Home > Lenten Blog 2026

Let’s celebrate our similarities

March 11, 2026

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 5-9| Matthew 5:17-19| Psalm 78:1-6

Ah, Lent, the season perched at the long end of winter.  We’ve passed the bright lights and joyful celebrations of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, and now we’re asked to pause, sacrifice and reflect. It seems fitting that today’s reading is about rules.  Moses speaks of ‘statutes and ordinances’ and Jesus reiterates that he came ‘not to abolish but to fulfill’ the law.  Even the psalm sings ‘hear my teaching’.  In our Christian lives we have a clear set of guidelines for living.

If asked right now, could you list all Ten Commandments? At some point back in Sunday school, I memorized the commandments in order; I’m of an age we memorized a lot of stuff in school – spelling lists, multiplication tables, random poetry – and church differed only in topic.  I can’t claim to know the order anymore after the first two, but the rules are still there. Today’s readings started me thinking, we share the Ten Commandments with the Jewish faith, but do other religions have an equivalent? I had only vague ideas.  With Google a finger tap away, I had quick answers to a comparison that could probably comprise a scholar’s thesis.

What I learned is that all religions have moral codes (a key point of religion, right?), though not necessarily the term ‘commandment’. The principles of Islam, given in the Quran, have close parallels to the Ten Commandments, including the first, “You shall have no other gods before me”.  The two other major religions of the world, Buddhism and Hinduism, as expected lack the references to monotheism.  Fundamental themes run through essentially all faiths:  don’t lie, don’t kill, don’t take what isn’t yours, and treat others as you would have them treat you. 

It’s that last one that’s hanging me up. In a world where every religion says, ‘treat others as you wish to be treated’, how can there be so much violence?  If everyone followed the rules, wouldn’t we have a peaceful planet?  Clearly, we are human, and fallible. 

We can, though, try harder to look for similarities instead of differences.  We can hang on to that common principle in our shared humanity, that we should treat others with kindness.  This is the morsel I will feed on for today’s reflection; will you share it with me?

Deb Britt