"The Two Tablets

“THE TWO TABLETS”

How many listening today actually take one day out of the week for complete rest?  A day where you recharge your batteries for the coming week? Well here is the GOOD NEWS for today. God actually commands that we take a day off from our busy week to observe a Sabbath.  The Sabbath according to scripture is the 7^th day of the week.  Now we could argue all day long about which day we should observe for the Sabbath while all the time never really taking advantage of it.  I think the latter is the most important thing to be thinking about.  Taking a day to offer worship and reflection on our creation and our creator. 

March 8, 2015 Readings:  Exodus 20: 1-17 Psalm 19, John 2: 13-22

If we take a closer look at the Law of Moses developed from the Ten Commandments you may notice some internal logic.   I think of the Commandments as being on two tablets. The first tablet is all about giving reverence to our one and only true parent, the creator of us all.  For instance the first and foremost commandment is that we serve only one God.    I cannot help but notice that the writer uses the word worship, we are to WORSHIP only one God.   What the saying: “If God is your co-pilot may I suggest you exchange seats.  It only makes good sense folks, God is the only one who knows where you will end up.  A good question for us here might be, “is there anything I place first in my life before God?”  That leads us into the next commandment on this tablet.  We are forbidden to turn anyone or anything into an idle of worship.   Unfortunately for many folk, it is easy to make the mistake of thinking that your love for family, parents, spouse, or children comes first, then comes God.  It is very easy to begin to see our material world with its gold and glitter as that which deserves our first and up most attention.  Even if we are fully aware that doing this only feeds our EGO, and not our compassionate heart.  Here we need to be reminded that God is our true parents, our creator and God’s love for us goes way beyond any love we can ever expect to receive here through things, people, or even our earthly family.  This sets the tone for what I would call good ethics as commanded in this next commandment.  We are not to use the Holy name with disrespect.  You know the outrageous use of potty mouth language today is a good example of how we have misused the gift of speech and language.  We are all created in the image of God which I believe, is love, then we should not use any name that represents that love wrongfully. In fact I believe that when we degrade, or treat someone with disrespect through our words or actions we curse our Creator.  Here it comes folks, the GOOD NEWS we talked about earlier, “YOUR DAY OFF”.   The next commandment is to keep one day during the week for your Sabbath.  Again if we are only arguing about which day the Sabbath fall on and we are not taking advantage of it, then it seems to me to be a fools days.  Each and every one of us needs a day off, to smell the roses, to take a check on where we are, where we are going and what I want the rest of my day to be.  That day off was not meant to be given to Hockey, or sports.   What’s the saying, notice I’ve changed it a little “All work and no DAY OFF makes Jack a dell boy.”  Now I don’t know about you but I often feel like a JACK.  Don’t feel guilty for observing your Sabbath, take in a retreat, go to church, the argument about the day is not as important as you taking the time out.  In ministry many of us often feel guilty if they are not seen as being busy.  Even before I went into the ministry, my family background instilled some of that guilt in me.  You know the saying “Idle hands are the devils workshop”.  Some of the old religion really wasn’t good theology at all, I think many use RELIGION then and you can still see it being used today as behavior modification.   Some religions are taking it to the extreme.

 Now comes what I consider as the second tablet.  This set of laws or commandments are meant for self and neighbor.   Can you begin to see the connection Jesus makes with the GREAT commandment?  It combines these two tablets into one Law.  We hear it in Luke 10:26-28 (NIV}  ²⁶ “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”²⁷ He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’^[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[b]”

The First commandment on the second tablet asks us to give respect to our temporal earthy parents.  Notice I said temporal for we are only given to our earthly family for a short period of time folks.   Even if you last 90 years, think of 10’s of trillions of years before you were borne and the 10’s of trillions of year there will be after you are dead, your time here on earth is just a flicker.   Even if you only lasted for few days or moments in the womb, it still just a flicker, how come the same?     Honoring father and mother is probably one of the hardest pills to swallow especially if our earthy father or mother has not properly cared for us.   In cases of verbal, physical, or sexual abuse the word hear needs to be pitied.  I am taking some liberty here and may get criticised for it but when we offer pity in place of honor we do no disrespect or degrade a father or mother.  To pity someone is to offer feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the suffering and misfortunes of others.  

The last of this second tablet commandments are self- explanatory.  They involve our moral, ethical, and responsibility towards self and towards our neighbor.  You shall not murder, covet, steal or bear false witness again your neighbor.  {That by the way includes Facebook and Twitter}.   There is one loop hole for many religions who follow the Old Testament and have not yet heard or accepted the Good News of the Gospels.  It can be found in the commandment not to murder.  Murder in all aspects of law requires permutation.  The interpretation here is I have a right to protect me, my family or my religion and if I kill to do so, it is not considered by some of the Old Testament followers as murder.   It is for them an acceptable form of self-defence.   As twisted as this interpretation may seem to those of us who follow the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, they feel God will not judge them for these acts of violence.  Because we are all Children of God and because Jesus has instructed us, we must pray for our enemies and those who persecute us.  We cannot judge, yet we be judged sayth the Lord.  So then we can pray for revelations and an awakening for all who do not know our Lord Jesus and His way.    Let us pray.