Here's the next installment of our ongoing weekly devotional series looking at the Ten Commandments through the lens of Martin Luther's Small Catechism.
The Fifth Commandment: You shall not murder.
What does this mean? We are to fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need.
I may sound like a broken record here, but yet again Luther reminds us that the narrow way we normally employ to define this commandment simply doesn't cut it. Many of us think, "I haven't killed anybody today...I pass this test!" That doesn't quite cover everything this commandment warns us against.
Click through to explore how much more there is.
If you read the clause in Luther's explanation right after "fear and love God" you'll find that the Fifth Commandment covers far more than depriving a person of his or her life entirely. Everything we do that hurts or harms our neighbor's body goes against this commandment and God's intention for us. This covers a host of behaviors. Bullying usually involves some kind of physical harm or intimidation. Abuse against spouses or children does as well. Those are just a couple of the obvious ones. Plenty of behaviors cause secondary, even unintentional, harm to our neighbor's body. How about those magazine ads that convince our young women that they're nowhere near skinny and perfect enough so they'll run from product to product, diet to diet, killing themselves slowly trying to attain an unhealthy ideal? How about all of those times our office mates should be eating apples and carrots but we bring in a big box of doughnuts and start munching blissfully? How about drug abuse, second-hand smoke, over-consumption of alcohol? Every time we lead someone else into temptation which physically harms them or we harm them indirectly by the actions we're taking we have crossed the boundary set by this commandment. In effect we're still killing people, just in slower fashion.
The final clause goes even further. Refraining from physical harm is only the first step. We're also tasked with helping our neighbors, making sure they have their physical needs met. The aid we fail to render is as damning as the harm we perpetuate by our actions. When we see a hungry person and do not feed them, a person without garments and do not clothe them, someone without a home and do not shelter them we are participating in their murder, at least by this definition. That's harsh, especially in a society that thrives on a few having a lot of things while most do without. But it makes sense. Starving someone--either in the real or metaphorical sense--is just as effective of a way of doing them in as clubbing them over the head would be.
The message here is clear: we are meant to be a people of life! All the physical thing that pass our hands (even our hands themselves!) are meant to bring life to somebody. When we fail to use them that way, let alone use them in the opposite way to deprive people of life and health, we have failed the purpose of those objects, of our existence, and of God himself.
People often wonder how the religious and political leaders of Jesus' time could have crucified him. Wasn't this commandment--and really every other law of holiness and common decency--screaming against it? Of course! Every ring of hammer on nail should have screamed "You shall not murder! You shall not murder!" Then again we do this in different ways every single day of our lives. We want to think it's a difference of degree but really it's just time, location, and which face Christ is wearing today as we pass him on the street, less responsive and caring than we should be. We hammer in a nail every time we do not use the gifts God has given us to show life and hope to the world. We're killing each other every day without knowing it.
The task for the week is to open your eyes, asking whether you've used the things in your life to their best, most life-giving purposes. This includes your hands, your actions, your possessions...anything you can point to or lay a finger on. What are you doing with the things God has given you? For whom are they bringing life today? Which neighbors have you supported and healed? Which have you held up in times of trouble? What injustices--abuse, rape, bullying, and the like--have your stood up against, not just by decrying them as wrong but by reaching out to those affected by them? Connecting your blessings and those in need of them is one of the most profound and crucial acts of faith. Until we've mastered it our faith dies slowly, every bit as much as those around us who need our helping hands do.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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