Living in the Spirit
October 13, 2018

Scripture Reading: Mark 10:17-31

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.” ’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. –Mark 10:17-22

I do not know how many times I have read the scripture above, but I never noted the “you shall not defraud” phrase until this reading. Truth be told once I read “you shall not murder”, I probably always keyed into my brain Ten Commandments and sped read through the rest of them without much thought. After all, I learned the Ten Commandments in grade school.  On this reading, the first thing I noted is all the Ten Commandments are not listed. The second, is that not defrauding, as far as I can tell, is not among the Ten Commandments. The overflow of information with which we must deal may be impacting our intake of needed information, but that is not what I want to write about today.

The word translated from the Greek as defraud means: keep away from someone, i.e. by defrauding (depriving); to cheat, taking away what rightfully belongs to someone else*. Voting is a right of citizenship in the USA but voting restrictions may be tipping the scale against certain populations to register or making difficult if not impossible to vote. Is that a case of defrauding? What about tax breaks that are available only to the rich? What about insurance clauses limiting coverage for pre-existing conditions? And I guess the real question is, when our government of the people, for the people, and by the people write laws and regulations that keep something away from someone are we the people held responsible for that action by God?

I am a firm supported of the separation of church and state. I do not want the government to require me to follow a specific religion or for that matter any part of a specific religion and I want to be allowed to practice the faith of my choice without government interference with few exceptions, for example law enforcement should intervene to prevent someone from blowing up a building as a practice of their religion.

There is, however, a difference between the separation of church and state and the separation of faith and values. Our faith values can and should be the driving force behind how we support or oppose governmental laws and regulations and how we vote.

Prayer: God of Justice, forgive me when I have defrauded anyone of anything that was rightfully theirs including rights related to citizenship. Amen.

* https://biblehub.com/greek/650.htm

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.