A Bible Lesson for the New Speaker

 So, we finally have a new Speaker of the House. Mike Johnson is one of those Christians--you know, the ones with a LITTLE bit of knowledge on the Bible, a surface knowledge, not a broad spectrum understanding. He's a dangerous Christian--he will take his limited knowledge of the Bible (and by extension, the Torah and the Quran) and he will twist the words, the verses, and the messages and twist them to suit his world view. 

If you know Mike Johnson, could you please share my latest sermon with him? It's titled, "Did He Drop One?" I do not purport to be a Biblical scholar, but I do know some truths about the Bible, and I did do some research. He might find my facts interesting.

Here's what I had to say:

*****************************************************************************

            Last week, Rev. Jennie spoke about the “Burning Man” festival. Who knew our topics would sync so well? She spoke of a gathering in the desert (check), the ritualistic burning of something of significance (check), and the COMMUNITY of people who gathered (and check).  If you want to further extrapolate, Rev. Jennie spoke of rules given to, and lived by, the community…and so will I. AND, Burning Man has been a festival for almost as long as Moses wandered in the desert:  37 years and 40 years.

            I swear we did not plan or coordinate this.

            So, you might very well ask, “why did you---Gale—a UU/Humanist/Pagan ever decide to speak about the Ten Commandments??!! And I will tell you—it happened because one night, Karen and I were talking…as people do…about Moses and the tablets….and I said, “I think he dropped one!” Because I cannot believe that these ten things were all, or the most important, things a Supreme Being might want to tell their people. And after some discussion, Karen said, “That would make a great sermon topic.” So here we are. Blame Karen (or thank her if you are so moved afterwards).

            I want to thank all of you—I learned SO MUCH preparing for this sermon! Had the Worship Committee not asked me to speak today, I would know far less than I do today about the Ten Commandments. Knowledge is a valuable thing. Learning more about our Judeo/Christian UU heritage is not a bad thing either.

            If you were, as I was, raised in a Protestant with a smidge of Catholic household, you probably know the basics of the story of the Ten Commandments. If you’re like Eric Thiel, who has talked about watching the movie “The Ten Commandments” yearly (?), you also have the visual of Charlton Heston and the parting of the Red Sea. BUT, there’s so much more I never knew, never thought about.

            But first, a quiz. How many of the Ten Commandments can you name?

 

            According to Hassan Khan on Facebook…yes, Facebook (isn’t the internet wonderful?):  [in 2012] “A survey by Kelton Research found that more people in America can name the ingredients of a Big Mac than can list all Ten Commandments. 80 percent of 1,000 respondents could name the burger’s primary ingredient — two all-beef patties — but less than six in 10 knew the commandment “thou shalt not kill.” Less than half of respondents — 45 percent — could recall the commandment “honor thy father and mother” but 62 percent knew the Big Mac has pickle. What’s the reason for this?” Khan speculates:   “Is it because people are turning (or have turned) their backs on religion, or could it be that there are specific and clever methods to make ideas stick and get into people’s heads? Maybe it’s a bit of both, but the truth is that there’s a science behind making ideas more memorable.”

 

            So, you’ve had time to think, and you now have your cheat sheets. How many did you remember? Show of hands (and first let me say that EVEN WHILE WRITING THIS Sermon, I couldn’t remember all of them—so no shame here)….how many did you remember:  _____________________.

            Thank you for indulging me. If you’d like to use the back of those sheets to add some commandments of your own, I will make time at the end for you to share—the front of the Order of Service will get you started.

 

            Some basic information:

·         The story of the Ten Commandments appears in two different books of the Bible:  Exodus and Deuteronomy. These books are a part of the five books that make up the Torah for people of the Jewish faith. These books are part of the Old Testament in Christian tradition. And, the Quran Book 7, Verses 142–5 describes how Moses received the divine tablets. but doesn't describe what was on them. As you may remember from the readings Don and I did, the Commandments are scattered throughout the Quran, not listed all together.

·         The phrase, “Ten Commandments” first appeared in the King James version of the Bible; up until then, they were referred to as the “Ten Decalogues” or “Ten Utterances”.

·         According to Jewish religious scholars, there are actually 613 Commandments! There are 75 “Good Manners”, or Commandments, in the Quran. I’m going to stick with the “Top Ten” here, in the interests of brevity!

·         And, apparently I WAS RIGHT (I do love to say that):  Moses DID drop tablets—more precisely, God writes a set of rules on tablets that Moses takes down the mountain. When Moses gets to the bottom of the mountain, back to his people, he finds them partying and worshipping a golden calf. In his rage, he throws the tablets down, and they break into pieces. So, Moses goes back up the mountain for another 40 days, and this time (a plot twist) God dictates the Ten Commandments to Moses, who writes them down. So much room for error, in my opinion!! Some Rabbis believe that the first set was purely the work of God, and therefore inadequate to the task of teaching real people. The second set, written by a human, is much more understandable to people. Moses goes back down the mountain with the tablets, which by the way, religious scholars are not in agreement about even how the Commandments are arranged:  all on one tablet, on two tablets, or were there two tablets, but were just copies of the “all on one”. Again, I could be right about that dropping thing!

 

 

So, that’s the story, shared by three faiths, and passed down through the centuries. Before I get to central idea of my sermon, I’d like to share some other thoughts I came across. In the book The Ten Commandments:  How Our Most Ancient Moral Text Can Renew Modern Life by David Hazony, the author says this:  “Often, when encountering the central texts of Christianity or Judaism, we abandon our ordinary tools of reading and thinking about what we’ve read, whether out of awe, skepticism, revulsion, or fear…Reading the Ten Commandments with fresh eyes requires overcoming the instinct….to dismiss the text as archaic rather than foundational, as symbolic of the kind of God-on-the-mountain revelatory symphony that we thankfully left behind long ago, along with the establishment of religion and the political authority of religious leaders. But it also means resisting the opposite instinct, common among many religious people, which suggests that because the text is believed to be the Word of God, we cannot really study, question, challenge, or understand it on our own terms. Both instincts are problematic in our attempt to learn important truths from the Ten Commandments, for in both cases we are led away from applying our creative thinking to what is in fact a difficult text.” To follow that last thought, I have always found it fascinating that, when telling a religious person that I am not “a believer”, I am asked, “Then what keeps you from murdering someone?” Perhaps that’s happened to a few of you too?

Hazony’s premise is that the Ten Commandments are not a sacred religious command at all—we do not need religion to understand them. He says, “they are, rather, a set of extremely concise statements about the best way to build a good, upright society.” Indeed. Following that logic a little further, it’s striking that what some modern people think is SO IMPORTANT was not in God’s Top Ten at all:  apparently a person’s sexuality or gender identity were NOT important to the Supreme Being when giving laws to humans—probably because sexuality and gender identification are personal, and have no bearing on societal function? Note to our all-powerful lawmakers:  whether you are LGBTQ or not has NO BEARING on sustaining a civilized society—according to the more All-Powerful. So, knock it off.

Okay, so we could all agree that this—the issuing of the Ten Commandments--was one of the first attempts to lay down rules and guidelines to sustain community? A community of ALL humanity?

Or not? In Judith Plaskow’s pioneering work, Standing Again at Sinai, she begins by pointing out that the exclusion of women from the Sinai experience is embedded in the introduction in Exodus:  “Exodus 19:15 And he said to the community, “Be ready in three days’ time, do not come near a woman”. The “community” here is defined as the community of men. Thus, the text actually and decidedly excludes women from standing at Sinai and from receiving the Commandments, thus from participating equally in the foundational myth of Torah reception.”’ This echoes the sentiment put forth by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in The Women’s Bible.
            Furthermore, Prof. Athalya Brenner-Idan, Professor (Emerita) of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament chair at the University of Amsterdam, makes the compelling case that the Ten Commandments were written for men ONLY. She states, “[God]’s self-definition, exclusivity, warning against paganism, and proscription against illegitimate pronouncements of God’s name, attributed to his own voice overtly implicate an all-male audience. Thankfully the likes of me, daughters and female slaves at least, are cited as participants in the Sabbath rest together (if in second place to males) with other social inferiors to and dependents of male…It is gratifying that respect and support are due to mothers (in the second place, after fathers in this text’s word order) as well as fathers... The prohibitions concerning killing, theft and perjury are [male] oriented. So is the prohibition of adultery addressed only to men…, and logic be hanged. The last Commandment is addressed explicitly only to men, just as the standing at Sinai verse was. It prohibits envy—covetousness of a male’s material possessions: his house, his male and female slaves, his domestic animals…And what about his wife? There she is: in Exodus she appears between “house” and “slaves,” but in Deuteronomy she is positioned first as the prize possession and coveting her becomes a prohibition in and of itself. Female envy—of other women’s husbands or property for instance—and its possible outcome is not referred to.”

But Prof. Brenner-Idan makes this brilliant conclusion:  “What, then, should we do? For me, now as in the past, the answer is clear although not simple. We should have the courage to admit that the Bible should and can be updated, not by re-writing it through translation and interpretation, but through looking at it and saying: This is how things were, but this is how we want them to be.”

So, perhaps Moses didn’t exactly drop a tablet or two (I still like that visual), but perhaps we need to say, “This is how things were, but this is how we want them to be.”  How do we want our world community to be? What Commandments do we think need to be added to make our world community a better place?

I’m going to give Jesus the first word. The “New Commandment” is a term used in Christianity to describe Jesus's commandment to "love one another" which, according to the Bible, was given as part of the final instructions to his disciples after the Last Supper had ended. It’s an expansion on The Golden Rule, which is found in nearly every religion in the world—treating others as you would like to be treated— but I’ve talked about that before.

           

            What to add? One that comes to my mind after doing all the reading I have done this week is:  “No person is a slave.” Because interestingly, although Moses led his people out of slavery, there was still the apparent expectation that they had slaves themselves.

            Another one I would add? A commandment to care for the earth and ALL creatures—that’s sorely lacking, and I believe it has led to the destruction of our natural world.

            And what about you? Do any of you have a new Commandment you would like to share?

            My friend Tanny, posts “News with Betty” on Facebook. These are videos of her elderly mom, sharing news and wisdom from the day. And I love Betty’s closing words, so I will share them with you to close:  another Commandment, if you will. Betty says, “Be kind to one another.” So be it.

Irreplaceable

 

The first word that came to mind upon reading the first post about my friend Karen's death? Irreplaceable.

 Karen is absolutely and utterly irreplaceable. 

Irreplaceable:  "too special, unusual, or valuable to replace with something or someone else."

For me, Karen is THE definition of "irreplaceable".

You may callously say (because you didn't know her, or only knew one part of her) that I'm just saying that because Karen was my friend. You are wrong. Yes, she was my friend, my colleague, my mentor, my oh-so-many-things. But, she is also irreplaceable.

In today's world, we often hear, "I'm too busy," or "I don't have the bandwidth for one more thing". I never, ever heard Karen say that. Never. And she could have said that, and many of us would have agreed with her, because she WAS busy. 

Busy raising two bright, engaging, and energetic children to be good, caring, wonderful adults. Busy being the best grandmother. Busy being the absolute best spouse to Jon (they were a couple many of us aspired to be), especially in his last years, when he had cancer. For over forty years, they each enabled the other one to serve this community well. There are few facets of this community that did not have a Fricker or a Springer serving it. 

Busy teaching Jacki Sorensen Aerobic Dance for years and years--right up until the moment of her aneurysm. Thank goodness she was teaching via Zoom, and her students could get help to her right away. She will be irreplaceable to her dance students.

Busy taking notes in classes for students at Purdue who needed help with that part of their education (can you imagine sitting through semester after semester of college classes again?! Karen did it, took fantastic notes, and helped students pass their classes, and ultimately, graduate). She would be irreplaceable to the students she helped.

Are YOU overwhelmed yet? Because for Karen, that was just an ordinary START to her day. 

Karen also did choreography for years for musicals in the local elementary schools--even when her kids were not a part of said musical programs. Can you honestly say you would do the same thing? Honestly? If your kid was not involved? Karen would...and did.

Karen was the music booster for the WL School Corporation--again, long after her children had graduated, she was still involved. She organized the annual Ice Cream Social each summer, sold flowers at every high school musical and band and orchestra performance. She attended so many performances in the high school auditorium, they should name a bank of seats for her. Not kidding. They should. I cannot think that the Music Boosters will be able to replace Karen with just one person.

 Karen served on the WL Park Board for 20 years. That means monthly meetings, annual picnics, ribbon cuttings, etc. Oh yeah, Karen was president of the Board more than one time. Irreplaceable.

Karen was on the organizing committee for Global Fest for years too. Global Fest is one of the premier events in our community, and Karen was responsible for the Naturalization Ceremony that "kicks off" Global Fest each year. She also was in charge of food vendors for years. And some years, Karen was just in charge of the entire two-day event. You think the Global Fest committee will be able to replace Karen with just one person? In these days, when people are slow to volunteer? Nope. Irreplaceable.

Have you "filled your bandwidth" yet, just thinking about what Karen's days must have been like?

Then let's talk about Karen's time on the School Board. She was on the Board for 24 years, and was named the Indiana "Outstanding Board Member" in 2022. In 24 years, Karen missed just FOUR meetings. In addition to the monthly meetings, there are annual State School Board Conferences, local meetings with other school boards, District School Board meetings, committee meetings, Executive Sessions, and also just the preparation for the monthly meetings--if you are president of the Board, as Karen was multiple times, there are extra meetings with the superintendent, and the gathering of material for Board packets for the monthly meetings. It's truly a part-time job in the best of times. In the hardest of times, like when preparing for a local referendum or firing a superintendent (more about that later), it's a job that is all-consuming. And Karen did that job--willingly--for 24 YEARS. There will never be another Board member like Karen. She is irreplaceable.

I met Karen at some point when our first-born were little, because they're the same age. In 1999, after growing frustration with the local school board, I decided to run. Karen had already been on the board for four years, and not only encouraged me to run, but became my mentor for all things I needed to do to campaign for office. Surprisingly, I was elected by 43 votes, and Karen then became my mentor for the office of School Board Trustee. The photo above was taken after my first School Board meeting, and the face I am making is partially in jest, and partly because I was slowly realizing the magnitude of knowledge I DIDN'T have about my new job. It's so easy to be the person criticizing from the outside, with no knowledge of what's truly involved in that elected office. Karen never laughed at my ignorance, only encouraged me to attend every training session, every conference, and to READ and educate myself before every meeting. As I watched her out in the community, I realized to be a good Board member, I needed to be out there too--at athletic events, musical events, parent council meetings, and in the schools (when invited). I also learned the limits of my role on the Board--gosh, I cannot fathom of the number of times that Karen would have gently "held me back", reminding me that XXXX was not the responsibility of the Board. That one was hard for me, and thankfully, Karen was right there. 

In 2003-2004, our corporation faced a tough challenge:  we had to decide whether, and how, to fire our superintendent. Karen was the Board president, and I was the Vice-President. I mentioned earlier that Karen took notes for students, but I didn't mention how utterly meticulous those notes were. As a Board member, I saw first-hand how thorough, accurate, and intelligent Karen's notes were. [Many people have said to me that Karen was so quiet and reserved, how could she possibly be someone they could vote for for public office? I would always counter that Karen was thoughtful and chose her words carefully, and if she spoke, it was with great knowledge of law and Board policy and precedent--they'd better listen!]. In the time leading up to the dismissal of the superintendent, we held countless meetings with administrators, lawyers, mediators, and state Association staff. We went through three long nights of hearings with the superintendent and her lawyers. Karen took pages and pages of copious notes. PAGES.Then she went home every night and studied them, taking more notes and making up more sets of questions for our lawyers. This whole affair went on for weeks, during our re-election campaigns (and forums and canvassing and...), and still Karen diligently did her job as Board president AND mother AND wife AND dance instructor AND volunteer AND....   In the end, the superintendent was fired, but that wasn't the end. The entire School Board and Corporation were sued by the former superintendent--all the way up to the federal Circuit Court level. At each legal level, the former superintendent lost. I have to believe if not for Karen and her rock-solid leadership, knowledge, expertise, and note-taking, the Corporation would have lost the case, AND millions of dollars. In the end, Karen and I lost our re-election bids, thus the two-year gap in Karen's Board service. Yes, despite all the ugliness that surrounds every election, Karen decided she still wanted to serve the children of this community the best way she knew how. And she did it faithfully, graciously, and selflessly, for another nearly 18 years. She is irreplaceable. 

Karen is an irreplaceable part of my life. How do you replace someone who gave so much to the local community--who made this place I live a better place? How do you replace someone who gave so much of herself to my kids, and to kids we all know and care about? How do you replace someone in your life who was the epitome of "public servant", and made you want to be a better person? How do you replace someone who gave so much of herself to you? How do you replace someone who remembers, and experienced, an important time of your life, and can reminisce and laugh as only one of seven people can do? Karen came the night before her stroke to be with us to eat pizza, to cheer on our favorite team, to tell me about her grandchildren (and show me pictures) and children--how can she ever be replaced?

Karen can never be replaced. She will be a reminder to me, and to others, of the power one person giving of themselves to others. Karen will always have a special place in my heart--I will carry her with me forever. Special and valuable. Irreplaceable.