comes directly from God, true believers routinely fashion, sell, and purchase graven images, including crosses, stars, moons, crucifixes and other items, and use them as objects of veneration. And the only justification for this is a series of, to my mind, clearly equivications, such as “well, we’re not actually worshipping them!” we just use them to worship god.  
   
   But of course, that’s exactly what all religions do with graven images. The worshippers of Baal used the golden calf to worship something ineffable. If another tribe came and stole the calf, they wouldn’t say “Oh, well, God got stolen. We’ll have to stop worshipping Baal.” They’d just make another one. So that line of reasoning really gets you nowhere.  
   
   But more interesting to me is this: there is not any requirement to make religious icons anywhere in the Bible. God never says “Make yourself a star... or a cross... or a crescent moon that though may better worship me.” And anyone would agree that there at least appears to be a somewhat dim view cast upon such activity expressed in the second commandment. So why would you take any chances? Is it that hard to NOT make a graven image? Isn’t this the easiest commandment of all to follow? And yet the drive to do so is so incredibly strong, that virtually all religious sects just can’t help themselves.  
   
   Whenever we humans do something that crazy -- we find ourselves compelled inescapably -- that makes me think there is something there that requires careful consideration. This commandment made it all the way to my final cut. But then it had to go to make room for another.  
   
3. "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.”  
   This has nothing to do with profanity. Most scholars believe it originally referred to using god’s name for your own frivolous purposes, “My god will punish you if you don’t do as I say!” and stuff like that. I learned in my religion class that it referred to breaking a contract that you swore before god. Not sure either of those prohibitions quite belong in the final ten.
   
4. Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.
   This was intended to be the seventh day, Saturday, the day on which God rested, but later got switched to the first day of the week, Sunday, after the Roman-Jewish wars, when doing anything that appeared remotely Jewish became a crime. So in the Roman empire, the Sun God’s holy day became the Christian’s holy day, and the Sabbath, despite it having it’s own Commandment, was no longer considered particularly holy in most Christian circles. And of course neither Saturday nor Sunday is still kept particularly holy in most households -- people shop, pay bills, watch sports. We do take time off from our jobs, but we replace only a few of those hours with anything that could be described as holy.  
   
   So the question is, in our New Commandments, in the Commandments Version 2.0, do we need anything from these first four commandments? In other words, do we need to include God?  
   
   Here’s my proposal: While anything that specifically refers to any god, and certainly one particular God, is going to rile some people, I think we need at least some commandments that refer to spiritual concerns, as opposed to basic rules of conduct. So while the first four original commandments refer to our relationship to God, let’s make the first four NEW commandments refer to our relationship to the Universe-- for those so inclined, this could be a God; or, a nurturing, creative spirit; or, just spiritual questions and concerns for which there may be no rational answer.   Now, the remaining commandments: 
   
5. Honor your father and mother.   Not bad, though problemmatic if your father or mother is truly horrible. Some say “No! There can’t be a law ordering me to respect someone. Respect is earned.” On the other hand, as Unitarian Universalists, we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being, even parents, and in the transformative power of love. And of course, Jesus challenged us to Love our enemies. If we can strive to love those who truly hate us, can’t we make honoring our parents a commandment? Certainly worth considering.
   
6. Thou shalt not murder. And yes, I said murder, not kill. Fundamentalists who believe in the death penalty and who argue that murder is the proper translation are absolutely correct, as is evident by the subsequent verses of the bible, which specifically spell out how those who break various commandments should be put to death. So clearly, thou shalt not “kill” is inaccurate.   This is the commandment most people know and, to some extent, believe in, and I think we need to include it in some form. Though maybe it could be part of a commandment against causing harm or suffering in general. Otherwise, someone could say “hey, I can maim. The commandments say murder, but they don’t prevent me from maiming.” I say, best not to have commandments that let people get away with too much.
   
7. Thou shall not commit adultery. This was a prohibition specifically against married men having sex with married or engaged women. At the time of the Commandments, married men having sex with lots of single women, or having lots of wives, was quite respectable. So, yes, according to the Bible, Bill Clinton did not commit adultery-- at least not with Monica Lewinski.   So this would need some tweaking to make it work today, but fidelity does seem worthy of consideration in our new commandments.
   
8. Thou shalt not kidnap people. The hebrew word in this commandment, commonly translated as “steal,” actually refers to stealing people and selling them as slaves. There are commandments dealing with purloining property in Deuteronomy, but stealing property did not make the original top ten.  
   
   So the original commandment doesn’t have much use today, though the modern meaning of prohibiting theft of any property might be useful.
   
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. This means committing perjury in court, but it might be useful to have a commandment concerning honesty in general.  
   
10. Finally, 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors house. This did not mean an actual physical building -- it referred to his property, which included his wife, slaves, children, animals and any material possessions.   Coveting certainly can lead to all sorts of evil. But is it so bad that it should get its own commandment?   Okay, there you have them.

This is a sermon and not a lecture, so I won’t go into all the various codes of conduct that came before or around the same time as the Ten Commandments -- but I can’t resist mentioning a few, like the Code of Hammurabi, which was a detailed list of crimes and their punishments. chiseled into a stone monument about three centuries before the time most often given as the time of the Exodus-- and amazingly, it still exists-- the original stone tablets of Hammurabi are on display in the Louvre.

Others I can’t resist mentioning are the Laws of Adam and the Seven Noahide Laws given to Noah.   By the way, you can stop taking notes: there are links to these and all other references in the Web version of this sermon, at the website: www.uucss.org.  

Long before the Exodus, God presented Adam with six laws of conduct, including prohibitions against murder, stealing, idol worship, adultery and blasphemy. And also the requirement to appoint judges to oversee the other five laws. Which makes one wonder where Adam was going to find judges, not to mention with whom he could commit adultery... In any case, these laws, plus a seventh, which prohibited eating the flesh of a living animal, were later given to Noah as the Seven Noahide laws. These Laws were meant to be binding on all mankind, not just Jews.  

Another antecedent to the Ten Commandments was the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jewish moral codes probably at least partially rely on these Egyptian religious beliefs.  

Before getting into heaven, the book states, you had to swear that you had not broken a series of laws. For example: "I have not inflicted pain or caused another to weep. I have not murdered or given such an order. I have not used false balances or scales. I have not purloined (held back) the offerings to the gods. I have not stolen. I have not uttered lies or curses."  

The Book of the Dead covered most of the commandments three centuries before the Commandments, leaving out keeping the Sabbath of course, the forbidding of idols, and forbidding coveting.  

One last set of ancient commandments I feel compelled to mention are those of the Greek poet and politician Solon, who lived around 600 BC. That was a couple hundred years after the Exodus versions of the Ten Commandments were written, and shortly after the more detailed commandments that appear in Deuteronomy. Solon’s ten commandment hold up quite well today. They were:  

1. Trust good character more than promises.
2. Do not speak falsely.
3. Do good things.
4. Do not be hasty in making friends, but do not abandon them once made.
5. Learn to obey before you command.
6. When giving advice, do not recommend what is most pleasing, but what is most useful.
7. Make reason your supreme commander.
8. Do not associate with people who do bad things.
9. Honor the gods.
10. Have regard for your parents.  

Solon became so popular -- I think of him as the Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin of the ancient Greeks -- that he was asked to re-write the Constitution, which resulted in at least the first approximation of a formal civil democracy. This Greek model of course became the model used by our founding fathers. So perhaps Solon’s commandments are the ones that ought to be on display in today’s courts and government buildings.  

On to the future: My test of really good commandments is “if everyone were to follow them, how much better would the world be as a result?” And, well, I think the original Ten Commandments are somewhat lacking. They suggest exceptionalism for one group of people, which is never a good idea; a very low regard for women, slaves or anyone who believes differently; and punishing the innocent for crimes of the guilty just because they happen to be related. There’s also a high level of specificity to some of them that allow people to get away with, if not murder, lots of mayhem.  

Before I trot out my ideas, I do want to at least call your attention to several other modern attempts to do the same thing. You won’t be surprised to learn that others have tried to create updated commandments.   Perhaps the most famous scholar to make this attempt was George Carlin. In his comedy routine Why We Don’t Need Ten Commandments, he immediately throws out any that relate directly to God, then goes on to systematically and fairly obscenely, conflate the rest into Two: Thou shalt be faithful/honest and thou shall try real hard not to kill anyone. Then he adds a third: Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.  

Carlin’s commandments have the advantage of economy. They’re easy to remember. They don’t take up much space. As he points out, Moses could have carried them down the mountain in his pocket. But to me, they lack scope and gravitas.  

Here’s a set that appear at a website called Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. This set has five thou shalt nots, followed by five thou shalts:  

The "Shalt Nots"

• Thou shalt not kill.
• Thou shalt not steal.
• Thou shalt not lie.
• Thou shalt not hate.
• Thou shalt not oppress.

The "Shalls"

• Thou shall love.
• Thou shall create.
• Thou shall seek knowledge.
• Thou shall have courage.
• Thou shall know thyself.

These are pretty good; they’re nice and short, like Carlin’s but a bit more expansive and useful. Somehow, though, they don’t seem useful enough to me. Maybe because they’re so direct -- thou shall have courage -- they don’t really provide much of a scaffold.  

For more modern attempts, go to the website Religious Tolerance, to whom I owe a great debt. It’s a web site run by a guy in Ontario named Bruce Robinson. He’s a Unitarian Universalist, he and his cohorts write beautifully reasoned and researched articles on all aspects of all religions. It’s at www.religoustolerance.org. And one thing they do is post several modern attempts at re-working the Ten Commandments.   Some take each of the original Ten Commandments and sort of sanitize them for modern consumption. So, for instance, the first commandment becomes:   1. Respect and worship any deity within your faith tradition, if you follow one. Value and support the right of others to do the same.  

Which is a great way to do it; I didn’t want to be contrained in that manner, but I can see that it can be easier to edit than to start over.  

There’s a set from the Long Island Secular Humanists called The Standard Ten Commandments with such items as:   Commandment 5: “We shall be responsible for our actions.”  

So they use “We shall...” instead of “Thou shalt not...” So these are not so much Commandments as Affirmations. Which is kind of nice.  

But, you know, it’s human nature to lend less credence to positive affirmations than to negative admonitions. I mean, consider “Don’t play with your food!” versus “Respect your food always.” One makes you jump, while the other makes you just nod and say “yeah, yeah...”  

There is one set of commandments on the site that I do want to read. It’s called the Native American Ten Commandments: This has been published in many places on the Internet. The author is unknown. It’s not known if it’s even remotely Native American, but it’s dang good:  

1. Treat the Earth and all that dwell thereon with respect.
2. Remain close to the Great Spirit.
3. Consider the impact on the next six generations when making decisions.
4. Work together to benefit all humanity.
5. Freely give help and kindness wherever needed.
6. Do what you believe to be right.
7. Look after the well-being of your mind and body.
8. Contribute a share of your efforts to the greater good.
9. Be truthful and honest at all times.
10. Take full responsibility for your actions.  

Those are really nice, and almost made me stop right there. I mean who needs another set??  

Then, I said, oh what the heck? I’ve come this far.  

So here’s my take. I tried to retain the original commandments’ emphasis on the spiritual first, and then the rules of social conduct after. Actually, I did four spiritual, four specific rules of conduct, and then two commandments that come into play if something isn’t covered by the other eight, or if you’re just not sure.  

Of course, since these commandments are for everyone, theists and atheists alike, I couldn’t refer explicitly to God.   Each of my Commandments is a brief Thou Shalt or thou shalt not, followed by an explanation or elaboration.  

1. Thou shalt take time to look outward; thus shall ye know truth and beauty.   Be mindful of the vast universe outside of yourself, the billions of other minds, the laws of nature known and those still a mystery, the cycles and relationships both unimaginably brief or small and those seemingly eternal and infinite. Look outward.  
2. Thou shalt take time to look inward; thus shall ye know thyself.   Be mindful of the universe within you, the complex forces that drive your beliefs, feelings and actions, and know that just as the flapping wing of a butterfly can set a hurricane in motion, your words and deeds have power beyond your understanding. Look inward.  
3. Thou shalt take time to play; thus shall ye remain young.   Playing and finding play in work rejuvenates the mind and body, and helps us open up to others. If you have forgotten how, ask a child. This is a solemn responsibility.  
4. Thou shalt not claim supernatural authority for any beliefs, laws or rights; such claims are false and lead to strife.   Neither you nor your ancestors have any divine claim to truth, nor any privileged position in either this world or any to come.  
5. Thou shalt love unilaterally.   Love is something that you give, not return.  
6. Thou shalt cause no suffering, and strive to end any suffering you encounter.   Suffering is the world’s true evil.
7. Thou shalt deceive neither thyself nor others.   The most destructive liars are those who are able to lie to themselves.  
8. Thou shalt care for the earth and all that lives upon it.   The world is now truly in our hands; how we handle it will determine whether we are blessed or cursed by future generations.
9. Thou shalt behave as if your actions were universal law.   If others behave as you do, will the world be better or worse?  
10. Thou shalt think always: If not me, who? If not now, when?   The world is full of suffering caused by our waiting for others to do what’s right.   There were more, of course, that did not make the cut. Like: “Thou shalt not be a greedy pig.” But I thought most of them could be safely assumed from the ten I picked. Number 9, of course, is just a restatement of Kant’s Categorical Imperative -- a personal favorite.  

Of course, these are open to critique, suggestions, tossing into the garbage disposer. The word of Bob is not immutable.  

Commandments should inspire the best in us. They should not make us fear or hate nor discourage us from thinking, and seeking and questioning. Most of all, they should make us better people, and make the world better for our having lived in it.  

Is it possible for someone to follow these Commandments? We just lost a beloved member of our community, Jim Luhr, and paid our respects to him here in this room yesterday. And, really, here is someone who lived these rules, right down the line: deeply mindful of the workings of the universe; deeply spiritual and self-aware; playful; making no supernatural claims for any beliefs; loving and caring, not only causing no suffering, but working through Shepherds Table soup kitchen to alleviate the suffering of others; deceiving no one; caring for the earth actively; behaving as others should; and finally, not waiting for anyone else to make things better, but rolling up his sleeves, taking responsibility, and doing it himself.  

Nothing super-human. And yet, the world was so much better for his having been here. Five hundred or more people came here yesterday to testify to that.  

We are Unitarian Universalists: We pledge ourselves to the right of each to believe as mind, heart and conscience dictate. And to accept the responsibility this freedom commands. We proclaim that every week.   But every human being-- not just Unitarian Universalists -- creates his or her own religion. Every person embraces some things, actively rejects others, and ignores a lot more. No two people believe the same thing, even when they recite the same oaths and read from the same books.  

But we are trying to do that mindfully, accepting a lot less and questioning a lot more than most.   That requires a lot of intelligence and discipline. It requires hammering out our core values and also questioning them. So perhaps that should be our first resolution for this New Year and maybe for every New Year, before we write any more: Consider how we should treat ourselves and each other. Think about what feels true and right and important. Ask ourselves “what are our commandments, and are we living them?”    

Source Materials:   Sources for this sermon were the websites Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) for information on Hammurabi, The Book of the Dead, The Ten Commandments, The Seven Noahide Laws and other material.  

The website Religious Tolerance (www.religioustolerance.org) for additional information on the Ten Commandments and their origins, as well as modern versions of the Commandments.   The article The Real Ten Commandments, by Richard Carrier, provided insight into the contributions of Solon to moral codes and democracy. It is online at: www.infidels.org/library/modern/features/2000/carrier2.html   The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version Readings for this service were:  

Call to Worship:   Message from the Hopi Elders, available at: www.angelfire.com/moon/fae/hopi.html  

Meditation in Words:   A Person Will Worship Something by Ralph Waldo Emerson (Reading #563 in Singing the Living Tradition)  

Reading:   “The Scrolls,” from Without Feathers by Woody Allen  

Benediction   Be ye lamps unto yourselves Buddhist words (Reading #679 from Singing the Living Tradition)