YOU SHALL HAVE NO GODS EXCEPT ME

III SUNDAY OF LENT - Exodus 20:1-17

In chapter 20 of the book of Exodus, we can find the commandments, presented in the framework of the Covenant. God gives the commandments, presenting himself as Yahweh, the Liberator, who took the people of Israel out of “the house of slavery” in Egypt. The commandments are presented as the basic rules to guarantee that the people remain in freedom and do not go back to slavery. God is the guarantor of that freedom. That’s why he has a special claim on the people. He has to be recognised as the only God: “You shall have no gods except me.” We may wonder, why this exclusiveness and this jealousy of other gods. But the people of Israel, throughout their history, would make the experience of the fallacy of worshipping other gods. Whenever we change things into gods, they are gods made in our image to satisfy our craving for power, wealth and pleasure. Instead of liberating us, they oppress and destroy us. The true God - Yahweh - is the only foundation of human dignity, who always challenges us to live in solidarity, respecting the rights of the others. 

God and God alone is supreme. God and God alone must be worshipped. He is the centre of our lives since he is the source of life. Whenever we recognise God and accept him as the foundation of our lives and our societies, then we can live in peace with one another. When God is ignored, rejected and expelled from our lives, then we lose the foundation of a society built upon the respect for human rights. When we see God as non-sense and substitute him by our lust for power and pleasure, we become egotists and transform all the others into tools at our service.

A society that loses the respect for the parents and the elders is not worthy of itself. And then it loses all values upon which it should build itself. Truth stops to be essential and it is changed into convenience. Without a strong attachment to truth, life also is not important and it becomes something to discard whenever it becomes inconvenient. Love is confused with lust and pleasure and people find it impossible to live lifelong commitments. Corruption and stealing become a way of life, and we give ourselves the right to the things we did not work for and to get them we are ready to use violence. When we reject God, we have no more reasons to accept and respect our neighbour.

These basic commandments are so important that God has inscribed them in our hearts. They are the way to life and peace. If we reject them, we put ourselves in peril.

In this Sunday’s gospel, we see Jesus’ prophetic action of expelling the vendors from the Temple, causing a big uproar and disrupting the worship, making it impossible to offer sacrifices. Jesus is ready to bring in a new way of worshipping God - in spirit and truth, in which God is affirmed and accepted as God. Jesus is the source of legitimacy of this new worship, the worship of the New Covenant, in which He is the Temple, the Priest and the Sacrifice. Jesus is ready to offer himself in sacrifice; he is walking on the way that will lead him to the cross. That’s why Paul preaches the Christ Crucified, who is the wisdom and the power of God to bring life and salvation.