Summary: The first lectionary reading given us for this third Sunday in Lent is the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. These Big Ten were given to Israel by Moses at Mt. Sinai just after they had left Egyptian slavery. The Ten Commandments are rules by which to maintain their recent emancipation from Egypt. As you know, the Ten Commandments begin with the identification of the God who liberated Israel from Egypt: I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt... The word "Egypt" refers to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh is the abusive, brutalizing king of Egypt who practiced and exploited a concentration of power and wealth. You will notice that we do not know Pharaoh's name and that is because Pharaoh keeps turning up in our history time after time. So, Pharaoh is the right name for every brutalizing concentration of wealth and power that acts in violence against vulnerable people. The Exodus is the powerful acknowledgement of that brutalizing domain of human history from which we have been emancipated. At the outset, the Ten Commandments named this emancipatory God: I am the Lord your God. I am the Lord of the Exodus. I am the God who emancipated you.
