And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the Lord your God Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves.  You shall have no other gods beside Me.  You shall make you no carved likeness and no image of what is in the heaven above or what is on the earth below or what is in the waters beneath the earth.  You shall not bow to them and you shall not worship them, for I am the Lord your God, a jealous god, reckoning the crime of fathers with sons, with the third generation and with the fourth, for My foes, and doing kindness to the thousandth generation for My friends and for those who keep My commands.  You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not acquit whosoever takes His name in vain. 

Exodus 20:1-7 (Robert Alter Translation)

Exodus 20 presents God’s guidance for how to live our best possible life.  God begins His guidance by reminding us that He acts in the world.  He reaches into this realm and influences events.  “I am the Lord your God Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves” (Exodus 20:1).  He delivered real people from real bondage, and He spoke the words to the very people He had recently freed from slavery in Egypt.  They experienced the plagues and the rescue through the sea, and they had been delivered, and God begins by reminding them who He is.  Compared to all the other gods they had heard about in Egypt and who the Egyptians worshiped, He is the One with all power and authority, He is the One who actually delivers. 

What bondage has He freed you from?  How have you experienced His glory?  He is the One who has saved us in the past and who will do so in the future.  He is the Lord our God who is with us, who knows us, who hears our prayers, and who responds.

He is our Lord.  What does that mean?  If we claim association with Him, what does that mean?  Among many other things, it means we bear responsibility to behave in a manner befitting of the claim, and God continues explaining a few elements of our responsibility.  He presumes that we will engage in worship; He acknowledges the existence of evil forces vying for our focus, desire, admiration, and worship; and He urges us to worship only Him, the Lord our God.

Some have heard this commandment and asked whether God is a narcissist, needing praise and admiration.  God needs nothing from us.  He does not need our worship, we do.  We need to worship Him and commune with Him because our lives are better when we do, and worshiping other gods (like wealth, possessions, social status, ourselves, personal pleasure, etc.) leads to a miserable existence.

God’s presumption that we will worship something or someone, and His instruction to worship only Him suggests that He crafted us to worship.  He designed us with a void in our hearts that may only be filled through worshiping Him, but He knows everything, so He knows much better than we do that we are susceptible to worshiping lesser things or people in His place, and if we do that, we will continue through life experiencing a void in our hearts that only He can fill.

As I ponder worship, my mind goes in two directions.  I am so grateful for the people who came before us who built the amazing sacred space dedicated to worship where we gather as the Body of Christ worshiping Him.  I am thankful to live in a place where we are allowed to freely gather to worship the one true God.  I am grateful for others who desire to worship together in sacred space dedicated to worshiping Him.

I also think about the words Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, focusing on the spiritual condition of worship rather than the physical location. 

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.  But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”  John 4:21-24

Jesus’ words clarify that worship is not limited by geography, we can worship anywhere and everywhere, and the Father seeks true worshipers who worship Him in spirit and truth.  In Exodus God suggests that He designed us to desire worship, and Jesus clarifies that He does indeed seek true worshipers, and true worship is pure spiritual connection. 

God continues by urging us not to take His name in vain.  We might understand this to mean that we should not convert His holy name into a curse, and we should certainly not do that, but it means much more.

Robert Alter serves as a distinguished professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at University of California, Berkeley, and the long list of books published includes his translation of the Old Testament, which I really enjoy because he includes detailed footnotes describing the poetic wordplay contained in Hebrew that is missing in many English translations and his effort to convey the beauty, poetry and original meaning.  Reading God’s presentation in Exodus 20, I noticed the following footnote to Exodus 20:7:

“7. Take the name of the Lord your God in vain.  The Hebrew verb literally means “bear” and indicates the taking of a vow or oath.  The reference is to the use of the potent divine name in adjuration and perhaps also in magical conjuration, not to the mentioning of the name in casual speech.  “In vain” has the sense of “falsely.”  (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, The Five Books of Moses pp.296-297)

While we certainly should avoid misusing God’s holy name, the original meaning of the command has far greater significance.  If we associate ourselves with God and thereby pick up His holy name to bear by presenting ourselves as His people, we must avoid doing so falsely.  I picture extreme examples of how we flawed, sinful humans might so easily get this wrong.  On one end of the spectrum are those of us who falsely present ourselves as holier and more pious that we are, often through nasty, judgmental arrogance, and that dark witness tarnishes God’s holy name.  On the other extreme are those of us who present ourselves publicly as followers of Christ, seeking Him and loving Him – perhaps by attending church, attending Bible studies, wearing cross-adorned jewelry, posting Bible verses, etc. – while behaving in ways contrary to His design for our lives. 

Jesus says, “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them” (John 14:21).  We each get this wrong all the time, but where is our heart?  As Micah 6:8 directs us to ask, are we humble?  Are we enacting justice?  Are we kind?  As we fasten the cross necklace around our necks this morning, will we endeavor to portray Christ’s holy image to extent we are humanly able?  If we say yes, we must understand that if we rely on ourselves to accomplish this we will fail.  We are simply too sinful, yet through Christ and His holy indwelling the impossible becomes possible.  Through Christ Jesus we are granted new life, we become new creatures capable of taking on and bearing His holy image with gradually increasing clarity.

Worshiping God and bearing His name properly are connected components of our lives of faith, and God connects the thoughts to following His commands.  Scripture records Jesus making a similar connection.  Early in His ministry, shortly after choosing the twelve, Jesus traveled through Galilee teaching and healing, and crowds gathered to experience His presence.  On one occasion while teaching He said,

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?  I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them.  That one is like a man building a house who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built.  But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, it quickly collapsed, and great was the ruin of that house.”  Luke 6:46

And on the evening of the Last Supper, shortly before surrendering Himself for us, Jesus said,

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. John 14:15; and

“Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”  John 14:23 

If we claim association with God the Father and Christ Jesus, we bear responsibility.  If we call Jesus Lord and profess love for Him, we will do what He tells us to do, and we will worship only Him, and we will bear His holy name responsibly.

Okay, let’s go back to the beginning and ask why.  Why does Jesus connect loving Him with obeying His commands?  Why does God the Father connect worship with obeying Him, and then double down on the thought by telling us to live in a manner befitting of association with Him?  Why?  Is God merely an overbearing ogre with nothing better to do?  No.  He loves us and He wants us to have the best possible life and our best possible life is lived in communion with Him.  He desires that we experience His joy, His peace, His rest, His life abundant, His wholeness, and we are only able to do that through communion with Him through Christ Jesus. 

How do we live our best possible life?  God gives us the owner’s manual for life.  We must merely follow it.  And He begins by reminding us who He is.  He is the Lord our God who has delivered us from bondage in the past and who will continue doing so.  May you seek Him and know Him and worship Him and follow Him.  Amen.