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Sept. 7, 2006
‘Thou shalt not have other gods besides me’
Part One
First for a reason
The first of the Ten Commandments is first for good reason. Worship of God and childlike trust in Him is the essence of religion. Worship of false gods, on the other hand, is the greatest of tragedies and the epitome of foolish pride. Psalm 115:5-6 portrays this foolishness with striking clarity as it says of idols or false gods: “They have mouths but speak not; they have eyes but see not; they have ears but hear not; they have noses but smell not; they have hands but feel not; they have feet but walk not; they utter no sound from their throat. Their makers shall be like them, everyone that trusts in them.”
With the first commandment, “I am the Lord your God. Thou shalt not have other gods besides me,” the Lord is providing us the key wisdom we need to set our life on solid rock. This wisdom from God is so important that Jesus affirms it anew in His own preaching (Mt 22:37), “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment.” Notice how Jesus teaches that our love for God needs to be whole-hearted. Genuine faith can never be done in half-measures. We should gladly make our own the motto of Pope John Paul II, Totus Tuus, “Totally yours.”
Worship of God is good for man
The first commandment, like all the others, is a gift of God for our good, not for His. God has no need of our praise; we add nothing to his splendor and glory. But because He is a God of love, He shows us the way to fullness of life and happiness. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches (CCC, 2114), “Human life finds its unity in the adoration of the one God. The commandment to worship the Lord alone integrates man and saves him from an endless disintegration.”
Pride and arrogance look with disdain, however, on the adoration of God. The proud stubbornly insist on complete human independence and self-achievement. There is an ancient tradition that says, “The devil has no knees.” He has no knees because he refuses to bend the knee; he refuses to bow down and to adore the Lord. Those whose hearts are set on this world alone also refuse to pay homage to God. The only ones hurt by this impudence are the proud themselves. God loves all His creatures and desires that all humans be saved, but He will not force any of us to accept the gift of salvation against our will. Sadly, however, whoever refuses to obey the first commandment cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Be sure you love the real God
In this valley of tears that is earthly life, there are false gods that vie for our attention and ultimately for our allegiance. Jesus says it is a question of deciding which master we will serve (Mt 6:24), “No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
While we human beings easily deceive ourselves, thinking that we are completely in charge of our own lives, with subservience to no one, Jesus unequivocally asserts that every person will serve some master. So the question is: which master will I serve? The Lord goes on to show that the choice of serving God is, in fact, a matter of trust. It is, in other words, the opposite of reliance on self or on money or whatever else might be our “mammon.” God created us in such a way that we cannot be fulfilled by any created good; we can only be fulfilled by Him. Since trusting God is difficult, we are strongly tempted to make a “god” out of a created good because we are looking for fulfillment, but in the wrong place.
The person who trusts God completely rises above anxiety and worry. Listen again to Christ’s words in this regard (Mt 6:25ff), “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? ...But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all those things will be given you besides.”
Trust in the Father’s love
While the first commandment contains the words, “Thou shalt not have other gods besides me,” its purpose, ultimately, is to pave the way for a profound trust in the love of God, the one and only God who wishes us to know Him as a loving Father and to call Him by that name.
For this reason, it would be wrong to think that this commandment in any way disregards or belittles the sincere search for God that people of good will have undertaken throughout history. Questions about God arise from our experience of being human. These questions are closely linked to questions of meaning in the face of sickness, suffering and death. It is common, at some point in life, to ask questions like the following: “Who am I?” or “Where did I come from and where am I going?” and “What is life all about?”
Some of our greatest saints, at some point in their lives, struggled mightily with questions of this nature. Consider, for example, St. Augustine of Hippo who, after a riotous youth, after fathering at least one child out of wedlock, and after exploring various religions and philosophies, eventually discovered that his pursuit of God was nothing compared to God’s search for him. Augustine, in the end, found that his own inner restlessness was actually a real longing for God that would never go away. In his famous autobiography, “The Confessions,” he wrote: “You made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Obedience to the first of the Ten Commandments leads us eventually to loving trust and hopeful surrender to God. We discover the wisdom of praying to God with those words of Psalm 139:13-14, “Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made; wonderful are your works.” We receive the grace of saying with Jesus (Lk 23:46), “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
In the next issues of The Catholic Sun, we shall look at some of the sins against the first commandment that lead to the disintegration of those who commit them, sins such as superstition, idolatry and magic. Then, we shall look at the theological virtues that underpin obedience to this commandment: faith, hope and love.
Copyright 2006 The Catholic Sun.
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