This morning, we are celebrating Harvest Home. Harvest Home is an annual celebration in our church that recalls our earlier period as a congregation in a rural area. Skippack is more suburban and built up now, but Trinity used to be a little village church surrounded by agricultural land. Our former farmer church members had big gardens, acres of food crops, and cows, pigs and chickens they ate themselves and sold as food to their neighbors.
Harvest Home comes during the fall harvest season. Members of our community gather our “produce” and bring it today to share with our neighbors. The food and toiletry items we collect this morning will go to the people who receive services from the Daily Bread Community Food Pantry. We are loving our neighbors as we love ourselves by sharing these items with our most vulnerable neighbors.
Loving our neighbors is part of what we are required to do as followers of God. This morning, we will read the first formal list of requirements God made for God’s followers: The Ten Commandments.
The people of God received this list, these essential commandments, after they all departed the land of Egypt – they had been slaves there for many generations. Last week, we focused on a part of their story that included the miracle of their crossing the Red Sea. Once they were liberated from slavery by God, they spent time in the wilderness learning how to live together and learning how to listen to God.
The 10 Commandments was part of their journey. Let us turn to the commandments as we look to our reading of the day: Exodus 19 verses three through seven and chapter 20 verses one through seventeen. Listen now to the word of God….
The Scripture Exodus 19:3-7; 20:1-17
3 Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain and said, “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel:
4 ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.
5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine,
6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”
7 So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the LORD had commanded him to speak.
1 And God spoke all these words:
2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,
6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.
11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
Here ends this reading of the word of God for the People of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Let us pray…
The Message Covenant and Commandments
The people who followed Moses out of Egyptian slavery were kind of a mess. They were excited to leave the hardships of slavery behind, …but almost immediately started questioning their choice – they wondered if it was easier to live under the control of the Egyptians than it was to live out in the wilderness with 2 million other people. Their food fell from the heavens. God provided them a weekly ration of fresh meat. God provided fresh springs for their water supply and led them with a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night…yet they bickered and complained and fought among themselves. The promise of their soon living in the Promised Land was not enough to keep them motivated and positive as they meandered through the wilderness.
When the people were slaves in Egypt, they had no autonomy. They had to do what their masters said. Therefore, they were not used to ruling themselves. They had no experience settling their differences. They didn’t know how to live together well.
God realized the people needed basic rules to follow. Moses was overwhelmed by keeping the people calm, so God told Moses to meet him on top of Mount Sinai – Moses had to have one-on-one time with God.
The Ten Commandments resulted from their meeting…they were the first, most basic rules God gave Moses. God then issued many more instructions for the people before Moses returned to them. We have 10 fingers on our hands, so a list of 10 rules that we all can memorize were a good start for governing a civilization. The 10 commandments established basic rules for everyone to follow.
Jesus was asked what the most important commandments are…which of God’s commandments are the most important? Jesus answered:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
All of God’s commandments can be distilled into these two commandments, including the 10 Commandments: the first 4 of the ten commandments focus on the love of God and the second 6 focus on love of neighbor.
The commandment to keep the Sabbath is a two-for-one. It is a way to love God, it is also a way we love ourselves and love our neighbors. When we keep Sabbath and make it holy, we show love for God by worshipping God, and coming to church, and praising God, and studying God’s word. But, we also love ourselves by enforcing sabbath on ourselves – we slow down, we take a break, we rest. And, we love our neighbors by worshipping together in community and allowing other people to have a rest. The sabbath requirement even extends to animals – if we were farmers, we wouldn’t use our mules to plow on the Sabbath….if we are hunters, we must not use our hunting dogs to stalk prey on the Sabbath.
One of the most unique characteristics of Christianity is our command to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves. Christians are different from other groups because we don’t just worry about ourselves or our own group – to love our neighbors means that we love them by generously working to make sure everyone has what they need – food, shelter, clean water, great schools, medical care. We want this for all people – not just our family members or our friends or people who vote the way we do – we want this for all people, even strangers, even undocumented people living among us, even people who live in other countries, even people we consider our enemies like the residents of countries we are at odds with, like Iran or Canada or Russia. Our love extends to all of our neighbors.
This morning, as an expression of our love of neighbor, we gathered food and toiletry items for our annual Harvest Home celebration. Trinity may be a small congregation, but we live out the generosity of God by extending generosity to our neighbors. The Daily Bread provides a week’s supply of food for 1000 people every week. This is a huge undertaking….we collaborate with other local churches and businesses and neighbors to help supply the food and daily necessities our most vulnerable neighbors need.
We are commanded by God to share, to give and to care for each other. Let us do so today and all days. Amen.
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