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Be careful little eyes what you see. O be careful little eyes what you see! For the Father up above, he is looking down in love, so be careful little eyes what you see.

Remember that children’s song from when you were a child? The song would progress with verses like be careful little ears what you hear, be careful little feet where you go, be careful little hands what you do, and on and on. The idea being that our Heavenly Father is looking down in love, so we must be careful what we do, because God sees everything. 

God sees everything. God sees what we do, in public or private; God sees where we go, God hears the things we say, God knows what we think; as the Psalmist says, God is acquainted with our innermost parts. 

So it’s fair to say that God knows if we’re keeping the commandments; specifically the Ten Commandments.

That’s what we’re examining today: the Ten Commandments of fame. Along with the twenty-third Psalm and John 3:16, this is one of the most famous pieces of scripture. It’s actually in the Old Testament twice: most famously in Exodus but also found in Deuteronomy. Today, we’re reviewing all ten of the commandments in Exodus all together. So, let’s get started: 

Scripture 

In the Ten Commandments, God sets up a powerful rhetorical argument. But most often, we think of the Ten Commandments as a list of dos and don’ts. 

God’s instructions are to be sure that we:

Have no other gods 

Make no idols 

Don’t misuse God’s name

Keep the sabbath 

Honor your parents 

Don’t kill people 

Don’t cheat on your spouse

Don’t steal

Don’t lie

Don’t be jealous of what others have

To borrow from that old children’s song: be careful little people what you do, because the Father up above, he is looking down in love, so be careful little people what you do. 

Be careful what you do. God says in verses five and six: “You shall not bow down to [idols] or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.” 

So, if you worship other idols, rejecting God, your children, your children’s children, and their children will all be punished. If your parents worshipped idols, even if you’re faithful, you yourself and your children, along with your parents, will all be punished. 

It seems we’d better keep the commandments ourselves to avoid that punishment. If God is watching, looking down in love as the children’s song says, we’d better be very sure that we’re keeping the commandments, lest we bring punishment to ourselves and three or four generations beyond us.

Perhaps we should do a check-up, then: how are we doing following these Ten Commandments? Let’s run through the list, asking ourselves if we’re keeping or violating each of the commandments:

Do you have other gods? Certainly, I doubt any of us have idols set up in our houses, but that’s not the issue at stake in the first commandment. No, that’s the second commandment, and I bet we’re all pretty free of images of gods in our homes made out of earthly materials. So we’re probably good on keeping the second commandment. 

But the first commandment means anything we center our lives around besides God. What dictates the decisions we make? Money? Time? Advancement in the workplace? Personal gain of some kind? Power? Reputation? Desire for something you can’t have? If the answer to any of those is yes, we’re in violation of the first commandment. 

As for the third commandment, have any of us texted “omg” lately? If so, we’ve violated the third commandment, just as if we vocally said any name for God in any way other than with respect or addressing God in prayer. 

For the fourth commandment, do we set aside a day for rest, free of work and obligation? If we don’t, we’re in violation of the fourth commandment. 

Do we show honor to our parents? If not, we’re in violation of the fifth commandment. 

I suspect there may not be any murderers among us, but let us be mindful that Jesus said if we look at someone with hate in our hearts, we’ve violated the sixth commandment. 

For the seventh commandment, we must be mindful that Jesus complicated this one too: if we have even looked at someone with lust, we have committed adultery and broken the seventh commandment. 

Have any of us ever stolen anything? Even unintentionally? Then the eighth commandment is broken. 

Have any of us ever lied? That’s the ninth commandment. I imagine we’ve all violated that one at least once in our lives.

I don’t know about you, but I have never been jealous of my neighbor’s ox, nor my neighbor’s donkey. But of course, that’s not quite the point. Have we ever been jealous of what someone else has, scheming and spending much mental energy trying to figure out how to get what they have? That’s the tenth commandment and I imagine we’ve all violated that one at least once in our lives.

So, based on this quick review, it seems like we’re in violation of at least a few, if not several of these commandments. This week, I have violated some myself. What does that mean for us? What are we to make of these Ten Commandments? 

We might be tempted to make of them what that old children’s song says: we should be careful what we do because God is looking down in love. But this doesn’t feel at all like love. But let’s admit this morning that this certainly doesn’t feel at all like love.

It feels like that old sermon you might have read in English Lit by Jonathan Edwards, called, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” 

This review of the commandments also doesn’t feel particularly Methodist. Where’s the grace? Where’s the unconditional love? Where’s the hope?

So this doesn’t feel like love. It doesn’t feel Methodist. It feels like judgment from an angry God who’s watching us ready to reject us if we fail to keep these commandments. It feels like God is ready at a moment’s notice, with the slightest provocation, to not only punish us, but to reject us. 

Except that’s not what it says here in Exodus. 

We often see the Ten Commandments as a list of dos and don’ts. Rather, let’s take a look at the powerful rhetorical argument God makes here.

In verses 5 and 6, God says that punishment comes not for those whom God rejects but for those who reject God. God isn’t rejecting anyone! There’s no rejection for failure to follow the Ten Commandments. No, the issue here is for people who reject God themselves; families who reject God. God’s concern here is that the people accept him, the people choose relationship with him, not the other way around. 

So the issue at stake is whether or not people are rejecting relationship with God. God never says that God will reject people for failure to uphold the Ten Commandments.

What God wants, then and now, is relationship with people. And so, the language of punishing those who reject God to the third or fourth generation isn’t about a threat for not being in relationship. It, instead, sets up that powerful rhetorical argument by God I mentioned earlier. Where God might punish for three or four generations for the family who rejects relationship, verse 6 immediately follows that by saying God will reward to the thousandth generation those who choose to have relationship! 

Thus, we see God’s rhetorical argument: God’s love exceeds God’s punishment by a factor of a thousand. 

So what are we to make of these Ten Commandments? 

As Jesus was teaching the people during his earthly ministry, that same question came up. The people would ask what they were supposed to do about the law. The pharisees were teaching that they had to follow the law to the letter, or else God would be very angry. Sound familiar? Sounds just like that children’s song: be careful what you do because God is watching. 

The Sadducees were also concerned that the law be followed, for different reasons than the pharisees, but they expected the people to keep the law to the letter, too, out of fear of the consequences of God’s righteous wrath. 

But Jesus didn’t tell the people to follow the law to prevent God’s wrath, whether against them individually or against the nation as a whole. Jesus didn’t tell them they’d better keep the law to the exacting letter, taking only so many steps on the sabbath, and so on.

No, Jesus said that God has high standards: looking lustfully equals committing adultery and harboring hate in our hearts equals murder. Those are very tough standards indeed. 

But then Jesus tells the people that the law, the entire law, the law built off these Ten Commandments, can be summed up in two commandments. In fact, he is quoting teachings of old, teachings the pharisees and sadducees knew well: that the law can be summed up by two commandments: love God, love neighbor. To keep the law is to strive to simply follow those two commandments. 

In fact, the Ten Commandments are traditionally divided between two tablets in just that way. On the left tablet are the first four commandments, the ones that can be summed up as love God. On the right are the remaining six, the ones that can be summed up as love neighbor. 

In other words, the basis of the law and the Ten Commandments is love. God’s love for us. God’s call on our lives to love him back. And God’s call on our lives to love our neighbor just as God has loved us. And God rewards this love to the thousandth generation. God is love, as it says in 1 John. God’s love will always far exceed God’s punishment. 

That’s the promise of this powerful rhetorical argument, found here in the Ten Commandments; an argument for keeping the law that can be summed up as love God, love neighbor. 

And we can keep the law, keep the commandments, if we will love God and love our neighbor.

So what do we do with these Ten Commandments? How do we interpret them for us today? 

We love God and we love our neighbor. 

Let us then release the old children’s song. God is watching us in love but not to make sure that we’re following the rules, not with an eye on our behavior ready to smite us or otherwise heap consequences upon us if we fail to uphold standards. God’s love means that God is watching us with just that: love. Like a good mother or father, God sees us as his children, celebrating with us when we do the right thing and mourning with us when we do the wrong thing. God’s love for us far exceeds God’s punishment. 

And like all relationships, there are certain boundaries for how to be in healthy relationship together. In our marriages, in our families, with our friends, there are certain boundaries for how to be in healthy relationship. There are lines we shouldn’t cross, there are things we should do, in order to maintain that healthy relationship. 

So it is for our relationship with God. The Ten Commandments are a way of seeing boundary lines God has set for us to have healthy relationship with God. When we fail to uphold any of them, it doesn’t bring down wrath. No, it tears at the fabric of the relationship between us and God and between us and our neighbors. It makes our relationship with God a little weaker. It harms our relationships with each other when we lie, or cheat, or hate, or fail to uphold the sabbath. Just as when we cross the line with a spouse or a family member or a friend and we discover that the relationship is now weaker; the fabric of the relationship has new tears.

But, like in any healthy relationship, rather than smiting or heaping consequences, God offers healing to the rips in the fabric of our relationship. God offers us redemption, God restores us to right relationship, because God is love. 

And God’s love exceeds God’s punishment by a factor of a thousand. It says so right here in the Ten Commandments. 

There is no greater example than the cross and the empty tomb. God came down in human form to know us, to be one of us, to find out what life is like for us, and to show us the way. And when we met God in the flesh, we humans decided to destroy God by hanging him on the cross. 

We humans had violated the law in the most terrible way possible: we attempted to kill God. We did exactly what God says not to do in verse 5 of the Ten Commandments: we rejected God.

So, if ever there was reason to reject humanity and walk away from God’s covenant promise to always be with us and to always be our God, it was that moment on the cross when we had violated verse 5 of the Ten Commandments, rejecting the God who came to us in love.

But, God came out of the empty tomb, rising from the dead, and in doing so proclaimed loudly and boldly that God would still be our God, that God still desired relationship with us, and that God still loved us. We might reject God, but God will not reject us, no matter how bad our behavior, no matter how many of the Ten Commandments we break. God will keep his covenant promises, even showing love to the thousandth generation.

And we, in turn, should show that love back out of respect for God, for Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and out of the love for God we have that’s inspired by all that God has done for us. 

And how do we show that respect to God? How do we maintain healthy relationship? 

We love God. We love our neighbor.

If we will strive to do these two commandments, we will walk in God’s ways. If we will strive to keep these two commandments, we will honor and show respect for our relationship with God. We will know healthy relationship with God and we will know healthy relationships with each other, our neighbors. 

And let me add, this is exactly what we as a church did last Sunday. We showed love to our neighbors at Temple Beth Israel and we showed love to God by worshipping with them. Last Sunday, our hospitality and our labor demonstrated God’s love in powerful, palpable, ways. I’ve never experienced anything quite like that service. Rarely have I been in spaces where love and hope was so palpable, so apparent. We chose to love God and love our neighbor; we did exactly what the Ten Commandments ask of us. 

That’s the power of loving God and loving our neighbor. That’s the power of living life by those two commandments. And I look forward to the future with expectant hope for where that love will lead us.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Amen.