Brief synopsis of the readings: In Exodus Moses ascendings Mt. Sinai with two stone tablets. Once there he called on the Lord and asked for his favor. “If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own.” In John’s Gospel we see Jesus speaking with Nichodemus. He told Nichodemus that God loved us so much that he gave his only Son for the salvation of all. Anyone who believes will avoid condemnation but anyone who does not believe is already condemned in not believing in God’s Son.

In 1981 Mel Brooks released a comedy film called History of the World, Part 1. An early scene shows Moses descending Mt. Sinai with three stone tablets. After saying “The Lord, the Lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen… ” he drops one of the tablets that shatters. He then corrected himself: “Oy! Ten! Ten commandments for all to obey!” I sometimes wonder what was on that 3rd tablet, but maybe it was just as well.

The phrase “The 10 Commandments” has become so ubiquitous that even nonbelievers recognize it. It’s a scene in Exodus, a 1956 movie starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner and (in the last few decades) a political football. But if we look closely at our first reading from Exodus it’s a slightly more complicated story.

We can be forgiven for zoning out during this reading, assuming it described God giving Moses the commandments with the instruction to follow these rules. But here Moses fashioned blank tablets and then ascended Mt. Sinai. Earlier in the chapter Moses came down with the commandments only to find his people breaking the commandment about worshiping other gods; in his rage he smashed the tablets. Now we read Moses as he presented blank tablets and asked for forgiveness for his “stiff necked” people. He had a point.

As I said earlier, nearly everyone in the world is familiar with the 10 Commandments and it has taken a life of its own. The good news is that this is a part of the Bible people take seriously. The bad news is that we’ve come to see these commandments as the pinnacle of morality. Long ago I lost track of how many times someone has told me that the world would be perfect if only everyone obeyed the 10 Commandments.

I disagree. I think our first reading gives us a good starting point for morality, but if we get there and stop we’ve frankly missed out on what God wants for us. As toddlers we were told not to wander off the front porch, or cross the street without an adult or talk to strangers. But as we got older we grew in maturity and (hopefully) no longer follow only those rules.

In the same way in Exodus I suggest that these newly freed slaves also needed simple rules to ensure they could live together. The traveled in a hostile environment, depended on each other and were only recently freed from slavery. When a people are enslaved they normally spend most of their time trying to survive and avoid the lash and building community isn’t high on their list. They need to start with the basics.

Following these rules allowed them to survive together, enter the promised land and begin to form a cohesive community. By the time of Jesus they were a community: they built the Temple and worshiped together, they developed rules and customs on how to dress and purify themselves, and they bound together against the Romans.

By the time of Jesus they had understood obedience necessary to follow 10 simple rules. And now they were ready for more. When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus he wasn’t telling him that faith is merely another commandment but is instead an entire way of life. Faith in Jesus isn’t just another box to check off but the core of our moral compass. I’ve used this analogy before but if a married couple tells me they are merely obedient to each other I worry that they’re not really in love. I want them to be faithful to each other; that doesn’t mean just that they don’t cheat on each other. Faithfulness means they love each other in a way that reflects God’s love for us. They are cheerleaders for each other, they sacrifice for each other, and they dream the same dreams.

But let’s face it: we have an easier time following rules than loving one another as God loves us. We are obsessed with making rules, even when we don’t follow them. As I write this we appear awash in the belief that politicians can and should write laws that will make everything better. There are many who believe that if we ban the right books our children will become only what we have chosen for them. If we pass a law that stops people of certain faiths from coming to America we can be safe from terrorism. If we pass a law that we can’t spend more than we take in, it will magically happen.

Simply following rules seduces us into believing our call as Christians is easy. It also allows us to believe that we have the right to go no further: “I don’t need to care about you since you broke the rule.” Or “since I did what I was supposed to, you can’t ask anything more of me.”

But God does, and we can. The call to love one another is dynamic, it never stops calling us to our best selves. We are certainly called to honor our parents, not kill or steal and not covet. If Nicodemus felt overwhelmed by Jesus’ instruction it tells me that he got it.

We should feel overwhelmed also but loving each other is tough. Loving each other means putting aside our fears and our need to understand. It means accepting that we may have a gay child or a transgender neighbor. It means standing up for a coworker who worships in a mosque and allowing a distasteful book in our public library.

It’s a call to love and it’s not for the lazy.