Winter 1984 - 1985 - Quarterly Review

HOMILETICAL RESOURCES
we renew in ourselves the commitments to hope for redemption. We
begin again to work to fulfill that hope through lives we would want
our children to model and reaffirm with their children. We pass the
covenant from generation to generation.
A Jewish folk idea says that prior to birth an angel obliges the
child-to-be-born to swear that he or she will become a zaddik, a saintly
person, and not, God forbid, a rasha', an evil person. It is hard to keep
the oath. Life whittles away at our resolution. Creation and covenant
alike wear down. "Blessed is our God, Ruler of the World, who has
commanded that we involve ourselves in the words of the Torah"
(Prayer Book, morning service). When we fulfill that commandment,
then we read of Abrams and Sarais turned into Abrahams and Sarahs,
and we see how tired, worn-out lives become new and laugh out of
doubt and into joy. We see that as broken as life may make us, turning
to our creator and our covenantal tasks renews, repairs, and, with
God's help, redeems.
Who would have told Abram that Sarai would suckle children? No
one. But no one would deny that Abraham and Sarah, the changed
couple, did have a son. Countless generations have read their story. It
still beckons us to change our visions and our styles, to believe in new
beginnings and changed fortunes. It challenges us to hope and act in
such a way that we may all share in the joy of a redeemed creation.
EXODUS 20:1-17
The Ten Commandments, in Hebrew the Ten Statements, are
central to both Judaism and Christianity. For Judaism, they represent
the beginning of revelation which would finally unfold into 613
covenantal responsibilities called mitzvot, commandments. Indeed,
Saadyah Gaon, a tenth-century Jewish philosopher, and the great
book of Jewish mysticism, the Zohar, claim that all the commandments
are contained in concise form in the Ten Commandments
revealed at Sinai. These rules represent the details of Jewish living and
cover the totality of life's activities. This system attempts to tie the
totality of human activity to God, in this manner to sanctify it, and,
thus, to infuse the totality of human experience with significance and
worth. The message the 613 commandments seeks to convey is: there
is no human act or relationship which is unimportant in the eyes of
God. Furthermore, there is no realm of being which cannot become a
point of departure for a meeting with the divine. Yet, the Ten
Commandments contain the content of the theophany witnessed by
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