“Commanded to Remember Who We Are”

October 8, 2023 — Ordinary Time

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

John Gribas

Here are some voices I remember from when I was a child.

“Timmy… Bobby… Johnny… Time to wake up, honey.”

(pause)

“Timmy… Bobby… Johnny… Time to wake up, honey.”

This would happen again…and again…and, my brothers and I in our downstairs bedrooms, we did not get up.

And then…

“TIM! BOB! JOHN! GET UP, NOW!!”

We got up.

My mother’s voice. My father’s voice. Both voices of instruction that I remember well, coming to us from the top of the stairs. Voices instructing us—perhaps commanding us—to get up and get ready for another day at school.

Reflecting on the verses from Exodus I just read, for some reason my mind drifts back to those parental voices. And I find myself asking, “What kind of voice do I imagine when I read those very familiar pieces of scripture—the ten commandments?”

My mother’s gentle, loving, invitational call, nudging me from sweet slumber into gradual consciousness and then—just maybe—action? Probably not. In fact, definitely not. I mean, how could I? The scripture itself offers some pretty obvious clues to the “tone” of God’s literally etched-in-stone instructional message. It says that when the people witnessed all the pyrotechnics at Mount Sinai, “they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance.” It’s hard to imagine that kind of reaction to something resembling my mother’s comforting invitation to start the day.

No. I’m afraid I must admit that, at least for this part of scripture, my mind pretty naturally dubs in a voice for God that is much more like the loud, commanding, this-is-not-a-drill character of my father’s morning call to action.

Maybe it is because of those scriptural context clues in Exodus—the Israelites’ fear and trembling. But I suspect it is also, at least in part, because of Cecil B. DeMille. You know, the director, producer, and narrator of the 1956 film, The Ten Commandments. Many of you have seen this. Many of us saw it pretty much every year of our lives when it was shown on TV each Easter.

I vividly remember that film and that scene. A magnificently bearded Charlton Heston as Moses, cringing in fear and clinging to the rocky backdrop on Mount Sinai as bright streams of fire came shooting from the night sky, striking the rock, scattering sparks and burning the words into existence, with DeMille’s deep, ominous, rumbling voice-over portraying God’s narration of all of this.

Yep. I am sure that yearly TV experience shaped my sense of things.

The ten commandments. So familiar. This set of fundamental instructions, shared with humankind through God’s messenger, Moses. Everyone knows the ten commandments. Right?

Sometimes things that seem so familiar occasionally need a little “reframing.” Need to be looked at in a new light. But the ten commandments? Those are pretty straightforward, aren’t they?

Maybe not.

The commandments are a kind of message. In Exodus, a message to a long-enslaved and newly liberated people—escaping, wandering, searching for a new home and restored identity.

As a communication professor, one thing I know is that messages and messaging are never as clear, straightforward, or simple as we might like to imagine.

Some ideas from a communication theory known as CMM can be helpful in considering the ten commandments as a message. CMM stands for Coordinated Management of Meaning. It is a wonderful framework for insight into communication developed in the early 1980s, and it’s one of my very favorites.

CMM challenges the rather simplistic idea that communicating is the process of sending a message that “means something” to someone else. CMM suggests that messages don’t so much “carry” meaning from place to place but, instead, the meaning of messages must be “managed” by those who are engaged in communication.

If messaging is a part of meaning management, what is going on in this part of scripture—the part where God is sharing these commandments? According to CMM, any message can and must be understood within a number of different “contexts.” These contexts have a large impact on shaping the message’s meaning.

One fundamental context is the speech act itself—the basic purpose of the message. The speech act is “what you are doing” when you say something. Asking a question. Telling a joke. Disagreeing with what has just been said.

In Exodus 20, we might reasonably say God’s basic purpose is giving instructions or commands. Thus, the ten commandments.

But that is not the only context for managing meaning. “Relationship” is another context. A person may be telling a joke to another person, but that joke could be a very different thing if it were being shared friend to friend, or child to parent, or speeding motorist to citation-writing police officer.

In Exodus 20, how will we define the relationship between the one giving and receiving the instructions or commands? Who are the Israelites in this relationship? Let’s look back to the beginning of this section of scripture. Before God starts the actual list of commandments, there is a little preface. It says…

Then God spoke all these words, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

This pre-commandment opening statement is important, I think. It defines the relationship, and it therefore is an important “context” for managing the meaning of what follows. God defines the relationship as liberator to those who needed and who have been liberated. That is quite different than cosmic law setter and enforcer to potential law breakers.

And that same pre-commandment opening statement gives insight into a third meaning management context—a context the CMM theory refers to as “episode.” Episode is just another way of saying “what is going on right now.” It is how we define, label, and make sense of the larger social process we are engaged in at the moment.

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

I guess that means, from God’s perspective at least, what is “going on” is a rescue mission. The liberation of a people and the reestablishment of Israel as a new nation. I don’t get the sense here that what is going on is the establishment of a behavior contract which, if maintained, will satisfy a perfect and all-powerful being but, if not maintained, well…angry God.

So we, along with those lost and frightened Israelites, can consider God’s commandment message in light of speech act, relationship, and episode. According to CMM, these contexts don’t function independently, though. They work in a kind of meaning-making hierarchy. Kind of like Russian nesting dolls. One meaning-making context can only be understood within another context. Those involved in the meaning-making process ultimately decide which contexts frame which other contexts—which contexts are at the top, middle, and bottom of the meaning-making hierarchy.

My experience tells me that many people give top priority to the speech act when considering the ten commandments. The most important thing is that they are “commands.” I mean, come on. What are they known as?

I don’t think I have ever heard them called “a divine liberator’s message to a frightened and newly liberated people.” Or “God’s rescue mission manifesto.”

Nope. These are the ten commandments. To make that point very clear, I have on occasion heard someone quip, “They aren’t called the ten suggestions, you know!”

I get it. But we should ask ourselves this: Are they, first and foremost, commands? Or are they, first and foremost, a message offered by a loving liberator to a traumatized and newly liberated people, shared as part of an ongoing rescue mission? If the latter, then the fact that they also happen to be commands is a different thing entirely. In fact, given this framing, it might be difficult to even use the term “command” here. Maybe instructions. Or guidance? Or direction? Or wisdom?

You know, the word “command” pops up a lot in the book of Exodus. Curious that it is actually not used at all in this particular section of scripture—this section we all know as the ten commandments.

One more idea from the Coordinated Management of Meaning that I think could be helpful. The idea of “logical forces.” Logical forces are different ways of understanding motives—the stories we tell ourselves to explain our reasons for doing what we do in relation to others.

Sometimes, we tell ourselves that we did what we did because of some prior act that prompted or caused us to act. That is “prefigurative force.”

Sometimes, we tell ourselves that we did what we did as a necessary means to some future end. That is “practical force.”

Sometimes, we tell ourselves that we did what we did because it was expected or required by where we are, who we are with, or the particular situation we are currently part of. That is “contextual force.”

And, finally, sometimes, we tell ourselves that we did what we did because…well…because that is just who we are. We see our behavior as self-defining. That is “implicative force.”

Ask yourself, why do you obey these commandments?

Because God told you you must? That’s prefigurative force.

Because if you do you will earn or keep God’s approval or avoid his wrath or have a good and blessed life…or maybe even attain heaven or escape damnation? That’s practical force.

Because you are in church or among members of a faith community or consider the situation one in which certain moral behavior is proper or expected? That’s contextual force.

Because you believe yourself to be a child of God? Created by God through love and for love. Love of God. Love of your neighbor. Love of all creation. And these commandment instructions ultimately suggest behavior that is consistent with that love. Therefore, you obey because of who and what you are? That’s implicative force.

I would like us to ask, “What happens if we ‘reframe’ this portion of scripture?”

What if we prioritize relationship and episode over speech act? That is, what if we see this message from God to his people, and by extension to us, as first and foremost a message from a loving liberator to a lost and recently freed people—a message that is part of God’s rescue mission?

And what if we let implicative force be the grounding for this story? That is, what if our understanding is that the reason we or the Israelites or anyone would follow these commands is because of our own sense of who we are?

With this reframing, we can see these less as the ten commandments and more as the ten reminders. Not reminders of what to do and not to do, but reminders to this long enslaved and recently freed people that they are, indeed, the people of God. His children. Chosen to be a special kind of blessing to the world. People who understand that they were created through love…created to love. As reflected in this message known as the ten commandments, …

…people created to love by honoring the life and family and belongings and good name of others, recognizing them as fellow children of God created through love.

…people created to love by honoring themselves as God’s creation, appreciating the need for rest and the way such rest grows trust and reinforces reliance on the creator and expands the capacity to love, and appreciating parents who play an essential role in one’s becoming a child of God.

…people created to love by honoring the God of love, doing what is needed to keep one’s connection to the source of love open, strong, and undistracted—something without which love for others and self is just not possible.

You know, I have read some interesting things recently about ways to deal with people who seem to have “lost themselves” by participating with cult communities, or by getting caught up in conspiracy theories and falling into rabbit holes of online disinformation and propaganda, or through other forms of psychological and emotional trauma. Such individuals are not going to be restored through argument or evidence, or by rebuke or shaming or tough love. They need people who know and love them to remind them of who they were and who they still really are.

If anything can restore, that will.

Those Israelites had been enslaved for a long time. They most certainly were traumatized. It appears they had lost themselves. And it appears that here in Exodus 20, the God who loved them needed to remind them of who they really were. And of what their relationship to their liberator-God really was. And of what was going on—a rescue mission.

And God did this with a few shalts and shalt nots.

With all this in mind, I need to ask myself again: “What kind of voice do I imagine when I read those very familiar pieces of scripture—the ten commandments?” My dad’s voice? Now…maybe not so much. My mom’s? Perhaps. But I really think I would say…both.

Both, if I reframe a bit and choose not to focus on those parental voices as commands to get up, but rather focus on the relationship, on the episode, and on their words as reminders of who I am.

Those voices. Coming to me from loving parents who care deeply about me and my well-being. Coming to me as part of a morning ritual of parent-child connection and a welcome to a new and beautiful day. Both, in their own way, reminding me of who I am. Mom’s voice, reminding me that I am someone who is safe and loved. Dad’s voice, reminding me that I am someone who is capable and responsible.

It is easy to forget those things when you are nine. I appreciate the reminders.

May we all listen for the voice of our creator, and may we all be willing to reframe when needed to listen for how that voice is reminding us of who we are. His children. Created though love. Created to love.

Amen.