Observations, by Tom Sheridan

Counting to 10

It ought to surprise no one that the clash over the permissibility of displaying the Ten Commandments in secular public—governmental—places ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

And it’s not without a bit of irony, either. The high court, when it debated two separate cases on the biblical document March 2, did so in the shadow of a frieze in the justices’ chambers depicting the development of law and justice which includes Moses and the rule he received from God. That irony surely pleased supporters of the public displays, and undoubtedly make those opposed uncomfortable.

But then, the Ten Commandments have long made people uncomfortable. More often, though, about what they said than where they were displayed.

Here’s a little lesson in faith-history.

Moses met the Lord on the mountain and the Lord gave the prophet a pair of stone tablets on which rules for civilized behavior were carved. Scripture says the finger of the Lord inscribed the tablets amid smoke and thunder.

I can’t write those words without the Cecil B. DeMille version of the incident flooding my thoughts. I was 10 years old when my parents brought me to see the blockbuster film (starring Charlton Heston, of course) at the Adams Theater in downtown Newark, N.J. I was amazed by the special-effect “writing” of the tablets, which was second only to the parting of the Red Sea. Those images are renewed by the Easter Vigil readings each year.

God burned his rules for living into the tablets—in Hebrew—with bolts of lightning. Then Moses struggled down the mountain carrying those heavy slabs of stone and presented them to the Israelites waiting below … who promptly ignored them. Then they continued happily with whatever debauchery was currently being practiced.

In his anger, Moses shattered the commandments and railed against the behavior of his people. Finally, his anger exhausted, Moses appealed to the Lord to replace the tablets.

People have looked to the Ten Commandments because they proscribe rules which, if followed, strengthened society and encourage a peaceful, law-abiding people. (They were not, however, the only laws the Lord handed to Moses that day on the mountain. If the Ten Commandments were a broad brush of the right way to live, the others were a bit more detailed, directing even such things as the type of vestments priests should wear.)

But perhaps more than rules, the Decalogue demonstrated the covenant, the connection, that God wanted to have with people. And God’s willingness to create the tablets a second time shows a compassion we should emulate when we get angry with people who don’t agree with us.

Some people believe that posting the Ten Commandments in public on courthouses and on other government buildings is the solution—or at least part of the solution—to many of the problems of today’s culture. They say it would work to halt violence, sex, disrespect, lack of faith … you name it. It would even, some insist, end the current round of indecency in the media. But even Moses discovered that the rules weren’t a magic wand. The Ten Commandments have been with us through thousands of years of violence and war and other nastiness. Civilization’s debauchery and poor behavior hardly ended, did it? Nor has including Moses and his laws on the frieze of the U.S. Supreme Court Building prevented bad laws from being upheld.

But while it’s more important that Moses’ laws be carved in hearts than in stone at government buildings, it wouldn’t bother me if the justices said OK. Still, when the answer comes in June, it shouldn’t affect people who already look to the Ten Commandments (and advice like the Beatitudes) to guide their behavior.

Isn’t it amazing that some people expect government to do everything for them?

—Tom Sheridan
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