I am the LORD and there is no other,there is no God besides me.
It is I who arm you, though you know me not,
so that toward the rising and the setting of the sun
people may know that there is none besides me.
I am the LORD, there is no other.
I’m always pleased with the way that “ordinary time” offers us readings that are anything by ordinary. This week’s first reading in particular struck me (more the second time I heard it than the first), and shamed me in the way that reflection on the Scriptures sometimes can.
I don’t know how any one can hear the phrase “I am the Lord, there is no other” and not be at least a little ashamed. It’s human nature to become distracted, to raise other gods up because we are briefly deluded that in them we may find salvation. Just this weekend I can think of multiple gods I served: my esteem in the eyes of others, the pompous freneticism of my schedule, the frustration with other people that I want to scratch like an itch.
But to say that the Lord is God alone means little without at least a sense of who God is, despite our inability to ever fully comprehend God. For tonight I know this: God is the one whose command to me, given to the prophets and repeated through Jesus, is to love: love mom and dad, family, friends, people on the bus, co-workers, God, and myself. Just love. So why bother with any of the other nonsense?
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