One of Haring’s most famous images was a poster for the organization ACT UP. It featured three figures and the message “IGNORANCE = FEAR / SILENCE = DEATH / FIGHT AIDS ACT UP.”
He also designed the album cover for “A Very Special Christmas”--one of the decade’s great Christmas albums which included tracks by the likes of Whitney Houston, Bon Jovi, Sting, Madonna, and U2.
But given our ongoing series of readings from the Book of Exodus, it’s Haring’s version of The Ten Commandments that is on my mind today.
First shown in France in 1985, this series of massive, 25 foot tall canvases “ain’t your grandma’s version of the Ten Commandments.” as one reviewer noted.
Writing about the exhibition’s American debut in 2008, Jenna Weissman Joselit remarked, “Roman numerals or wisps of Hebrew phrases are nowhere in evidence. Instead, Haring’s Ten Commandments constitute a heady brew of television sets, dollar signs, x’s, phalluses galore, and the artist’s characteristically faceless stick figures.”
The series is wild and I’m not going to claim to understand all of its eccentricities or even to know which canvas depicts which commandment, but it is, without a doubt, thought provoking, and its color, movement, and arresting impact capture something of the Sinai story that we miss when we reduce the scripture’s message to words chiseled in sterile stone.
Weissman Joselit’s review continues,
Some say that Haring used the template of the Ten Commandments to challenge—and subvert—longstanding assumptions about capitalism, domesticity, and sexuality. Others suggest that in making his own version of the Decalogue, Haring took on the religious establishment with which he had an uneasy relationship at best….When seen from that frankly autobiographical perspective, Haring’s Ten Commandments might well be construed as an act of repudiation. Then again, maybe it’s an act of reclamation. (Rules Writ Large, Jenna Weissman Joselit).However we understand him and his work, Keith Haring reminds us that Exodus is a story best told with bold lines and bright colors.
According to the Bible, the Ten Commandments are, after all, a gift to a people whose lives were filled with violence, abuse, signs, wonders, miracles, chaos, deprivation, faith, and failure that emerged from an encounter between their one-time fugitive leader Moses and their plague-dealing God on a mountain top shrouded in smoke, fire, and lightning.
There’s nothing sterile about that!
No, this is a messy story that pulsates with life, mystery, fear, and hope.
Maybe Haring’s perspective has something to recommend to us, then, that is missing from our culture’s obsession with making monuments out of the Commandments or arguing about where and when it’s appropriate to put them on display?
Forty-plus years since its debut, Keith Haring’s Ten Commandments remain provocative, as evidenced by the words of a gallery curator from earlier this year.
This series encapsulates Haring's belief in art as a tool for social change, offering a visual ethic that transcends its 1980s origins to address timeless human struggles….As we continue to grapple with issues of justice and community, Haring's commandments remind us of the power of imagery to inspire action and empathy. (Keith Haring's Ten Commandments: Decoding the Street Prophet's Visual Manifesto)In 1978, historian Thomas Lawrence Connelly published a book that criticized the sanitized and mythologized way in which noted Confederate Robert E. Lee is remembered in our country. Connelly called the book The Marble Man.
In much the same way, we could call these verses of scripture “The Marble Ten” because, while we get that they are important, we really don’t engage with them or meditate upon them in any serious way.
Rather, we file them away with those scriptures we like to apply to the behavior of other people, but, when it comes to ourselves, “No, thanks. We’re good.”
As the great preacher Tom Long remarked,
In the popular religious consciousness, the Ten Commandments have somehow become burdens, weights and heavy obligations. For many, the commandments are encumbrances placed on personal behavior. Most people cannot name all ten, but they are persuaded that at the center of each one is a finger-wagging "thou shalt not." For others, the commandments are heavy yokes to be publicly placed on the necks of a rebellious society. For such an understanding…a two-and-a-half-ton rock…is a perfect symbol.But Long says this understanding has serious flaws.
Understanding the [Commandments] as a set of burdens overlooks something essential, namely that they are prefaced not by an order—"Here are ten rules. Obey them!"—but instead by a breathtaking announcement of freedom: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery".While other groups of ancient people followed similar codes of conduct, this was a specific code for a specific people who were on a journey with a specific god—the One who brought them out of slavery in Egypt and was making them free.
Like a cloud of fire to guide them at night, manna in the morning to feed them, and water in the desert to quench their thirst, the Ten Commandments were not only a blessing that met the needs of the present moment.
These were also tools given by God to the people to help them build a free and secure future.
The Commandments are a reminder that leaving physical slavery behind in Egypt was the just first of several steps in the people’s journey to true emancipation.
Remember when things became difficult and the people said that they would rather live as well fed slaves in Egypt, than die as hungry free people in the wilderness.
What did God do then?
God met their needs with daily bread and showed them how to survive without submitting to their own oppression.
In giving the Commandments, God did the same and showed them how to survive without resorting to the oppression of others.
1. Then God spoke all these words: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.Because when you lie about what God is doing you will forget what God has done.2. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall not make for yourself an idol… Because idols are burdensome, but God offers freedom.
3. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God.
Keeping in mind the fact that when Moses came down from the mountain the people to whom he spoke were three or four months removed from generations of slavery, we really see the Commandments in a new light.
4. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work. Slave masters demanded work from you, but God will give you rest.They lived and died as slaves without knowing the freedoms you can enjoy.5. Honor your father and your mother.
6. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall not murder.Slavery devalued your lives, sex, property, even the truth and the ability to stand by your word, but as free people you will know, enjoy, and treasure these as precious gifts.7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet…anything that belongs to your neighbor.
The Ten Commandments were never intended to be a burden to anyone, but a cause for celebration—the marks of a redeemed and free people.
They show us that life with God should be painted with bold lines and bright colors.
So let it be so with us today.
May God write the Ten Commandments on our hearts, not merely in stone.
May God set us free.
And may we always give thanks to God for this Good News.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
