The Ten Commandments

The lectionary text for October 2 is from Exodus, and it's the ten commandments. How do we orient ourselves to these ancient rules in 21st-century life? Once upon a time, no one swore in front of women or children; now many women swear as casually as they say "good morning." And is it taking the Lord's name in vain to write OMG on a Facebook page? Especially when LOL is in the same sentence? Some of the commandments were no-brainers then and they are no-brainers now. Don't lie, don't steal, don't kill. These are so obvious that David Ray Griffin includes them in his "hardcore common sense values" that he brackets in philosophical arguments about "truth"--arguments that can talk you out of the truth of your left arm, if you let them. But even here there are tricky issues. Some governments arrogate to themselves the power to put criminals to death. This came up recently, and tragically, in the "sanctioned" death of Troy Davis. Should the law of God trump the laws of legitimate, duly elected governmental bodies? Or does the execution for a crime constitute, itself, a crime?  And what about character assassination? Think of the deliberate lies spread against people running for office by their opponents. Or changing tack completely, is Alzheimer's a death of the mind, and assisted death then a mercy?

Some of us had to memorize the Ten Commandments as children. I think the intent was good; unfortunately, memorization can have tyhe effect of robbing meaning from the words. The context is lost; the task is putting words in the right order, not thinking about what they mean. So we "know" the words, but seldom think about them. On top of all that, many of us memorized the King James Version, so "thou's" and "shalt's" abound. And "thy neighbor's ass" acquires a whole new meaning--but one not out of place in the context of rules for ethical living.