KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 25 November
Law is freedom
The Ten Commandments read in Chapel this week present in a concise and clear way the universal moral code of our humanity and mark the climax of the Exodus, itself a journey of ethical education. They are the core teachings that underlie a multitude of laws and regulations that arise over time in various situations and circumstances. In this sense, the idea of the Law differs from regulations which bind and limit. The Law in contrast liberates. Regulations belong and apply to local conditions and are arbitrary and alterable, cultural and relative to context. The Law, on the other hand, transcends the cultural, ethnic, and linguistic, to speak to matters which are in principle universal.
Our reflection on the Ten Commandments follows logically upon the Revelation of God as “I AM WHO I AM” to Moses out of the burning bush and complements the idea of the interaction between the different forms of our knowing. Revelation engages our minds. Thus the Ten Commandments are grounded in the metaphysical revelation of God as the principle prior to all forms of knowing and being. They move us from that idea of God to the making known of the will of God for our humanity. They are revelation but they are equally a complete system of ethical thinking. They begin with the “I AM WHO I AM” who leads us out of what constrains and limits our humanity.
“I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage”. This is the preface to the giving of the Ten Commandments which are not numbered per se in the text (there are two different traditions about the way they are numbered – more about that later). “I am the Lord thy God” is a circumlocution for saying in effect, “I am the I AM WHO I AM, thy God”. This follows upon the story of the burning bush where God says to Moses say to the people of Israel “I AM has sent me to you”. And why? Because God has seen the affliction of his people and undertakes their deliverance, in this case from Egyptian slavery.
Even more, the Ten Commandments are about a greater liberation that counters the limits of cultural relativism which denies any abiding truth to any law – all laws become merely regulations, arbitrary and alterable and as such subject to the misuse and abuse of power. The Law is not only liberation from what limits and enslaves but a liberation to a principle in which our humanity finds its truest expression, its dignity and freedom. With the Ten Commandments, the ideas of freedom and dignity have real content and are not merely slogans bandied about under the guise of coercion and social conformity.
