And [God] said: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.  You shall have no other gods before me." (Deuteronomy 6-7)   Today we start in on the Ten Commandments.  What are the Ten Commandments?  Well, for starters, they are not exactly commandments.  In the Hebrew language, they are quite literally called the "Ten Words."  And these Ten Words are also not exactly "the law," even though that tends to be the way that we refer to them.  No: they are firstly and primarily the Ten Words of God's Covenant with his people.  That is to say: these words God speaks are the terms of a relationship.  These Words are not firstly ethics, laws, commandments, or a list of "don'ts."  They are firstly the definition of a new relationship—a covenant.  It is easy to reduce these Words into a criminal code to be policed with the coercive force of discipline in its worst forms.  But that is not how the Bible, nor our own church tradition in the CRC through the Catechism understands them.  These are life-giving words of relationship: a guide for gratefully living with God in the new relationship that he has graciously established. The two members of this covenantal relationship are named in this first Word.  God is the Lord who saves, and we are the people who are saved.  This is the basis and foundation of the relationship.  Why and how does Israel have anything to do with this God?  Because he is the God who has chosen of his own volition to have something to do with them, namely by saving them.  It had nothing to do with Israel or anything good or special about them, just as it had nothing to do with Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob before them.  The patriarchs were cowardly, devious, and strong-willed.  They were not particularly righteous.  The people of Israel weren't any better.  There was nothing that made them better or different than anyone else.  The only basis of their relationship with God therefore, was God himself through God's own, voluntary choosing.  Given this new relationship of God's choosing though, from now on, God and Israel are to be a monogamous couple.  No other gods can enter the picture.  But to hear only this negative prohibition about no other gods is to miss fully half of what this command is about.  It is not merely a negative prohibition.  The equally important Shema of chapter 6 enters on the heals of these Ten Words to balance them out in a positive form.  The Shema ties directly into this first Word of the Covenant and declares that Israel is also to "love the Lord their God."  To love God firstly, only, and completely.  Just as God has loved them. If this one, first, most important Word Command is kept, all the others tend to find their place.  That is to say, if our relationship with God remains strong, primary, and exclusive: all of our other relationships and activities have a foundation for flourishing too. I talked to someone just the other day who experienced this.  Any number of questions had hung over this person for years about relationships and the future.  Any number of paths to a solution had been sought, but to no avail.  Finally, after spending years skirting real time and attention for God, they took a retreat to do nothing but spend time with him.  Oddly enough, simply taking that time to reorient firstly on God, this person discovered—not a resolution—but a peace about some of the other questions too.  Enough to step forward into commitment on the other side.  God has established a relationship with us.  It is the first, most important relationship of our lives.  So: take time to check in with God today.  How is your relationship doing?   

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