On the subject of God’s commandments, I want to talk about
Toy Story. That makes sense, right? It’s a film about two toys, Woody and Buzz.
They belong to a boy named Andy, a boy who loves them. And Woody and Buzz love
Andy, too.
So yes, obviously in this movie the toys are alive. Sort
of. They think and talk and move and they have rules. Among the rules is that
the can only talk and move when there are no humans around.
Something that might be one of the rules, or maybe it’s
just in their DNA (if toys have DNA?), is that they are completely loyal to their
kid. Woody and Buzz are lovingly devoted to their kid, Andy.
Well, at one point in the story, Buzz and Woody both
somehow end up at the home of Andy’s neighbor, a boy named Sid. Sid is vicious.
He is the kind of kid who destroys his toys just for fun. Buzz and Woody are
desperate to escape from Sid and get back to Andy, but they are losing hope.
And something starts happening to Buzz, in particular. He kind of loses his
sense of who he is, whose he is. So there they are, Woody and
Buzz, trapped in Sid’s room. Woody is literally trapped under a plastic
crate, and Buzz is trapped in his own hopelessness. Woody tries to encourage
Buzz, but Buzz seems too far gone to be helped. But then, something happens.
Back when they were brand new, Andy wrote his name with a
sharpie pen on the bottoms of his toys. Both Woody and Buzz have Andy’s name
written on their soles.
When Buzz, sitting there in Sid's room, looks at the sole of his shoe, he sees Andy’s
name. Since Buzz has been trapped in this wilderness of Sid’s viciousness, he
has forgotten who he is. But seeing Andy’s name, reminds him. And he remembers
– who he is, and who he belongs to.
At the risk of pushing this analogy too far, I want to say
that these toys have a kind of covenant relationship with their boy, Andy. It
is a relationship based on love.
So, what does that have to do with the 10 commandments? Or, in the words
of Tina Turner, what’s love got to do, got to do with it?
When God gave Moses the 10 commandments, it was a gift. It was a mercy.
I know it can be hard for us to see it that way, because these rules are not
all easy to follow. And they are especially difficult when we make the effort
to follow not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law.
And it’s worth remembering that when God gave these commandments to
Moses for all Israel, they were just a small piece of the whole thing. There
are over 600 laws in the Old Testament, which we mostly choose to ignore – for solid
theological reasons.
We believe that the 10 commandments are unique in that they sort of
summarize the essential points of the law. These commandments provide for us a
rule, a guide, for faithful living.
Sounds simple – but as Christians, we have a complicated relationship
with these commandments. Martin Luther believed that the law’s purpose was to
convict us of our sinfulness. Seeing how far short we fall, we see how fully
dependent we are on God’s grace. While this is true, John Calvin believed there
was more to it than that. In addition, he believed, the law is also there to
help us. We look to the law to see what righteous living looks like. And then we
seek to live up to it – not out of fear of punishment, but out of pure
gratitude for God’s grace.
And here we see, again, the clear distinction between contract and
covenant. We know we can’t keep this law. If the whole business depended on us
being able to keep up our end of the bargain, it would have all fallen apart
centuries ago. We would have had the pants sued off us for breach of contract.
End of story.
But that is not the end of the story.
God made this covenant with Israel knowing full well that they could not
keep up their end. God entered into this deal with full knowledge of the
strengths and weaknesses, faith and failings of these human creatures. God knew
full well that they would fail – we would fail – and God did it anyway.
In making covenant with us, God is claiming us as God’s own. We have a
relationship, and this relationship is not governed by rules. It is governed by
love.
In making covenant with us, God has written God’s name on us. Knowing
this, we won’t remain lost in the wilderness. We won’t remain hopeless and
helpless. Knowing this, that we belong to God, we are empowered to live lives
guided by love and justice and mercy, caring for our fellow men and women, as
well as ourselves.
Take the example of Buzz again. When he was lost in his own
hopelessness, he didn’t have the will to help himself or his friend Woody, who
was calling out for help. Buzz would have just sat there in Sid’s room until he
died. Or until the new morning when Sid took him outside and lit that firecracker strapped to Buzz's back. But when he remembered who he was, and whose he was, everything changed.
And what was the first thing he did? He came to the aid of his friend Woody.
May you and I remember who we are, and whose we are.
May we remember the promises of God’s love.
May we walk in gratitude toward righteousness, in Christ’s name.
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