Beyond the 10 commandments

Sunday March 22^th, Jeremiah 31: 31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt. As children grow in years, parents change the way they deal with them. The household rules for a 10 year old are much different than for a 3 year old. The Lord took the children of Israel by the hand and gave them a covenant at Sinai, the covenant we call the Ten Commandments. It was a good set of external rules for where the children of God were in life at that time. Now that they no longer need to be led by the hand, now that they have grown up a bit, it is time for something different.  Well, not really different, but a new way to get to the same old ideas that call us to love God and love others.  The reason we as a society hang on to the Ten Commandments so tightly is that it is easier to pretend we are in control with external rules than with the internal idea inherent in the call to love one another.  God calls us to that higher, more mature calling, to love one another.  We are called to move beyond the “what is in it for me, to what would be best for us”, and the move does not come easy.  Most of the political debate going on regarding taxes is based on arguing the point that what’s in it for me is the correct God given way to go.   What they just don’t get is God’s calling to the more mature nature within each of us to see the world not as a “me” but as an “us.”