Sermons for the Month

The V-Chip
DATE: March 26, 2000
SERVICE: Lent III
TEXT: Exodus 20:1-17

“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN

Sponge-worthy.

You're having dinner with your spouse and the kids. The 9-year-old pipes up asking, "What does sponge-worthy mean Dad?" And you know immediately that your kid has been watching a Seinfeld rerun in which Elaine stocks up on contraceptive devices and discusses which men in her life are "sponge-worthy."

Randomly select a television sitcom in the evening these days, and you'll encounter the Same Old Stuff: sexual situations, adult content, violence and raunchy language. It's been a long time since we were in Green Acres; now its South Park, and going farther south by the season.

This is why every new television set over 13 inches now has a new technology installed that allows parents to block programming they do not want their children to see. It's called the V-chip. Next year it will be in every brand-new set. Right now it's available in adapter boxes for old TVs, too. The V-chip is a sort of parent-in-the-TV gimmick to keep kids from having fun--to hear them tell it. Problem is, most parents don't know whether their TV is chipped, or, if they do, how to activate the V-chip. Many don't know what it is, how it works, what it does or if it will work.

Are we dubious? Or just dumbfounded?

It is easy to look at the Ten Commandments--our first reading this morning--as God's way of embedding a moral V-chip into our brains so that we see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Moses goes up the mountain and comes back with the Ten Commandments on stone tablets to post on a tabernacle pillar somewhere. Like, this was the answer for the lawlessness in the camp, for disobedience in the ranks. "Post the commandments. Now lets have some peace and quiet. Please!"

We now have no shortage of modern day Moses who want to do the same thing with the Ten Commandments. Put them in the classrooms. Hang them in the hallways. Post them in the bathrooms. Rep. Robert Aderholt of Alabama thinks we need to hang the Ten Commandments in public view, and so do 286 of his peers. On June 17, 1999, The Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 1999 (H.R. 1501) passed the House by a roll-call vote of 287-139. Tucked away in this bill is Section 1202 - the Religious Liberty Rights Declared Amendment - which proclaims it is the right of each state, its respective courts and towns, to hang the Ten Commandments when and where they see fit.

Public posting of the Ten Commandments is no doubt a good idea. You may remember a few years ago, the billboards that were devoted to highlighting one commandment at a time. Certainly no harm can come from keeping the world's most respected moral code in constant view. But who are we kidding? Is this stopgap measure going to lower the crime rate, curb the violent impulse, reduce teenage pregnancy? I doubt it. It didn't change behavior 3,500 years ago in the Sinai wilderness, and it won't do it today in a postmodern wilderness inhabited by Goths, hip-hoppers, rappers, stoners, over-aged yuppies and Elvis impersonators.

Unfortunately, many teens view the posting of the Ten Commandments in their schools as hypocritical posturing by adults. A recent episode in the new sitcom Popular, puts this in perspective. A teenage girl is caught cheating on an exam. She is immediately marched to the principal's office where she receives a stern lecture.

The girl, rather than expressing remorse, shoots straight back, saying in effect: "Is this where I am now supposed to apologize and say 'I'm sorry?' Well, it ain't going to happen. Cheating is part of the real world. My dad cheats on my mom, and my mom on my dad, and both on their income taxes. I live in a country whose president cheats on his wife and lies to the American public and no one gives a rip. So don't lecture me on cheating and expect me to care."

To make matters worse, not only do people go around breaking the Commandments all the time especially the first three (nothing new here), nobody seems to remember what the Commandments really say.

A recent poll of 1,200 people, ages 15 to 35, discovered that most people were unable to name more than two commandments, and as the essayist Cullen Murphy writes, "They weren't too happy about some of the others when they were told about them."

Practically everyone breaks one of the commandments sooner rather than later: Do not put other desires before God; Do not swear using God's name and remember the Sabbath each week and keep it holy. Now those are three few people think about when they think of the Ten Commandments. Or how about coveting your neighbor's stereo system.

On the other hand, maybe the Ten Commandments need updating. A British commission is considering "Punctuality," "Patience" and "A sense of fair play" as possible additions. Cullen Murphy quizzed Charlton "Moses" Heston on the subject who told him contemporary commandments might include "Do your best" and "Keep your promises."

We could put together a series of commandments based on Madison Avenue sloganeering: "Just do it," "Just be," "Sometimes you gotta break the rules," "Peel off inhibitions. Find your own road." Even kids could get into the act by writing their own. The National Parenting Center asked children to suggest additional commandments. Among their ideas: "No bombing for the heck of it," "Thou shalt not address people by their color" and "No grabbing" (see John Leo, U.S. News & World Report, November 18, 1996).

Enough. The function of the Ten Commandments as the apostle Paul makes so clear in Galatians 3 and elsewhere is not to make us holy, but to show us holy; to act as a yardstick, mirror or schoolmaster to show us the error of our ways and give to us a place to start.

But to think the Ten Commandments are some kind of moral totem that, wherever they are posted, they will ward off postmodern evil spirits, it isn't going to happen. Public posting, while not harmful, is not the answer, especially since many of us don't know what the question is. America did not begin to trust God after we stamped our coins with "In God We Trust." The House today doesn't seem to have more or less wisdom these days than they did in 1779, even though it has been most recently a Lutheran chaplain who has been praying for it continually at the start of each session--mostly to an empty house--these last 15 plus years.

On the other hand, posting, learning and memorizing the Ten Commandments at home or church is a critical element in our children's moral formation. Inculcating these laws which were given by God for our well-being into the minds and hearts of our children at an early age can only be beneficial to the health of families, schools and the nation.

But as we mature in the faith, what must happen is for the law of God to somehow be internalized, as Jeremiah put, "To be written on our hearts." This is what God is getting at when he says to the prophet: "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26). And this is why Jesus was born, why he suffered and died, and why on the third day he was raised from the dead. Jesus is our V-chip, our Victory chip over sin and death. The law's purpose as a schoolmaster, Paul, reminds us, is to "bring us to Christ," the only one who has kept the law.

Posting the Ten Commandments is a start, but alone it's not enough. Living them is. Now, because of Christ, we can.

AMEN

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