Thou shalt not forget the Beatitudes: the Ten Commandments are recognized as the guideline for our lives, but the Beatitudes call us to an even deeper challenge.

A PROFESSOR AT THE LOCAL SEMINARY USED TO TELL this joke: Moses came down from Mount Sinai and addressed his brother. "Good news and bad news, Aaron! The good news is: I got him down to 10. The bad news is: Adultery is still in!"

The Ten Commandments, as we know, are no joke. They are a pocket course in ethics and as such comprise the soundest bit of advice for anyone interested in possessing a moral compass.

Like any good compass, the Commandments begin by pointing true north to the Commandment-giver: Honor God, the divine name, and the Lord's day. From there, they work their way down through some pretty basic obligations to family and neighbor: Honor your parents; don't kill, cheat, steal, lie, or want what belongs to someone else.

Because the Commandments are widely recognized as a baseline for moral living, it's no wonder skirmishes are fought now and then about posting them publicly, even in a country that historically separates church and state. After all, what kind of moral reprobate would you have to be to disagree with the Ten Commandments?

The trouble starts when people claim that, in a Christian nation, we ought to post God's laws in public places. The first snag being, of course, that the Decalogue is not a Christian teaching. It's Jewish. It's the law of Moses.

What I don't hear about and would be most anxious to see is an argument about the posting of the Beatitudes in public places. If you're going to broach the argument of this being a Christian country--and that is itself a hotly debated point--then it would make sense to insist on displaying some Christian document for your pains. After all, the Beatitudes appear in Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount, one of the most compact examples of his teaching style and content.

The Beatitudes are largely regarded as a contender for "Best Gospel Passage." Also, as an eight-point program (at least in Matthew's version), the Beatitudes would be as easy to mount on the average plaque or monument as the big Ten. If we use Luke's Beatitudes, it's a mere four principles--unless you include the four additional "woe to you" sayings.

When you think about it, the Beatitudes are as clear, memorable, and recitable as the Decalogue, something we could point to for the edification of children, to settle arguments with opponents, or to shame evildoers, depending on our purposes. But I'll tell you this: We won't see many advocates for this cause.

I'll tell you why: We'd much rather keep the Ten Commandments than be held accountable to the Beatitudes, with or without the "woe to you." Never mind that the Sermon on the Mount is already--supposedly--the gold standard for baptized folks.

WHY THE PREFERENCE FOR THE TEN COMMANDMENTS? First, the Commandments are relatively easy to keep. Not a few people in the Bible remind us of this. St. Paul says in many places that he kept the law perfectly, not just the 10 big ones but the additional 613 more specific laws that got tacked on later.

Paul kept the law, the whole law, and nothing but the law every day of his life until he found Jesus. After that, he didn't always eat kosher because he preferred to eat with friends--most of whom, by the end of Paul's life, were Gentiles.

The rich young man who comes before Jesus also admits he has kept the whole law since his youth. And the Pharisees, we might imagine, had a good track record when it came to obeying the law, since law-abiding was their great zeal. So what's the big deal about keeping these basic Ten?

Many of us today might boast that we honor one God, don't use God's holy name impiously, go to church on Sunday, do right by our parents, haven't killed anyone except possibly in time of war, have been faithful to our spouses, don't lie or steal (does the IRS count?), and don't give more than a few discreet glances toward the buff or blonde neighbor--or the neighbor's breathtaking BMW.

The problem with the Ten Commandments, of course, is that they are a baseline. Taken literally and not broadly, quite a number of us might check these off and feel quite satisfied with ourselves at the end of the day.

When Jesus suggests a wider approach--if, in your heart, you hate the neighbor who blocks your driveway, you have as good as killed him, and if you lust after the babe on Baywatch, you have committed adultery with her--we find that there are fewer takers. A higher standard is not something most of us are looking for. Being "good" in a world full of options is hard enough.

ANOTHER REASON WE'RE MORE COMFORTABLE WITH THE Commandments is that the commandments accuse the obviously guilty; that is, they are aimed at the sort of evildoers that decent, honest, righteous folk might consider guilty. Law-abiding people appreciate the strong and pointed "thou shalt not" approach when it's aimed at liars, thieves, murderers, and people who use the name of god in un-prayerful contexts.

The Beatitudes, in an indirect way, also accuse the guilty. But the accusation is aimed at a different group of guilty. These folks aren't guilty of doing something--rather, they are guilty of not doing something. And the approach is not the heavy-handed "thou shalt not" but the encouraging "blessed are you," directly addressing those who suffer because of what the guilty group has failed to do.

That guilty group, it must be said, more nearly resembles us than the other does. The Beatitudes incriminate the apparently righteous. So righteous folk would not be the first to insist on posting this list for public comparisons.

FINALLY, THE BEATITUDES DEFEND THE POOR. THEY ARE God's cry of joy on their behalf, an extended note of divine congratulations for their perseverance in the face of a greater society that pretends not to see their anguish. Though the poor are in want, have reason to cry, are hungry, need justice, and can only dream of peace, Jesus calls them "happy" or blessed. Clearly their happiness does not derive from their circumstances, but from the comfort they take in knowing God protects them and champions their cause.

In short, the Beatitudes are designed to make the rest of us uncomfortable. The kingdom of God, we are told, belongs to the poor in spirit. What, then, belongs to us who own 20 pairs of shoes, the titles to two vehicles, and had way too much to eat at lunch?

Those who mourn are guaranteed the comfort of God. What are we guaranteed if we are passively complicit in the mourning in far-off countries we only see on the news? What is our reward for averting our eyes to the misery within our own cities or our own families?

"Blessed are the meek," Jesus says, "the land is their inheritance." But what if our houses sit squat on that land right now, while our arrogance and disdain is felt by those renters at the four-plex across the street?

Satisfaction is promised to those for whom the way of God is both food and drink. But how satisfied will we be if we've always had things our way? Since religious talk is both socially rude and politically impractical, we're often satisfied to keep God's cry for justice and peace out of our daily dealings. Let the parish council come up with this year's justice project. If it doesn't cost much, we'll write a check.

Mercy comes to those who show mercy, according to the Beatitudes. Sure, but mercy has to be earned, we insist. Take Uncle Ned--he'll merit compassion when he stops drinking and gets his act together, not a moment before. And if that panhandler on the corner wants mercy from us, a haircut and a willingness to work would go far to make the case. The idea that we should show mercy first is ridiculous, really. What fool does that?

SEEING GOD IS NOT SO HARD AFTER ALL, THE BEATITUDES suggest. We just have to clean out our hearts to make room for the "beatific vision," the lovely sight of the Lord. Moses once asked to see God, and God told him, "I will make all my goodness pass before you ... But you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live" (Exod. 33:19-20). We can imagine at this point in their relationship that Moses had cleaned out his heart to have a room with such a blessed view.

But ask me about the state of my own heart, and that's another issue. My heart's got all the charm of a neglected attic, full of delayed good intentions and half-constructed justifications and cobwebs of doubt, anxiety, and laziness. If the beatific vision passed in front of my house, the windows of my heart would be too dirty to see out.

Peacemakers will be called children of God--so let's not even go there, we of the greatest military might on the planet. The more we consider this list, the more we realize it would never do to have the Beatitudes posted in the lobbies of our churches, much less our civic buildings.

The problem is plain to see: If we're not poor, not meek, already comfortable, not prepared to be merciful, if peace is not our game and our will regularly trumps God's in our daily priorities, then by all means let's file the Beatitudes and post the Ten Commandments in every park.

Just to be thorough, we should glance at the last Beatitude, which comes in two parts. Both promise the kingdom to those who are insulted, persecuted, and libeled for the sake of Christ. How about it? Have you been in this situation recently? Me neither. I have to admit, I'd do plenty to avoid being in such a situation.

So we're agreed, then: Let's keep the Beatitudes out of the classrooms, off the streets, and away from public buildings.

If I post a copy here on my refrigerator, though, I hope you won't mind.

ALICE CAMILLE, author of Invitation to the New Testament and Invitation to the Old Testament, both from ACTA Publications.