"Commandment" | Reflection by the Rev. Deacon Kyle Pedersen

Outside my window I see these two traffic signs every day. Where not to go and where to go. They remind me of the Ten Commandments with their combination of prohibition and positive direction. Thou shalt, Thou shalt not. The one-way sign also brings back memories of my evangelical Christian upbringing.  Jesus is the one way to God. It even had its own hand sign:  an upward extended index finger.  It was a conviction that also sounded like a commandment.

The root of the word commandment is the Latin mandatum. Sound familiar? In our pandemic world, mandates of have become a flash point in our communal lives, with fierce debates about what we can ask, expect, or demand of one another.  There is confusion, anger, mistrust, and even betrayal. What seems to be missing in these fractious confrontations and conversations is any sense of relationship, interdependence, communion, covenant.

On the night before Jesus was betrayed and died, he washed and dried the feet of his friends and said, “I give you a new commandment. Love one another.” Having loved his own while he was in the world, he loved them until the end. We call this night Maundy Thursday from that same Latin root. A new mandate.  A new way to go. The way of love.

Words in the Wilderness - Walk through the season of Lent with Trinity, one word at a time. Every day (except on Sundays) we will post a photo and a brief refection written by someone in our Trinity community. https://www.trinitynewhaven.org/words-in-the-wilderness