WHY THE FIRST IS FIRST

Did you ever wonder why the First Commandment is first, other than the fact that God gave them to Moses and obviously wanted to make sure everyone knew from whence they came and who was really most important in their lives? From a human point of view we might easily assume that God was being a little self-serving when God insisted that the most important commandment, the most important rule in our life, is that we have no other god except God.

It would make sense to think that way. In a work environment the first rule is to obey the boss. All other rules and regulations follow. We may be a very conscientious employee, do our job well, always arrive at work on time and never leave work early, never ever take even a paper clip or a used pencil, and treat our fellow workers with respect. That is all well and good and even necessary for a great working environment. But if we disobey the boss, none of it really matters and is almost all for naught. So, of course, the first commandment is to obey the boss or, in our case, The Boss.

Yet, the truth is, if we do not obey this first commandment, it will be very difficult to keep all the rest. On the other hand, if we, in fact, do make God first in our lives, it will be much easier to keep the other nine commandments. The rest follow and flow from the first. For what matters first and foremost is who our God/god really is. If something else such as money or career, becomes first in our lives, becomes our god, then the other nine will never be kept as they should.

 

Consider: if we make our career, for instance, our god, we have already broken Number Two. It is already an idol, a false god. We will sacrifice family, health, whatever we must, to enhance that career. When things do not go right for us, we will curse that god for so controlling us and even curse God for allowing it to happen. As for Sabbath Rest, well that goes the way of everything else that slows us down in our race to the top.

What is worse is that our relationships with those who matter most, who should matter most, family and friends, deteriorate in this service of what has become our god. We no longer have time for them because this new god consumes our time. We will step on those who get in our way; we will lie and cheat and steal, covet what we do not have until we have it, all in the service of this god of ours.

Not a pretty picture is it? It is so easy to make something so all-important that everything else takes second place, and a distant second at that. When that happens, we have, intentionally or not, made that something into a god. It is even worse when we make ourselves to be Number One, when everyone and everything becomes subservient to our wants and wishes, to ourselves.

That is why the First Commandment is indeed first. Keeping it keeps us focused on what is most important in our lives. Even when we begin to lose focus and chase after some other god, which helps us so easily to forget about and break the rest of those Commandments, we will not lose sight of just who is Number One, thanks be God.

 

 

TO SAVOR OR TO SAVE

You and I live in a world of conflict. The newspapers and magazines, radio and television are full of stories about mankind's inhumanity to mankind. But the greatest conflict goes on not in the world around us but in the world inside us. Every day we are torn between doing what we would like to do and doing that which we know we should do. It is a conflict between faith and fulfillment.

Something inside us tells us that we will not be fulfilled unless or until: unless we have this, until we can do that. Something else inside us tells us that that which we believe will be fulfilling is merely and empty glass. The conflict will not go away because we cannot escape the barrage all around us and inside us.

We want to be the Good Samaritan but we also want to say Good Riddance. We know we should help the person in need and yet we know that he will probably be a burden we would rather not carry. Do we stop and help or do we look the other way?

There is something deep inside us that knows what to do, what should be done, the desire to do the right thing. That something is our faith. But there is also something inside us that is not so deep. In fact, it is rather shallow. And because it is rather shallow, it is on the surface, right there at the top, demanding our attention. It is the desire to do that which is pleasing, satisfying, seemingly filling. It is the desire to use the good of creation for ourselves.

There would seem to be no real conflict between the shallowness of life and the depth of our faith even when the conflict takes place at the same time. But there is. Writer and wit E.B. White (Salt of the Earth): "If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning, torn between the desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. That makes it hard to plan the day!"

We've all been there. We are all there, every day. Our faith fills us with the desire to save what is wrong with this world, to correct the mess that we are in. Our desire for fulfillment – to be all that we are and all that we can be, as deep as that sometimes is, as shallow as it often is -- shoves us more into the mess rather than helping us solve the mess.

The conflict will never go away, not because we will never save the world. It has already been saved. It will not go away because it's – we've – been too busy either wallowing in misery or wallowing in wealth. Our misery stems from the fact that we don't know how blessed we really are and our wealth creates a desire that is never satisfied.

The fact of the matter is that we can both savor the world and save it – or at least continue the salvation – by simply living out a life of faith. Faith helps us understand the goodness of creation that is to be savored and gives us the strength to use it in loving service to God, others and self. Saving and savoring are two sides of the same coin and not two different and contradictory ones.

GROANING FOR SOMETHING MORE

As Christians we believe that we are born to live, to die and then to be born again to live eternally with God. Our end is not life on earth but life with God forever. But we are not there yet and we will not get there until we die in this life; not die to this life but die in this life. We still have to live this life before we can live the life to come. Yet, as we live this life as fully and as faithfully as we can, there is still something missing. As Paul says in Romans, we groan for something more.

Thus, in that sense, we are like a mother in labor. The life to come is still within us and wants to be born as soon as possible. Paul himself in another place talks about wanting to be with God in eternity right then and there but also knows that he still has a mission to fulfill in this life. He is not yet done with what has to be done even as he aches to be done with this life and be with God forever.

Perhaps that is why, even when we are most satisfied with life as it is, when we seem fully alive, we still have this inkling that there is more, that something is missing. There is a longing for something more, a holy longing as it has been called. That longing will not be satisfied until eternity. We know that. Yet we cannot help but groan from within for it to be now.

This is good. If life did not get any better than this, what would we have to look forward to? Or as Paul says, where would our hope be? If there is nothing to hope for, if this life is as good as it gets, what a pity! But we do have hope and we live with that hope and we groan patiently within for it to be fulfilled. No, we do not dwell on it and the labor pains are not constant. But every once in a while we feel them if only as a reminder that the best is yet to come, whatever that best will be like.

On the other hand, when life is not so good, when the pain of this life is real, whatever the pain, whatever the form of suffering we are in, this hope for life without pain is what helps us through the moment, however long that moment may be. We certainly are experiencing some of that these days, what with the virus and the restrictions on our life style and all the rest. We are longing for something better now, in this life, not just in the life to come. As we struggle through life now, the life to come is put on hold.

That’s the way it is in this life. When life is good, we still long for something more and better. When life is not so good, we long for something more and better. We are never truly satisfied and will never be until we finally live that new and better life with God in eternity. Until then we will continue to groan from within.

And that is as it should be, is it not? That is not to say we always are greedy for something more and better. Rather it is to say that as we live out this life, inwardly groaning for the life to come, we still know that we can always do better, be better. There will always be something missing even if we cannot put our finger on just what that something is. In a real way we can never be satisfied with what is. We have to look for ways to be better, groaning our way as we do.

 

FEELINGS

For a while now I have mostly put aside spiritual and theological reading and substituted it with Agatha Christie, David Baldacci, Sue Grafton and the like: mystery and detective stories. It’s been enjoyable. The other day I told Arlena that I started to feel a little guilty not reading serious stuff but books for pure entertainment. She replied that since I had been doing the serious reading for sixty years or so, I need not feel guilty.

Easier said than done, at least on my end. What may be even worse is that in the process of reading all these basically murder mysterious is that they are filled with some bad guys and gals, some very bad ones. They are cruel and sadistically enjoy their murder and mayhem. They seem to hold no remorse for their actions. No, they hold no remorse, no seeming about it.

Then, when one of these murderous incidents takes place, my blood begins to boil. Yes, it is fiction. No real person was killed. But still. In my internal anger I want that bad person, in the end, to suffer, really suffer. And sometimes, I have to admit, I contemplate how I would administer that suffering were I the one called upon to do so. Then, when I pause to think about what I had just been thinking and contemplating, I don’t like those feelings of anger and vengeance that I had.

This is not a new revelation for me because I have been aware of it all my life. Something inside me has always wanted those who knowingly and willingly and freely commit heinous crimes to suffer and to suffer in the same way and to the same degree – and maybe even worse – than the person they harmed. Authors of fiction often make that happen, but in society it doesn’t and, what’s more, society can’t and shouldn’t.

We may want to get even, as I often do when in my readings that feeling comes over me, but when we do, we make ourselves just like the person we want vengeance upon. Actually seeking revenge only makes matters worse. Even in my stories, when the murder is avenged, the one who was the victim is not brought back to life. George Floyd was murdered in cold blood, on video for all to see, gut-wrenching and anger-inducing. And even if the perpetrator is tried, convicted and executed, George Floyd is still dead.

Unfortunately, when our emotions, our gut feelings are aroused and we allow them to get out of control, bad things happen. Sadly, sometimes those revengeful actions make everything worse. An eye for an eye is never the answer. For me, thankfully, when my feelings of anger or guilt or vengeance arise when I am reading fiction, I am aware of them even as I am often repelled by them.

Nevertheless, those aroused feelings are a reminder that I am quite capable of actually acting out on those feelings were the situation real. That frightens me and, if you are like me, it should frighten you as well.