In our first reading today, as we hear God give Moses the commandments he wishes
his people to follow, we might think about how following God’s laws and
commandments are foundational to our Christian faith and to our lives of
discipleship. Having said that, we know that it is not always easy following those
commandments and apply God’s law to the reality of our lives. Reading those commandments, they might seem clear-cut and straight-forward, but
when seen in the light of our complicated human lives, it is not so easy or
straight-forward, is it?
This
month, in our calendar of saints, we have the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. I thought about them when I thought about the
commandment of honoring God and his name and not taking his name in vain. Supposedly there were seven young men named Maximian, Malchus, Marcian, John,
Denis, Serapion, and Constantine. During the persecutions conducted by the Emperor Decius in the middle of the 3rd
century before Christianity became a recognized legal religion, they hid in a
cave to save their lives because they refused to make pagan sacrifices. The
cave was sealed, and legend has it that they fell into a miraculous sleep and
later woke up approximately 300 years later where they were seen by the
townsfolk of the city. This
incident was revered by both the Christian and Muslim traditions because it was
interpreted as validating the resurrection of the dead that is a part of our
belief. Martyrdom
was respected and honored in the early Church and was the true sign of
sainthood for the sacrifices and testimony those individuals made for the
faith. Whether the story is true or not is not the point. The point is: How are we honoring God and his
holy name in our lives and what sacrifices and commitment are we making to
follow our faith as disciples of Christ.
A
year ago, our Adult Faith Formation program here at St James read a book by Benedictine Sister
Joan Chittister about the Ten Commandments.
What I liked most about that book was how it challenged us in the way we
looked at those commandments, seeing them in different and new ways. May we honor God in the way we try to follow
the Ten Commandments in our lives. May
we honor him and praise him in our words and in our actions.
