Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, June 10, 2018
Exodus 20:3-11

Last week Pastor Rich reminded us that before we look at what God tells us to do with those famous ten commandments, we remember that God starts the relationship with us. God says, “I am God, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a life of slavery.” That is the same God we worship today, a God who desires us to be free, and to live in the freedom that our faith in Jesus Christ gives. So today, we heard the first three commandments, which we sometimes refer to as the “first table,” or those commandments that focus specifically on our relationship with God: Have no other gods, do not take the Lord’s name in vain, and remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
It is appropriate that God starts this list of commandments with three about our relationship with God. As a church, these are of primary importance. If we only focused on our relationship with others and how well we treat one another, we could easily just be another social service agency, social club, or secular institution. But we’re the church, and the church exists to help grow people’s relationship with God and with one another. In our relationships with one another, we ask how we see God at work in those relationships. This is why we hear Jesus summarize the ten commandments with those two commandments in Matthew: love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. You can’t separate them: we love God and one another and ourselves because it’s who we are as God’s people, as people who call ourselves Christian.
Particularly as we prepare for a relaunch here at Bethel in September, I find it helpful to hear this central reminder from God about the right relationship God wants from us in the ten commandments. It’s important for us to remember that one of the only things all healthy, growing congregations have in common is that people are growing spiritually. The congregation has created opportunities at home and at church for people to grow in their relationship with God. They’re laser-focused on those first three commandments. This is why we’re excited about trying “discipleship groups” at Bethel as a part of our relaunch, to help us all get back to the basics of connecting to God through prayer, conversation, and Bible study.
I wish it weren’t true, but it is. I’ve been in this role for almost four years now, and over and over again, people in our Nebraska Synod congregations want to ask me about bulk mailings, using social media effectively, what material to put on the church website, and what program they can purchase to get people to come to church. It’s easier in some ways, I suppose, to concentrate on what color the carpet is, putting together a praise band, and putting a coffee bar in the fellowship hall or narthex as the silver bullet that will “fix” our church. What’s sad about this to me is that we quickly end up breaking the first commandment and make idols out of this stuff instead of pointing people back to God as the church. We think that we can’t possibly worship God without or with an organ, and people even leave the church over what color they chose to paint the fellowship hall. What started as a well-intentioned evangelism effort becomes an idol. We kept ourselves busy doing stuff and forgot that what is of primary importance is our relationship with God. These may be creative ideas that come out of a sense of wanting to serve God and the community better! But we have to be careful when we start by thinking that changing our churches for the better requires a lot of money to buy stuff. What we hope could be a silver bullet to fix our problems could end up being a golden calf instead. Rather, a life of faith, and sharing our faith, starts with God.
The good news is that evangelism is much simpler and cheaper than you might think: you don’t have to spend any money and you don’t have to change anything about your worship service or your building. What we know “works,” so to speak, is very simple: talking and listening to God through prayer as a congregation AND as individuals. Going back to the basics so that everything you do is aligned with ministry priorities. Building relationships with people outside your walls who do not have a church home and being willing to do so even if they never walk inside these walls. Evangelism, and a thriving, vital church, starts with God! You can’t share your faith if you have no faith to share, after all! Loving God and putting God above all else, using God’s name well, and honoring the Sabbath day by worshipping God in community whether it’s here in this church building, in a small group at home, outside, online, be creative! These first three commandments are really God’s starting point to evangelism! When you love God above all else and put God first, by creating intentional Sabbath time for God, and speaking about God well to your friends and neighbors and really anyone you meet, you’re on the right track to strengthening your relationship with God and thereby being able to share your faith with others.
I want to take a minute to unpack the meaning of the second commandment in particular. Most of us, if we learned the ten commandments growing up or taught them to our kids, probably learned that the gist of this commandment is not to swear or take God’s name in vain. However, in the secular society we live in, and admittedly as shy Lutherans, we sometimes take this commandment too far in the other direction, and fail to talk about God at all outside of worship on Sunday morning. Using God’s name well means daring to talk about God with your coworkers, neighbors, and friends. Luther’s explanation in the small catechism is this: “We are to fear and love God, so that we do not curse, swear, practice magic, lie, or deceive using God’s name, but instead use that very name in every time of need to call on, pray to, praise, and give thanks to God.” In honoring the second commandment we strive to use God’s name in every time of need! And that includes sharing our faith with others.
Let’s remember what evangelism means, after all. It means “good news.” It’s the same word as “gospel” in the Greek. All evangelism means is simply sharing the good news about God in Jesus Christ with other people you love. Because Jesus has made such a powerful difference in my life, I can’t help but want to share about that experience with other people, too. My relationship with God honestly started with God, not with me. Out of the blue. I was baptized as a Lutheran and grew up in this church. I had my days and years of doubts like pretty much anyone my age. I experimented with other churches and no church. I was going to be a teacher – since I was in kindergarten I knew I was going to be a teacher. But then the adult youth sponsors at my church asked me if I had thought about being a pastor. And my pastors asked me if I had thought about being a leader in the church. My religion professor asked me if I had thought about seminary. And my grandma, one of the most important mentors in my life of faith, told me she saw gifts in me for ministry. And through this wild ride of being a pastor, my faith has grown and God has taken me places and had me meet people that I could have never imagined.
My spouse, my kids, my job, my friends, my free time would all look differently without my relationship with Jesus! What story do you have to share about how Jesus has made a difference in your life, too? Think about what keeps you from sharing that with others. How might God help you get over those barriers to try talking about God this week? How does knowing that it really all starts with God anyway, help? What I mean is, God will use whatever I have to give: my time, my openness to listen, my one small story about something awesome God did in my life. God will grow our faith. God will grow the church, even if it looks different than it used to and even “smaller” by human standards of measurement. A lot of the stuff we come up to do is just icing on the cake that God’s already got baking. And you better believe that this God who delivered the Israelites from slavery into freedom and delivered us all from sin, death and the devil by sending his only Son Jesus to die and be raised for us, this God has a pretty good cake in store for us. We can be thankful, that the Lord God who led people out of slavery in Egypt into the freedom of the promised land, is the same God we worship today. God offers us the same freedom to worship, to love God and each other, to serve and share our faith with all. Amen.