Thursday, July 30, 2015

I Have 69 Slaves Working for Me!

Last Sunday at our church our featured speaker was Sean Gladding - church planter, leader, and author, currently living in Lexington, KY.  He's the author of a book entitled TEN: Word of Life for an Addicted, Compulsive, Cynical, Divided, and Worn-Out Culture.  (We've been in a sermon series based on his book.)  Sean and his book have helped us see the Ten Commandments not just as legalistic rules in a land where many people think they should stay posted on courthouse walls, but few can remember and recite all ten.  Rather, Sean, our lead pastor Aaron Brown, and other pastors on our staff have helped us see these words from God as life practices, designed to help us be a people free from that which would bind us.  Then, as free people, like the Hebrews who first received them, we can be a people who demonstrate the light of a living God in a world mired in darkness.

Seeing the Ten Commandments this way is convicting and transforming.  For example, consider this commandment:  "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name."  (Exodus 20:7, New International Version.)   As a kid I was taught that this means I should not say the name "God" in any other way than speaking to God or about God.  That's certainly part of it, but a small part.  Sean helped us see that, as a life practice for a people set apart for a particular purpose and mission, this is much bigger.  In the Hebrew worldview, the name of God encompassed God's identity, nature, heart, passion, and purpose.  So, as Sean observed, "taking the LORD's name in vain" isn't just asking God by name, aloud, to damn something or someone.  Sean said, "When we fail to care about what God cares about, we take God's name in vain."

As an example, he steered us to www.slaveryfootprint.org.  The words of this website assert that there are 27M slaves in this world, many if not most of whom are shackled in supply chains that ultimately benefit North American consumers.  I challenge everyone to go to the website and take the survey.  According to it, I have 69 slaves working so that I, personally, can maintain my lifestyle!  Is the survey stylized to make a point?  Probably.  Is it entirely scientific?  Likely not.  Is it pointing to the fact that product and service production outsourced to forced labor, child labor, or below subsistence labor has created many of the goods in my life.  Beyond a shadow of a doubt, yes!  Just like I have a carbon footprint on this planet, I have a slavery footprint.  And this contributes to the bondage of people loved by a God who took human form for them and died for them.  And THAT is a far worse use of God's name in vain than shouting out, "G...D...it!" when the hammer hits my thumb!

That's the level at which we need to allow the Ten Commandments to speak to us, convict us, and change us, way before we argue about whether or not our founding fathers believed and followed them and whether or not they should be posted on courthouse walls.  I can't speak for anyone else or make demands on anyone else.  All I can do us humble myself, seek the mercy of a forgiving God, and get about the business of reducing my slavery footprint, regardless of how it affects my convenience or my purchases and finances.   Ask me about it; hold me accountable to it.

Just some food for thought.  I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

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