You Shall Have No Other Gods BEFORE Me?

For those us who do not know the first of these ten, here is a refresher from Exodus 20:

Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

Peter Rollins pointed out that the first of the 10 commandments can be read at least two ways. The first way to read this is as the people should not have any gods in the presence of the living God. It is interpreted as a directive as abolishing any other god from our lives.

However, there is another way to read this commandment: You can have other gods, but they shall not come first.

In this way the commandment suggests, “you can have other gods but they have to stand behind the living God. In this way we shall worship no other gods before the living God.”

In practice, the more we worship something the more we draw closer to that thing, just take a standard Christian worship service. The hope in this setting is that we would draw close to God in our worship. The one who worships and draws close to the living God will begin to see only God. That is how worship “works” and changes our lives.

Drawing close to that which is worshiped not only gives us the eyes to see, but it also blinds us to anything outside of the object of worship. For instance, if we worship fame and celebrity, we will begin to look at what can bring us those thing while ignoring (become blind) to the things that imped the fame and celebrity status we worship.

God knows we are driven to worship and that we often choose idols that lead us to death. And no matter how hard we try, even the most devout person will be temped by idols. God’s wisdom and cleverness shines through by saying in this commandment - “Look, I know you are not going to give up your idols, in fact you can keep all your other “gods”, they do not bother me, but do not have those gods before me. Worship me first.” And when we worship God first, when we draw close to God, then even if there are other idols we will be unable to see them and worship them.

Every parent knows this when it comes to feeding children. Parents know that kids will usually always be tempted to eat desert. Some parents might say, “before you eat desert eat your healthy dinner first and then wait ten minutes.” In this way, the child is likely to eat less desert since they are full from the meal or they have forgotten after ten minutes. Other parents make the prohibition of not eating any desert at all. And, if the Bible has taught us anything it is that the prohibition actually generates additional desire for the thing that is off limits. One might imagine we would be in a different place if God said, “Adam/Eve, you are free to eat from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, but before you do, you must first eat from every other tree.”

Maybe since the misstep with Adam and Eve, God pivoted and said, “you shall have no other gods before me.”

Now, it is our turn to pivot our worshiping habits.

The Tea Kettle of Liturgy

Regardless of what sort of spirituality you practice, there is a liturgy to the practice. The liturgy is a structure that the acts of the practice follow. These are easy to see in a worship service, but it is not limited to worship events. When a professional sports event begins, there is a civic liturgy that we follow. When there is a wedding there is a reception liturgy. Birthdays, start of school days, family gatherings have their own liturgies.

What is the point of liturgy? How do we know if it is “good” liturgy? Beyond the content of the worship the liturgy (the structure and order of things) serves a different function, but what is that function? I would submit that the function of liturgy is to be like a tea kettle and what makes for a good tea kettle is being able to hold the dynamic boiling water.

When people gather for worship, there are so many emotions, anxieties, celebrations, hopes and fears. The gathered body is dynamic and full of energy. This energy is neutral, but we all know that energy does not stay neutral for very long. We see an energetic group can turn into a mob and do great harm rather quickly. We also can see an energetic group to rally for a pro-social cause and build a house in 24 hours. It is the function of the liturgy to properly hold the energy of the collective body.

Like a kettle, the liturgy must be stronger than the energy of the contents. The liturgy must be able to stand through different temperatures and not shatter. It must be directional enough to channel the energy well and, if possible, be built to help the energy sing. It needs to be able to have the endurance as the energy dissipates and cools off. It consistent in its ability so that when it is time to gather the energy again, people can be confident that the energy can be properly held.

The water in the kettle does now “know” what it will become. But the water in the kettle always becomes more than it can imagine. Will it become the foundation for life-giving tea? The warmth to the cold heart? The agent to help purify or clean a wound? Liturgy does not squelch the energy of the gathered body but helps the body transform into something they could not imagine before they gathered. Something transcendent, something greater than the sum of their parts.

The worship liturgy is not there to resolve the anxiety, tension, fear or excitement of the body. The liturgy is the container that holds all of that. Too often church leaders use the liturgy to resolve the this anxiety. The liturgy is not a cure or a resolution. Liturgy is a kettle, and let us not be lukewarm.

The Problem Is We Practice "No Other Gods Before Me"

Of the “Ten Commandments” perhaps you can name a few: Don’t steal, Don’t murder, honor you mother and father, keep sabbath. Many of these are straight forward, but Peter Rollins mentions an interesting point from philosopher Slavoj Zizek. The point that I gathered is Zizek argues that commandment “You shall have no other Gods before me” might me that we should not have gods “in front” the God of the Bible. As in physically before, in front of. The idea being that we all have little gods and perhaps the commandment is saying, keep your other little gods, just don’t worship them in before (in front of or prior to worshiping) God.

This may sound odd but the Bible does not begin at monotheism. Monotheism says that there is ONLY one God. However, when you read the Bible you will see that there are in fact many gods. For instance, Psalm 82 assume there are many gods: God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment (82:1). In a monotheistic worldview there is no need to mention other gods.

However the Bible does not stay in the polytheistic world very long before it makes a theological step toward monotheism. Before arriving at monotheism, there is a long stop at something called henotheism. Henotheism might admit there are other gods, but that our God is the best. Psalm 95 says, For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

This is where Zizek’s observation comes into play. The Ten Commandments is in the era of henotheism and thus having no other gods before the God of the Bible makes sense in a henotheistic world.

But today we are supposed to be monotheistic. That is we are supposed to understand that there is only one God. No others. This God is the Alpha and the Omega - the greatest and the weakest. God is all there is.

However, a case might be made that we are stuck in the henotheism. We live our lives taking the commandment “no other gods before me” very literally. That is, we worship our little gods of power, money, ego, prestige, nature, resentment, and envy but we don’t do it “before” we worship God of Jesus Christ.

The problem is not that we worship God, it is that we practice having no other gods before God.

Worship And Las Vegas: More Alike Than We Think

Photo by Bradley Wentzel on Unsplash

It has been said what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. And this has come to be more true than just keeping the “wild” that happened from being expressed in the “civilized.” The truth is that despite all the parties, concerts and mystic around the desert town, Vegas is just not that wild.

Of course most people who go to Vegas do not have the experience that we see in movies or have in our imaginations. Few people wake up with a tiger in their hotel room or win it big at the high rollers table. Still with all the promiscuity and sense of “all is allowed,” Vegas is not that wild because Vegas is an escape.

Vegas is the iconic escape location. Like all forms of escape, Vegas does give you access to the source that can transform your life, it only gives you an escape from your current life for a bit before you have to return to it. Escapism is among the most common ways to live our lives. It is seen when we are living for the weekend. The weekend is the “everymans” Vegas. We party hard on Friday and Saturday, recover on Sunday and then catch a “case of the Mondays” to start the next week. We do things on the weekend that we would/could not do in the week and we are “recharged” by these customs. We sleep in. We party. We drink and rest.

Escapism is also seen in the way we worship on Sunday mornings. We use language to talk about going to worship so we “can recharge” or “fill up” for the week. We talk about “re-connecting” with God on Sunday or, as one person said to me once, we get our “God fix” for the week. Worship is for many of us a form of escape – it gives us respite but we do not allow it to transform our lives. In this respect, Vegas and worship accomplish the same effects with different means.

The call is not to avoid the escapes in our lives. It is good to escape every now and again. The problem is when we cling to escapes we cannot grab a hold of the transformative. This is why worship calls us to “let go” and “open our hands” to “receive” and “give thanks.” Worship can be treated as an escape. It can also be the means to transformation. If worship is not leading us toward change and transformation and only feeding and nurturing, then worship may be an escape.

Remember “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” is more than a slogan. It is the sirens song of escapism. If “what happens in worship stays in worship”, then worship is a less flashy manifestation of Vegas.