Holy Boundaries: A Sermon for 3 Lent

There is a fascinating connection between the first Creation narrative in Genesis and the Decalogue - more commonly known as the Ten Commandments. In both stories, God speaks the exact same number of times. Making note of this connection, Canadian priest Jeff Boldt points out that “[God’s] commandments - his words - shape everything from formless matter. And, therefore, when humanity breaks the commandments, creation returns to its formless state.”

Boldt goes on to talk about how, through the creation of the world, and later the giving of the Decalogue to his people, God was asserting the need for boundaries. In creation, God drew boundaries between the heavens and the earth, night and day, darkness and light, water from above and water below, dry land and sea, and humankind and other creatures. What was once a “formless void” now had form and structure. There were boundaries. As such, God’s creation was poised to thrive as God intended.

The second creation narrative - the story of Adam and Eve - also uses boundaries as a way of revealing God’s purposes for God’s creation. In this narrative, the boundaries are drawn between the Garden - called “Eden” - and the land that was “East of Eden,” as well as male and female, humankind and other creatures, and what belonged to God and what belonged to humankind. There wasn’t exactly a “formless void” mentioned in the beginning, but the premise still holds true. Before the creation, in both narratives, there was nothing. After the creation, God’s abundance was revealed and experienced in large part through boundaries, or put another way, God’s abundance was revealed and experienced through separate places, matter, and things.

The second creation narrative more explicitly tells the story of the consequences of our violating the boundaries that God has established for us. When Adam and Eve violate the boundary that was established for them by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil - God expels them from the Garden with the words we recite on Ash Wednesday - “...remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” In other words, the destiny of humanity reverted to our pre-creation state - a formless void. As Jeff Boldt points out, then and now “chaos follows disobedience.” But the chaos isn’t just disturbance or inconvenience, it is a dis-integration of God’s created order. And the boundaries that hold together God’s created order are physical boundaries and they are moral boundaries. And they are inseparable. As was the case in the Garden, where there was moral decay, and physical decay followed.

Those of us who are parents, teachers, musicians, or coaches know that boundaries aren’t just a good idea, they are essential. As a parent of a 2 and 4 year old, I know well that a lack of structure quickly devolves into a formless void and decay. And the violation of moral and physical boundaries begin to blur. Indeed, chaos follows disobedience. 

When implemented justly, boundaries promote freedom, whether for toddlers, teenagers, or adults. In a sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Lent, Fleming Rutledge pointed out that St. Augustine called the Decalogue “the Christian’s charter to freedom.” She then points us to Paul Lehman’s assertion that, “The tonality [of the Ten Commandments] does not sound like, ‘This you do or else.’ It sounds, rather, like ‘Seeing that you are who you are, this is the way ahead, the way of being and living in the truth, the way of freedom.’”

“Seeing that you are who you are…” That to me is the critical point. The Decalogue isn’t a general listing of wise sayings; it’s not natural law; it’s not conventional or folk wisdom. To use Fleming Rutledge’s phrase, it is not prescriptive, but descriptive. [The Decalogue] shows the way of life for God’s children.” 

When the people of God first received these commandments, they were doing so as a people who had recently been liberated from slavery. The Israelites had been held within the boundaries of enslavement for generations. But after their celebratory freedom dance, they had begun to lose their way in the wilderness. Their lack of boundaries - their disobedience - led to chaos. 

And so, the Decalogue begins with God saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery…”. So God was calling upon his people to remember from where they came, remember who God is, and that this same God had released them from the chaos of bondage. As such, God was asking them to trust him as he gave them these new boundaries - this new creation - within which they were to live. He was inviting them to recognize that what might initially seem restrictive would actually be liberating, and would put them back on course. This new law would prevent them from slowly decaying into the formless void out of which they were created and to which they were headed. Why? Because God gave this law to them. And they are God’s people. As such, they are to trust and obey God. On a much smaller scale, it is the same reason I respond to my inquiring children with, “Because I am your parent, and I know what is best for you.” 

Healthy boundaries are essential for all people to thrive in community. That is why we value the best of what we understand as law and justice in our secular society. In our religious context, we also need the boundaries that God set forth for us to thrive. And as Christians, we have to be careful not to ignore the Law as given in the Ten Commandments because, after the Christ event, we are freed from the Law. Rather, as Christians, we are to read and follow the Commandments through the lens of Jesus Christ. We are to recognize that it is only through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that we too are invited to be a part of God’s covenant people. It is by grace alone that we are incorporated into the family of God. 

I love that in generations past, during Lent and at other times throughout the Church year, churches in the Anglican tradition would begin worship services with the Penitential Order and the Decalogue like we did today. And while we do not do that very often these days, I think that we should. As Christians, we owe it to God and to ourselves to know the Ten Commandments and teach them to our children. And what I love about the full reading of the Decalogue in the Prayer Book is that after each commandment, we respond with “Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.” In these responses, we are recognizing that the only way that we can avoid the moral and physical decay that comes with the dissolution of boundaries that God gave us is to rely solely on God’s grace and mercy. If left to our own devices, we, like the Israelites in the wilderness, will lose our way, our form, and our structure as the people of God. But through God’s grace, we have been given the gift of boundaries that hold us together. Lord have mercy, and incline our hearts to keep this law.