Teacher & Savior

Exodus 20:1-17; John 2:13-22

The “ten best ways,” as we call the ten commandments in Godly Play and Worship and Wonder curriculum, are very important.  I believe they are the foundation of our society together.  It is not that they are put on court lawns or in our court houses, which I do prefer to statues I have seen on court lawns, but that it is the covenant for God’s people.  Let us review, God made a covenant with people, starting within the garden, but accumulating with the great covenant with Abraham and Sarah. 

Then in Egypt, God hear their cry and remembered the covenant.  To make the long story short, salvation from slavery was provided by God’s leadership through Moses.  Then God provided the “Ten Best Ways,” the ten commandments, or better yet the covenant.  This promise was the ways humans should live together.  The first four are about loving the One True God, and the remaining six are about how you treat others, or rather neighbors.

It seems to me  a wonderful Rabbi was asked to choose the most important and he said something like this: 

What you yourself hate, don't do to your neighbor. This is the whole law; the rest is commentary. Go and study. (Rabbi Hillel)

And my savior and the great rabbi Jesus of Nazareth said something quite similar:

He said to him,  "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

To me Jesus is restating the convenant God made with people, love God and Love neighbor.  Basically Love, and as Hillel states if you don’t get it read on and study.

Thus when according to John, Jesus enters the temple and drives out the money changers, you must realize that they were the most “religious” people he was angry with.  The priests knew that this market place existed, and instead of worrying about treating the neighbor they were only worried about the institution, the rules and the money.  I am sure many were not being fair with their trading practices, but it developed with a need for people to fulfill the law, the commentary.  It made sense, but the anger I believe came from robbing people of the meaning of the covenant, the Best Way, LOVE of God and Neighbor.