I've learned to cope with my menu paralysis: order one of the specials.
Third Sunday of Lent B
Long
restaurant menus overwhelm me.
It’s
simply a matter of my temperament, I guess.
I
hate having to pick
from among so many good choices!
If
it’s the end of a festive meal,
and
several desserts are being offered,
I’m
the guy who asks,
“Can I please have a small piece of each?”
It’s
not that I’m a glutton;
it’s
just hard for me to pick from all those options.
It’s
one thing to have that trouble
when it comes to food,
quite
another when it comes to faith.
We’ve
just heard again the Ten Commandments—
a
familiar Bible passage, to be sure.
The
first of the bunch reads:
I, the Lord, am your God….
You shall not have other
gods besides me.
What
if I told you that—if forced to choose—
it’s
the only the one that really matters?
God
didn’t put it first on the list by accident!
Our
willingness to compromise,
our
desire to “have our cake and it eat it, too”—
to
try and have things both ways—
is
certainly clear enough with the other nine commandments.
We’re
angered and embarrassed if our kid shoplifts…
…but
what’s wrong with occasionally
taking
home a few supplies from work?
I
mean, nobody’s going to notice
and—besides—they
don’t pay me enough.
Remember to keep holy the
sabbath day.
We
make sure to squeeze Mass in (most Sundays, anyway)…
…but
then we’re rushing off, quick as we can,
as
soon as it’s over—or even before—
to
get back to other “more important” things.
You shall not commit
adultery.
Several
years ago—no joke—
a church-going
woman in her eighties
asked
me if there was any exception for older folks
to the
rule about not having sex outside the bonds of marriage.
“I
don’t think my grandchildren should be living in sin, Father…
…but
at our age, it’s different.”
(I
have yet to find anything in the small print about that!)
But
back to the beginning:
I, the Lord, am your God…
You shall not have other
gods besides me.
Even
more so than with the nine commandments that follow,
we
can’t be looking for exceptions or loopholes with this one.
Choosing
God;
choosing
to believe in Jesus as God’s Only Begotten Son;
choosing
to belong to the Catholic Church
as Christ’s living Body on earth;
as Christ’s living Body on earth;
choosing
to live every moment of every day
according
to the way of life that Church teaches—
this
is not just one choice among many.
It’s
the only choice that matters.
It’s
becoming increasingly common—even among Catholics—
to
approach faith the way you would a buffet:
a
little of this, a helping of that,
all
according to my personal tastes.
“Of
course, I believe in Jesus…
but
I also like these Buddhist ideas
and
those New Age meditations.”
Some
people are as quick to change their religion
as
they are to change their clothes.
Such
mix-and-match methods
were
actually quite popular in Jesus’ day, too.
What
distinguished the Jewish people and the first Christians
from
the wider culture, however,
was
that they would make no such compromises.
I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God.
God
is jealous, you see, not in the sense of envy—
part
of being God means needing absolutely nothing at all;
no,
God is jealous in the sense
of
wanting us wholly, totally, completely for himself alone.
The Lord asks: Are
you with me, or not? For me, or
against?
Not
sometimes. Not mostly.
Not
just when it’s convenient or you need something.
Will
you be entirely mine?
That’s
because God doesn’t want to be your Boss—
some
all-seeing supervisor in the sky.
And
God doesn’t want to be your Cop—
yes,
protecting you from evil,
but
also ready to ticket you for any moral infraction.
What
God wants is to be our Friend—
even
more, what God wants is to be your Lover.
That’s
why making compromises in faith
isn’t
like saying, “I prefer Pepsi, but sometimes I drink Coke”;
it’s
more like saying, “I love my spouse,
but
sometimes I sleep with other people.”
Are
you committed to this kind of exclusive relationship with God?
I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God.
Is
this not a window into Jesus’ zeal for his Father’s house?
Jesus
has no problem, per se,
with
the Temple’s system of sacrifice;
we
know Mary and Joseph offered two doves there
40
days after their Son was born,
and
Jesus himself will have his Apostles
procure
a Passover lamb from the Temple
to
be served at his Last Supper.
What
upsets him, though, is the perspective
that
sees religion as a means to gain:
that
looks upon faith as a way to profit—
whether
from worldly goods like money, power, or prestige,
or
even from spiritual benefits,
as
if God’s blessings could be earned.
I
mustn’t try to stay close to God
because
of what’s in it for me!
Keeping faith
isn’t about what I stand to get,
but
about what I’m willing to give.
That’s
the true nature of sacrifice—
as
we’ll soon enough see upon the Cross.
The
Lord, this jealous God,
is
looking for nothing short of the gift of myself—
given
to him completely.
After
all, that’s just the sort of gift
this
jealous God has given to me.
I, the Lord, am your God…
You shall not have other
gods besides me.
Obeying
the first commandment
is
not a matter of my tastes, but of what is true;
not
a question of what I like, but of Who I love above all else.
That’s
why, if we get this first one right,
the
other nine fall right into place.
The
Ten Commandments aren’t a menu you choose from;
they’re
a full meal deal.
There’s
only room for one god in the temple of your heart.
Choose
the God of Jesus.
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