How Do We Feel About Rules?

Message Notes

“We now turn our thoughts to the Creator, or Great Spirit, and send greetings and thanks for all the gifts of Creation. Everything we need to live a good life is here on Mother Earth. For all the love that is still around us, we gather our minds together as one and send our choicest words of greetings and thanks to the Creator. Now our minds are one.”

(Quoted from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who took this from Onondaga “Words That Come Before All Else” )

20 Then God spoke all these words,

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

7 “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

8 “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

13 “You shall not murder.

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

15 “You shall not steal.

16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

18 When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid, for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.”

Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20