“No Apostasy Allowed”

Exodus 20:1-3

The title of today’s sermon could have appropriately been “No Adultery Allowed.” Apostasy is spiritual adultery. Worshipping, serving, or trusting other gods is the Christian spiritual equivalent of cheating on one’s spouse.

The Old Testament prophets often equated idolatry with adultery. The prophet Hosea’s marriage to Gomer was a living example of this. Gomer’s sexual misadventures mirrored Israel’s worship of Canaanite deities. Just as Gomer desired the freedom to have sex with other men while maintaining the social and economic stability that her marriage to Hosea afforded her, the people of Israel wanted the freedom to worship idols while hanging onto the security their relationship with the Lord gave them. By way of the prophets, God made it clear that he was having none of it.

Why not? Because Israel had entered into a sacred covenant with the Lord at Sinai. They had reaffirmed that covenant as they entered into the Promised Land. They had promised to obey all of God’s commandments, beginning with the first one: “You shall have no other gods before me.” No other gods. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Out of all the peoples of the Earth God had graciously chosen them to be his people. And in his graciousness had given them the freedom to say no. “Choose this day who you will serve,” is the way Joshua would later put it. But Moses had already essentially asked them that question at Sinai. The Lord’s message to them before they answered was clear and unequivocal: “If you choose me, you can serve no other.” To use some terminology that was floating around in the 70’s, God didn’t believe in open marriages. His relationship with his people was to be an exclusive one.

This was something new and different. The children of Israel had left behind a culture in which worshipping many gods was the norm. As they took possession of the Canaan Land they were going to encounter a culture for which the worship of more than one god was the accepted practice. In fact, within all the cultures that surrounded Israel, monotheism was unheard of. In his commentary on Exodus Gerhard Von Rad described Israel’s situation thusly: “This intolerant claim to exclusive worship is something unique in the history of religion, for in antiquity the cults were on easy terms with one another and left devotees a free hand to ensure a blessing for themselves from other gods as well.” I hate to contradict Ecclesiastes, but this really was something new under the sun – radical monotheism.

Culturally and historically radical, yes; harsh and arbitrary on the part of God, no. In his book Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eugene Peterson wrote, “… [God’s] command [did] not come out of a vacuum; it [came] from a rich, storied context of salvation from slavery. Before He [told the Israelites] what to do, He [told them] what He [had] done: He [had saved them] from a life of slavery. [They were] no longer slaves who [had] no choice in what [to] do or not do. [They were] free to say yes or no. [Their] freedom [was] the gift of God’s salvation. Then [they were] ready to hear His first word: you shall have no other gods before me. [It was their] choice.

[Their] choice, because God, having set [them] free [was] not going to violate [their] freedom… by imposing Himself upon [them]. The [faith] community in which [they were called to] live [was] not formed by coercion. Nobody [had] to live [there] with… others whom God [had] saved. On the other hand, if [they wanted] to live in [that particular faith] community, this [was] the first condition: God without rivals, God without holding on to other options.”

Often when I preach or teach about the Ten Commandments I insert the word “therefore” after the second verse of Exodus 20. As in, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” therefore “you shall [or shall not do the following].” And the absolute number one thing they were not to do was worship or serve any other god. The other nine commandments are rooted in that first one: “Don’t worship any other gods. That means not making idols – don’t try to create your own little gods, not misusing my name, keeping the Sabbath, honoring and respecting your parents (and every elderly person among you), not murdering, not committing adultery, not stealing, not giving false testimony, and not coveting; if you’re going to be my people, those are the conditions.”

For modern Christians those are still the conditions that we accept as we enter into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. The Church is the new Israel; a faith community for whom the only Lord and Savior is Jesus Christ. Just as it was with Israel, God called us to be part of this people we call Church as an act of unmerited grace. We love him because he first loved us. Because we love him we keep his commandments.

Especially that first one. St. Augustine’s advice was to love God and then do as we please. But for those of us who have answered God’s call to be his people, loving God means serving God, serving God means obeying God, and obeying God means that what is ultimately pleasing for us is whatever it is that is pleasing to God.

Jesus summed it up very well when he answered the question as to what the ultimate commandment is: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind [and] you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If we truly love God, then our ultimate allegiance is to him and him alone. We place our trust in no secondary gods. Of we truly love Jesus Christ, the Lord God incarnate, then he will be our only Lord. We will not place our faith in the lesser lords of this world, no matter what form they might take.

If we faithfully follow Jesus, then we will love our neighbors as ourselves. We will not deprive people of their Sabbath rest. We may need to redefine Sabbath in Christian terms, but we will still see to it that we and the people who work for us have prime time for rest, worship, and family life. We will not require anyone, including ourselves, to be bound to his or her job 24/7.

If we faithfully follow Jesus, we will treat the elderly among us with dignity and respect. If we faithfully follow Jesus, we will never be cavalier about the taking of a human life. All life will be seen as a gift from God and treated accordingly. If we faithfully follow Jesus, we will keep our marriage vows. We will not lust after other people. We will never look upon another human being as a sexual toy. If we faithfully follow Jesus, we will not deprive people of what is rightfully theirs by way of illegal and unethical means. If we faithfully follow Jesus, we will work to make sure that our justice system is fair, equitable, and unbiased. If we faithfully follow Jesus, we will be satisfied with our blessings and not greedily seek more than we need.

And in all of this we must never forget that Our God is the God, who in Jesus Christ, has delivered us from our bondage to sin and death. Because he is the Lord our God we will not worship other gods. To paraphrase that long-ago psalmist, we will not place our ultimate trust in elected leaders, military might, economic systems, or political parties. When obeying God’s Law brings us into conflict with human legal systems, we will, like Peter, obey the laws of God and not the laws of men and women. When Caesar demands of us that which belongs only to our Lord we will not give it, regardless of the consequences.

We will not be possessed by our possessions. We will not be bound to family and friends in ways that prevent us from following Jesus. We will not sell our souls to addictive substances and behaviors. We will not go along with the surrounding culture’s sinfulness in order to get along socially or financially within it. We will not worship the flag. We will not allow blind and unquestioning patriotism to cause us to participate in national wrongdoing. And we will always prayerfully seek to discern the difference between the Kingdom of God and the various kingdoms of this world.

As people of faith we will not allow the means to the end of obeying God to become ends in themselves. We will not worship tradition – or polity – or history. We will not make shrines of church buildings and furnishings. We will not allow good, healthy, living orthodoxy to harden into dead and meaningless legalism. As we seek to faithfully uphold the eternal truth of Scripture we will not let ourselves descend into bibliolatry. The Bible is God’s Word to us. It is not God.

Whenever anything or anybody seeks to take God’s place in our hearts and lives – whenever any relationship or possession hinders us in our ability to faithfully follow Jesus – whenever any institution demands that we give it our ultimate allegiance, we must say no. There is for us one God and one God only, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who has been revealed to us in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have no other Lord.

Those long-ago words the Lord spoke to the children of Israel through his prophet Moses are the same words he speaks to us today: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; [therefore] you shall have no other gods before.” Amen.