March 15, 2009
Grace Church
Rev. Robert E. Hensley

Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22

      Let us pray.  How often we call out to you, O God, yet we do seldom listen to the words spoken in the still quiet of our souls. We distance ourselves from your love and healing touch. Break the stubborn arrogance of our hearts, that we would embrace your unchanging word and know true peace that only comes from total submission to your will. For it is in his name we pray. Amen. 
 

      When Promenade Pictures released the animated movie The Ten Commandments, as part of their marketing, they commissioned Kelton Research to poll 1,000 people on their ability to recall the ingredients of a Big Mac as opposed to their ability to recall the Ten Commandments. The results made it appear that Ronald McDonald is keeping Moses in bondage. 
 

      Almost eighty percent of Americans knew that the Big Mac was made up of two all-beef patties; while just over 50 percent knew “Thou shalt not kill” was one of the commandments. Only 14 percent knew all 10. 
 

      Even those who attend church or synagogue at least once a week have a bit of trouble naming them all. The top two mentioned commandments – Thou shalt not kill and Thou shalt not steal – were recalled by 70 percent and 69 percent respectively. The Big Mac was more memorable – 79 percent knew of its all-beef patties and 76 percent knew that it came with lettuce. 
 

      Isn’t it strange that there are some supposedly “religious” people that get all bent out of shape if the Ten Commandments are pulled off of courtroom walls, but they aren’t able to pull up the Decalogue themselves.  As sharply noted by one news-post, “It’s enough to make McMoses throw his two all-beef tablets to the ground!” 
 

      Have you ever tried quickly to pull a dangling thread from the hem of a pant-leg or skirt or jacket, only to find you've got hold of one of those dreaded running stitches? Instead of breaking off, the thread continues to unstitch itself until the entire hem falls out.  As a result, instead of freeing yourself from one annoying little thread, you now have a major clothing catastrophe. 
 

      It is always the little things that end up getting us in the biggest trouble. G. K. Chesterton referred to these as "tremendous trifles." Life, Chesterton observed, does not usually present us with big temptations or grandiose sins. Instead, we constantly encounter little temptations that can easily slip under the threshold of our levels of acceptance and tolerance. These little, apparently insignificant temptations nibble away at us, gradually compromising our integrity with each tiny bite. 
 

      Human moral failure does not usually come from enormous, glaring misdeeds – things like murdering, stealing or cheating on a spouse. Our ethical standards are not so much ripped out by the roots through such obvious sins. Instead, we are far more likely to experience the gradual decay of our human moral fiber through the insidious work of "tremendous trifles" – such as holding onto our anger, backbiting, small-mindedness or selfishness. Eventually our standards of acceptable behavior slip lower and lower, until we can talk ourselves into almost anything, as long as it is to our own benefit. 
 

      The poet/diplomat James Russell Lowell encapsulated this tendency when he penned:  
 

      “In vain we call old notions fudge,

      And bend our conscience to our dealing;

      The Ten Commandments will not budge,

      And stealing will continue stealing.” 
 

       (As quoted in Charles Mankin, "The Meaning of the Ten Commandments for Today," Restoration Quarterly 34 [No. 4, 1992], 239.) 
 

      One way we convince ourselves of the "inconsequential" nature of our "trifling" tramplings on the mandates of the Decalogue is to look at the violence and destruction that seem to be escalating all around us. Senseless violent crimes are splattered across the news every night. Atrocities of war and incidents of "ethnic cleansing" continue to spread like plagues across whole countries. Or, we see how cultural covetousness has led to the rape of planet Earth and the wanton abuse of her precious natural resources. 
 

      But each of these terrible acts can be traced back to a tiny trifling beginning – the rooting out of one of God's commandments in favor of some self-directed focus. 
 

      The most frightening trend now predicted by sociologists is the rise of a new kind of criminal – a "super-criminal" or "super-predator." Statistics and surveys suggest that our culture is now producing individuals so permanently psychopathic, so violent, and so morally bankrupt, that they are capable of committing the worst of crimes for the least of reasons. 
 

      These "super-predators" think nothing of murdering another over a petty disagreement – it is just a good way to win the argument.  These "super-predators" think nothing of spraying an entire schoolroom full of students with gunfire in order to get an "enemy" – the bystanders are simply disposable. 

      These "super-predators" think nothing of burning down the house or business of a rival to "even the score," or spreading rumors on the internet about their daughter’s cheerleading rival, driving a sensitive girl to suicide. 
 

      But the most terrifying thing about this new breed of super-criminals our culture has created is their age. The most sociopathic, conscienceless, blood-thirsty, remorseless killers, thieves and rapists are typically between the ages of 12 and 18. Sometimes younger. 
 

      Juvenile crimes have doubled since 1960. From 1960 to 1990, the proportion of children born to unmarried mothers ballooned from one in 15 to one in four. New statistics now reveal that for children aged 10-18, the second most likely cause of death is by firearms. Every 92 minutes, a child is shot somewhere in the United States. Increasingly, these are not accidental shootings. This terrifying young generation of "super-predators" – although basically indiscriminant in picking victims – preys most heavily on its own generation. As we witnessed in horror a few years ago at Columbine High School, or this past week in Germany.  Children are massacring children. 
 

      Where do these sociological monsters come from? How does a child become a cold-blooded killer by the age of 12? We must all take some responsibility. Children cannot raise themselves – although they are increasingly forced to do so, which is part of the problem. Children are dependent upon parents, a community and a culture to teach them right from wrong. It does take a village, as Mrs. Clinton wrote. 
 

      When we fail to accomplish that basic feat we leave them stranded in a moral wasteland with nothing except their own wants and desires.  
 

      Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we are teaching our children: 
 

• Every time we endorse violence as a form of cheap entertainment. 
   
• Every time we accept grasping greed as a substitute for striving for success. 
   
• Every time we depersonalize the poor and hungry and homeless by making them into nothing more than statistics. 
   
• Every time we settle for a "quick fix" instead of solving a problem. 
   
• Every time we shut out the cries of others in order to focus better on our own desires. 
   
• Every time we use and discard friends, lovers, coworkers or family members as though they were disposable diapers.

      Our "tremendous trifles" are stacking up into a mountain of broken loyalties, self-centered needs and loveless relationships. And all the while we do this, our children are watching, learning and perfecting their own attitudes. 
 

      Consider this: In Seattle, two 15-year-old boys and their 14-year-old girlfriends decided to ditch school for the day. Missing their bus to the mall, these kids simply car-jacked an automobile parked at a school bus stop. It was of no consequence to them and their needs that sitting in the back of the car, strapped in their car seats, sat an 8-month-old and a 2-year-old. The kids sped away, even as the frantic mother tried to cling to the back door handle of the car. It took five hours to find the abandoned car – thankfully with the hot, frightened, hungry babies still sitting in it unharmed. The shocked families of these young criminals protested that they were really "good kids." 
 

      Consider this: In Miami (where a sports team is punningly called "Miami Heat" – and in street lingo "heat" doesn't mean warmth from the sun but a gun), two brothers aged 15 and 17 celebrated their parents' absence over a weekend by cruising the family Mercedes into a poor section of town and shooting six-inch spear-darts into the backs of people walking down the street. Their preferred targets? Elderly African-Americans. They carried a large stockpile of their chosen ammunition so the "fun" could continue for a long time. After their arrest, the boys' stunned parents wept on camera, heroically apologizing for their sons' behavior but insisting they were "good kids." The oldest boy also voiced his concern – not about his victims, but about how this incident would affect his chances of getting into a good college in the fall. 
 

      Consider this: In Los Angeles, four buddies aged 14 to 17 decided to spend their evening having some real fun. Armed with a baseball bat, they began by bashing in mailboxes. Then they graduated to parked cars. But these sitting targets weren't challenging enough. Eventually the boys began to target bicyclists and pedestrians – bashing them in the head, and then speeding by their victims' crumpled bodies. Next, the kids loaded up their paint-ball gun and began taking aim at all they passed. Men and women, small children and older people, all were fair game. Their victim’s panic, pain and fear at the sound of gunfire and the impact of the paint-balls hitting their bodies caused the boys to shriek with laughter and congratulate each other on their "good shooting." We know the details of their night's activities so well because one of the boys decided to videotape their festivities so they could enjoy them again and again. Once they were arrested, friends and family shook their heads in disbelief. These weren't kids who were usually in trouble – they were "good kids." 
 

      Well, guess what? These are not "good kids." These are, however, children we have raised, all of us, in a cultural hothouse with an atmosphere that is "commandment-free" – or at least "commandment-optional." And the reluctance of our churches to proclaim from the rooftops these tablets of stone that are to be written into our hearts makes the church an accomplice in this raising up of a generation of super-predators.

      The Decalogue intentionally doesn't go into specific details of situations and punishment because it is intended to become part of the structure of our soul, the spine of our being. The mandates of love and loyalty, respect and honor, justice and worthiness that they impart must stand inside each one of us ready to direct us when we face trouble and temptation. When we let our spiritual backbone gradually decay, when we fail to feed our bones the calcium of faithfulness, they grow so weak and porous that the least pressure shatters them to dust. It only takes the weight of a "tremendous trifle" to bring us down. We become formless and faithless – easily shaped into whatever mold stands before us. 
 

      Everybody knows the Ten Commandments. Right? 
 

      Maybe not. They either become such an integral part of our lives, our homes, our work and our family that we become walking tablets. Or they become so eaten away by "tremendous trifles" that we collapse into dust and ashes. 
 

      So what can the church do? Buster Soaries and Richard Weissbourd have suggested some answers to that question. Each answer is different, but each answer is right. 
 

      Buster Soaries is pastor of one of the largest Baptist churches in New Jersey. First Baptist has a burden for the "dandelion children" of their neighborhood – kids who survive and thrive in the cracks of concrete jungles and unpromising conditions. Recently 10 juveniles from around the First Baptist Church were up for sentencing. Rev. Soaries and some of the church's deacons went to court and petitioned the judge not to send them to jail but to send them to church. He said, "Judge, we will save the taxpayers of the state hundreds of dollars. We will apply the entire resources of this church to treating and tending these kids. I have an entire congregation, a family that has pledged to help these kids. Give us a chance to love them and teach them before a prison educates them in hate and pathology." 
 

      The judge was so struck by this novel idea, and so taken by this church's resolve to get involved in these kids' lives, that he brought each one of the kids before the bench and spoke these words: "Son, if you don't go to First Baptist Church, I'll lock you up." He then addressed each of these kids' parent (s) with these words: "If you don't go to First Baptist Church with your kid, I'd like to lockyou up."  
 

      Richard Weissbourd has another equally powerful answer – but one that comes before sentencing a criminal to church. Weissbourd teaches in Boston at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Graduate School of Education. In his look at this generation, where 6-year-olds become murderers (The Vulnerable Child [New York: Addison-Wesley, 1996]), he criticizes our nation's "E.R." approach to children in crisis: last-minute crisis interventions that are expensive and expended only when the child is in trouble and hope of full recovery is slim. Weissbourd prescribes another antidote to the fraying moral fiber of our children. Why haven't we set up, he asks, one-stop community centers where teachers, nurses, social workers, police and clergy can work together to help families before they are "in crisis." 
 

      He proposes that they could be set up in local schools. 
 

      Or churches. 
 

      Of all the social issues with which our denominations are struggling, why have we not embraced this one – why have we not reached out to a generation raised without moral mooring? Why cannot our churches become wholeness centers that minister to troubled families from a deep spiritual base? 
 

      The church is the only community on this earth that can legitimately and with authority confront the Evil One. For it is the only community on earth to whom the keys of the kingdom are given. The gates of hell can prevail against anything and everything but the church. In the church's highlighting and holding up of the Ten Commandments, we are not offering this culture a moral milestone, we are offering a lifelong discipline. 
 

      Together, we can do this.   Because if the churches won't, who will?  Amen.