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You shall have no other God’s before Me
Monday, September 11th, 2006Chapter One: Mystery
As a young seminarian and aspiring youth minister, Chris Hedges entered a world too big for his God. His God at that time was his own virtue, his aspirations of being a man of God, and his desire to “make a difference.” In this first pastoral placement, buried deep in the slums of Roxbury, New Jersey, Hedges discovered that he wasn’t able to live into even his minimum expectations for his life and ministry. He ended up at war with his church and literally at war with the drug-addicted thugs on “his street.” When the promised attempt on his life became a reality he left the slums, the church, the ministry, and their associated institutions. He left the church in which he had found his “last refuge from God” and with leaving experienced the shattering of all moral certitude. He ends this chapter with these autobiographical reflections, “Before God we all are powerless. We are all afraid. It is in this fear, this darkness, that I found God, even as I thought I was fleeing from God. I abandoned the institutions that claimed God’s authority. I walked down Parker Street the night I smashed that bottle on the church doors, leaving the light, and entering ‘the darkness where God was.’”
Hedges imposter God was a God without mystery, a God who rewarded virtue with powerful ministry and success, a God who kept evil and good in distinct and separate worlds, a God centered in Hedges own “virtue,” a God who was blind to the arrogance and pride in Hedges soul. When it was revealed to Hedges that this God was not God at all, but was an imposter, it was a faith shattering and a self-shattering experience. In his words, “I had to learn my own complicity in oppression, my own sinfulness, how evil lurked within me, how when I was afraid I could turn on the weak and powerless.”
“You shall have no other Gods before me,” says God in the first commandment. Its too easy to just assume we are keeping this simple command, and not search our souls deeply enough to recognize that the God we are worshipping might be an imposter – a God we created out of our own expectations, out of our own need to have a God we can trust, or respect. For many the real God would shatter their faith and their lives. The real God would neither condemn the right people, nor reward the right people, nor agree with one’s assessment of one’s own virtue, especially in comparison with the virtue of others.
“Here ye O Christians!” The Lord your God is one God.” This one God will be who God is regardless of the imposters we create to put before God. Like Chris Hedges experienced in the slums of Roxbury, we will eventually experience the shortcomings of the God we create in our own image, or in the image of a belief system which singles us out for extra rewards or benefits. I wonder how God would respond if we were to simply ask God to point out the imposter Gods in our midst. I wonder if we have the courage to examine our God for authenticity. I wonder.
What do you think about these observations? What is your own experience? Keep the conversation alive by posting your response here.
Stan
One Response to “You shall have no other God’s before Me”
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This entry was posted on Monday, September 11th, 2006 at 4:14 pm and is filed under Ten Commandment Series.
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September 13th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
Stan:
You asked the question, “I wonder if we have the courage to examine our God for authenticity?” This is a difficult question for me as I have been raised (both in the church and in the culture) to portray my view of God in a socially acceptable way. What I mean is that I have been schooled into giving stock answers about who God is. I came into the church rather late in life, as a 23 year old. The congregation in which I first joined the journey as a Christian would not permit a young Christian to question the published version of God. I remember one of the elders telling me that men should get into commissioned sales because that was the way in which God could bless. I could cite numerous other examples. At first, I accepted this. I found myself toeing the party line, or at least not publicly questioning it.
I believe that I began to question my view of God about the time that Debbie and I got married. I continue to question my view and realize that God is God, regardless of how I regard Him. And I will not, in this life fully know all there is to know. But the blessing for me is that I am recognizing that God is God regardless of my circumstances. Now, onto the hard part for me…
I would like to turn your question on it’s head a little. Instead of asking, “I wonder if we have the courage to examine our God for authenticity?” I would like to ask;
“Do we have the courage to allow God to examine our authenticity?” I keep wondering if I will turst God to the point that I can recognize Him as Abraham did. Yes, God did promise Abraham a number of things. And in response, the book of Hebrews (11:13) states of Abraham, and others like him, “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.”
When God examines my authenticity, will He note that I have no regard for receiving the things promised, but that I just live in a welcoming attitude toward life, people and circumstances because I recognize that I am an alien and stranger in this place? I want to recognize God in the grit and grime, in the noise and the bustle, in the hurt and the disappointment. I want to have confidence in his leading so that I can go when he says go even when I haven’t a clue about where it is we are going.
Join the journey, folks. Get out of your position of comfort and status and see what God is doing and where he is going on the edges and in the in-between places.