The Law and The Land: Part Four

"Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you."

Exodus 20:12


When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

John 19:26-27


Recap on the series: The Ten Commandments are not just for private morality. They're also an excellent tool to help people of faith start thinking and talking about justice and equality in our society.


The fourth commandment begins what many in the Christian tradition call the "second table" of the Ten Commandments: that is, the laws that govern human interactions with one another rather than our interactions with God.


To be honest, when I'm teaching middle school students, I spend the least amount of time by far on the Fourth Commandment, not because it isn't important, but because it's self-explanatory, and because dwelling on it too much seems to play into the (not entirely false) perception that pastors, teachers and parents have entered into a vast world-wide conspiracy against adolescents. I just don't feel like spending more than twenty minutes or so on "Hey, you whipper-snappers, you better mind your folks now, ya hear?"


But then...there's Jesus. See, Jesus had what most would call an unconventional view of family. Which is not to say he didn't love his family, or think family is important. It was just that Jesus saw the ethical laziness of which humankind was guilty: our impulse to put family first, getting twisted into an excuse not to care for the other. He saw how easily we rush to war against someone else's sons and daughters, to protect our own; how quick we are to cheat someone else's mother or father, if it's somehow on behalf of our own.


God made us with an incredibly strong bond with our family units. So strong that even if our families are really messed up, we will actually seek out messed up people to "love" us in the same dysfunctional way. What God placed in our hearts in order for us to protect and care for one another, can be twisted into just another excuse to hurt each other.


And yet, Jesus did not mean to throw the baby out with the bathwater. He didn't force his followers to cut all ties with their families. In fact, he criticized the Pharisees for doing just that: using their commitment to faith, as an excuse not to care for their earthly families. Our families should be training grounds for compassion. We should love our families, and we should take care of those whom God gives us, not because we're not responsible for anybody else, but to learn how to care for everybody else.


The social justice connection I see here is quite simple. From the cross, Jesus made a connection between two unrelated people: Mary, his mother, and the disciple whom he loves. They become family then and there, not through blood or birth, but by his word, and because they need each other. I believe Jesus says the same to us all. As we look at the millions of senior citizens living in poverty in our country, more than half of whom are women, Jesus says, "Here is your mother." When we consider the pay gap between women and men (still 78 cents on the dollar) that has barely budged in a decade, and that it's worse for women of color, Jesus says, "Here is your mother."


Your mother is poor. Your mother is a victim of discrimination. Your mother is an undocumented immigrant. Your mother is a senior citizen, living in quiet poverty. Your mother is homeless. Our family is not just those who look like us or live in our house. Our family is all the people whom we have the ability to care for, wherever we are, with little decisions we make. And yes, we can begin to honor them by honoring the family we grew up with. But in Christ, it never ends there.

The Law and the Land: Part Three

Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it. 

Exodus 20:8-11

Then he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.’

Mark 2:27-28

It's been quite a few weeks since I've been able to post, and it's been full of lots of really good "God-stuff" that I'd love to post about at a later time, but this one's been cooking for a while and it's time to get it out there.

Let me explain what you see above. 

THE MAP: This is from a report by the National Low Income Housing Commission. It lists the amount of hours in a week you'd have to work in order to afford a one-bedroom apartment. For easy reference, the gray states are "less than 60 hours/week", the light blue are "61-79 hours/week" and the dark blue are "80 or more". The states with an asterisk next to them are states that already have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage. Maryland comes in at a modest second, with 101 hours per week. A single worker, no spouse or kids, making minimum wage, looking just to put a roof over his/her head, would have to work 101 hours every single week. 

THE FIRST BIBLE VERSE. That would be the Third Commandment. It's the wordiest of the ten (depending on how you count), and it seems to be so wordy because God wants to make one thing absolutely clear: The Sabbath is not just for one class of people. It's for everybody. Your kids. Your employees. Your pack animals. Even complete strangers from foreign cultures who are hanging out in your general vicinity. And God is telling you this because it is your responsibility to make sure this is an option for those over whom you have influence. 

THE SECOND BIBLE VERSE. Here we have the Son of God--Jesus Christ--declaring NOT  that the Sabbath isn't important or that Christians shouldn't keep it anymore, but rather that it should not be used as a legalistic burden to heap on those already struggling to feed themselves. Jesus and his disciples are picking grain on the Sabbath because they haven't got any food, and the Pharisees invite them to a sumptuous Sabbath feast where they can fill their bellies to their hearts' content. Wait, no...turns out they get all bent out of shape and judge them for breaking the Sabbath, while offering precisely 0.0 solutions as to how they can both keep God's law and not go hungry. Huh.

So here's what I'm thinking today. It is admirable, of course, for Christian businesses to close their doors on Sunday. It is expected that Jews, Muslims and Christians--all who take God's commandment seriously--will take time in the week to rest, to reflect, to worship, and to simply let God be God. We all need time as a community to remember that by God's grace, the world keeps turning even when we're not running. These are all good things.

But I would submit to you that the third commandment was phrased in such careful legal language because it is so easy to break it by proxy. It's not just about you. It's about everyone whom your life touches. 

And I'd further submit that if your business is closed on Sunday but your workers have to go someplace else and work a ten or twelve hour shift to make ends meet, you might still have a third-commandment issue on your hands. If you take time worshiping and resting with your family on Sunday, but you live in a state where a person couldn't possibly do the same on minimum wage, you might still have a third-commandment issue on your hands. In sum, this whole country has a great big hairy third-commandment issue on its hands, and it's high time we did some praying about how best to fix it.