First reading: —¨Exodus 20:1-17
Psalm: —¨Ps 19:8-11 —¨—¨
Epistle: —¨1 Corinthians 1:22-25
Gospel: —¨John 2:13-25
”I, the LORD, am your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.
You shall not have other gods besides me.—
Aren’t we narrow minded when we think of other gods? When God says that we shall not have other gods besides Him our minds turn to images of stone gods, Roman gods, Greek gods, gods who are by definition a type of supreme being.
We have to broaden our definition
As Christians we need to keep a very broad definition of other gods, and an awareness of the dangers and allures they offer.
Because our task is to center our lives, ourselves, on God, we need to be aware of all the allures that can become other gods. We need to keep as broad a definition as possible so as to better keep our lives in balance, avoiding the danger of temptation found in focusing ourselves on false gods. Keeping ourselves properly focused on the truth of God, and His unique position as the center of our lives, gives us the most complete life, the most perfect life, the life that God intended for us.
God’s intention is that we have a life that leads us to fulfillment and happiness. He knows the things that can so easily pull us off-course. Those things are a conglomeration of all the false gods that exist.
Who are the other gods
In keeping with our broad definition of other gods we can enumerate the usual suspects, money, power, food, drink, lust, work, television, the computer, music, shopping. Indeed, in our present day there are even movements aimed at bringing back the old gods, the gods modeled after earth and sky, the gods modeled after man’s understanding of himself and his surroundings. These and so many other things can push the one true God out of our lives, or if not out, they can easily pack Him up in a little box for storage in our mental attic. We can’t point to any one thing and explicitly call it evil, rather it is the ease with which these things can become the priority, the sought after ideal or model in our lives, or something that will sit in God’s rightful place.
For me, it is bed. I love bed, I love to sleep, to sleep-in, to lie about, to relax and be at ease. Bed can easily become my god. The funny thing about gods like that is the way in which we begin to make excuses for their priority in our lives. Because my week is so tiring, and because I’ve been doing so much around the house, I deserve this rest, this time. In moderation, sure, but we take it to the next level. Everything becomes an excuse for the pursuit of our god.
Now imagine, just for a moment, if we began to develop excuses for having God as our priority. Guys, I’d love to head out for a few beers, but I just have to get home and spend an hour in prayer. If anyone offered that excuse I think the earth would just about stop spinning. Funny isn’t it, but that’s the excuse we should be offering, that’s the priority we should be giving to the very center of our lives.
Can Christians worship other gods
Taking our previous example to the next level, we have to ask whether committed Christians can create other, false gods. Can we as Christians become idol worshipers?
Now I am not speaking of our tendency to sinfulness. In general we can create false gods in our sinfulness. If we do not pay attention to what we are supposed to be about, if we don’t maintain our discipline and our focus we can easily slip into a world permeated by false gods. But let’s say we are deeply committed in our Christian life, can we still create false gods?
The answer is yes, we can turn the one true God into a false god. We can turn our worship of Him, our faith in Him, our prayer, anything we do in the name of faith into a false god. It is one of those sins that secularist society often points to when they denigrate religion and faith. If we turn God into something He isn’t, a political figure, a battering ram to be used on people of other faith, or a merciless spirit without compassion or mercy, we’ve created the sames type of false god, no better than gods of stone or money.
The caution is to do as Jesus warned the Samaritan woman in John 4:23-24:
“But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Besides our efforts at avoiding the traps of sin, of the usual false gods, we need to keep our focus on worshiping God from the spirit and in truth.
Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.
Today’s psalm verse proclaims: Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.
In avoiding the false gods and in protecting ourselves from the temptations to false worship, we should keep those words before us. The words of everlasting life come from the mouth of God. Jesus brought us the Father’s word, the Father’s instruction, the Father’s desire that we know Him and live in Him. He assures us that knowing Him, loving Him, worshiping Him, putting Him at the center is our sure guarantee of eternal life. That cannot be found anywhere else or in anyone else.
Those words and instructions are words that bring us life. The false gods, those who lead the innocent to a wrong understanding of God, turning Him into a false god, lead to death, to the absence of life.
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
St. Paul reiterated that when he reminds us that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Relying on God’s power and wisdom is a sure protection for us. Think of Him, Jesus, our Lord and our God. Think of our lives centered on His power and wisdom. His is the power and wisdom of love, of sacrifice, of truth, justice, the call to repentance by the one who has the power to forgive and forgive freely. The call to eternal life with the Father by the One who gives eternal life. With our lives centered on Him we rely on His promise of salvation, believing it to be true and reliable. By setting aside the tendency to pack off God, to replace Him with false gods, we place our faith firmly in the hands of God’s power and wisdom.
Jesus goes to temple
Jesus went to the temple. He overturned the tables and chased out the false gods.
He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,
as well as the money changers seated there.
He made a whip out of cords
and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen,
and spilled the coins of the money changers
and overturned their tables,
and to those who sold doves he said,
“Take these out of here,
and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”
It wasn’t the oxen, the sheep, the doves, or even the money. What those people represented had nothing to do with buying and selling. What they did represent was total death, an interior life that had died to God. Jesus was there and He saw them all as dead, closed, people who had no notion as to why they were there, or even where they were. God was packed off into a small dusty corner, no longer part of their lives.
If they knew where they were, if they realized the truth of anything they had ever been taught, they would have seen Jesus for who He is. They would have recognized the Messiah and they would have turned over their own table in their rush to Him.
Look at them, sitting there, complacent vendors. A sheep here, a few shekels there, show up in the morning, go home at night. The customers one faceless mass of people, one no different from the next. If Jesus had taken a poll and asked why they were there not a one would have known.
Zeal
The Gospel goes on to recount:
—¨His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,
Zeal for your house will consume me.
Jesus was consumed with zeal, zeal for the Father and everything connected to the Father. His whole being was one with the Father, His words and actions from the Father.
In His zeal Jesus tells us that dedication to the Father, to God as God, is where we should be. We need to imitate His zeal, making it part of our lives. We are to put God front and center, dedicating ourselves to Him, recognizing Him as God and placing no other before Him.
The dangers and allures of the false gods are real. Whatever the form, we must be aware, aware of God, of His rightful place in our lives, and strengthen ourselves with the zeal that destroys all falsehood. Amen.—¨
