Torah, American government, and me

In the Daily Offices, we began the Torah on the First Sunday after the Epiphany: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. . . ." By design, we came to the first part of Exodus in the final weeks of Lent, with the plagues upon Egypt. On Easter Day, the first lesson at Matins was Exodus 12:1-14: "This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. . . ."

This week, we have come to Sinai. Yesterday, we read of one of the pivotal moments in all of human history: "And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. . . ." After this most exalted chapter, the twentieth of Exodus, the Lectionary skips ahead to chapter 24. By doing so, something important is missed.

I have voiced my opinion of the omission of parts of the Story in other places. It all matters, even the parts that do not apply directly to us who live not by law, but by grace. I make it a point to read all that is skipped, mostly on the bus commuting to and from work.

Why does it matter that God goes straight from the Ten Commandments to all this business about oxen, and pierced ears, and what happens if your sheep gets into your neighbor's field and eats his wheat? It matters because the Law of God must immediately lead to very specific acts of righteousness in the most ordinary affairs of daily life, personally and as a community. If it does not, we have missed the point of it.

This does not mean that we should enact a Judeo-Christian version of Sharia Law, wherein a statement such as "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (22:18) leads to women being judicially executed by a Christian community simply because they are eccentric. Many would argue that "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" (21:24) is not the best way for a modern community to administer justice. Many other judgments, and many of the dietary regulations that soon follow, are more suitable to an ancient agricultural community than to ours.

But these matters must not be entirely glossed over. The community must somehow administer justice if it is to survive -- and, I think, it must do so in order to be pleasing to God. The Law of God as expressed in the Torah is one of the foundations making possible any community that amounts to more than "might makes right." The Torah ought to remain the standard by which any other system of jurisprudence or ethical teaching is evaluated.

In the United States, and especially in the South, activists periodically try to erect the Ten Commandments on courthouse lawns, where they used to be in many cases before "godless liberal judges" ordered their removal on grounds of separation of church and state. In this matter, I stand with the right-wing activists, adding that if the non-Christians of the community want to erect statements of their moral values beside the Commandments, that would be all the more excellent. I would love for our county courthouse to have a granite monument on its lawn graven with the Ten Commandments, another with the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, another with an appropriate passage from the Koran, others with principles from Confucius and from the long wisdom of the Hindus, others offered by every branch of our community. We need such reminders that Law is more than just Expediency.

And we need reminders that Law must always protect the weak from the strong. "Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child" (22:21-22).

It is manifest that American jurisprudence and government do not measure up very well to these standards. It is not so much "might makes right" these days as it is that "money talks." When the big banks can spend $1 million a day to influence about five hundred people in Congress to ensure that they can continue to cheat the poor out of their retirement savings, when there is a straight path from Wall Street to the Cabinet and other positions among the president's close advisors, when Big Pharma and Blue Cross-Blue Shield managed to get more from the health care reform than common people, we are falling short.

But the Law of God does not leave room for righteous indignation, for it is equally manifest that I, personally, do not measure up to these standards, nor does any son of Eve or daughter of Adam, save one. This is one of the key lessons that must be learned from the Torah: we cannot live up to it. It is a clear teaching of St. Paul, but it is equally clear in the Psalms and Prophets:

"Every one has proved faithless;
all alike have turned bad;
there is none who does good; no, not one." (Psalm 14:3)

The answer to this dilemma is stated in today's Epistle, among many other places, where St. Paul writes:

"And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross." (Colossians 2:13-14).