Christian Absurdity
A friend of mine was preparing for a sermon and found some interesting observations on the Sojourners website. Here is something of what she shared with me:
Søren Kierkegaard, the great Danish theologian, writes "Christianity has taken a giant stride into the absurd. Remove from Christianity its ability to shock and it is altogether destroyed. It then becomes a tiny superficial thing, capable neither of inflicting deep wounds nor of healing them. It's when the absurd starts to sound reasonable that we should begin to worry." He goes on to name a few of Christianity's shocking, absurd assertions: "Blessed are the meek; thou shalt not kill; love your enemies; go, sell all you have and give to the poor."
Even embedded in the Ten Commandments is the absurd, the foolish, the paradoxical. The Ten Commandments don't begin with "Here are ten commandments, learn them by rote," or "Here are ten commandments, obey them." Instead, they begin with a sweeping announcement of freedom: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery" (Exodus 20:2).
We will probably always think of the declarations that follow as the Ten Commandments. But we could, and probably should, think of them as invitations to God's liberation. Because the Lord is your God, you are free to not need any other gods. You are free from the tyranny of lifeless idols. You are free to rest on the Sabbath. You are free to enjoy your parents as long as they live. You are set free from murder, stealing, and covetousness as ways to establish yourself in the land.
But that's not how we think of the Ten Commandments. When the late Kurt Vonnegut was interviewed on National Public Radio about debate on placing the Ten Commandments in courthouses and the like, he responded by saying: "Why the Ten Commandments? I haven't heard any of these people talk about putting the beatitudes up [on the walls of government buildings]." He continued, "'Blessed are the merciful' in a courtroom? 'Blessed are the peacemakers' in the Pentagon?"
Why not?
Together in Christ,
Dr. Stephen Melton
