A Radical Approach

A Radical Approach

Deuteronomy 1:1-8

            Forty years!  It had been forty years since God had parted the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to leave Egypt, then closed it over Pharaoh and his army.  For forty years they had wandered in the wilderness of Sinai and the Negev.  Now their wandering was over.  The Promised Land was in sight.  Just across the Jordan River lay the paradise God had prepared for them—the paradise God had been preparing them for all this time.

            But first, a final word from Moses, the prophet who had faithfully led them all these years.  Who else could God have trusted to carry them through these difficult times?  Who else would have put up with their complaining, their rebellion, their turning away from God?

            Moses knew he would not be permitted to lead the people into their promised reward.  He would stay on this side of the Jordan.  Tradition says God led him up Mount Nebo, showed him a vision of the land Israel would inhabit, and then received Moses to his final reward.

            Moses used his farewell address to remind the Israelites of all God had taught them.  Deuteronomy means “the second giving of the law.”  The book is a review of God’s instructions.  We find the Ten Commandments here, restated to remind the people of their obligations to God and their neighbors.  The commandments are the basis of the social, legal and religious code by which the Israelites were to live in their new home.

            Today these commandments seem fundamental to us.  We could not envision our lives without them.  Even those who do not subscribe to the first four (Israel’s relationship with God) find the last six an excellent basis for relationships between people.  I believe it would be difficult to find many nations that do not include them—in one form or another—in their social/moral/legal codes.

            We might think of these commandments as a conservative approach to morality, but that was not true when they were first given.  They were radical.  It’s true that many nations would have had some sort of code that permitted people to live together.  After all, killing, stealing, lying, coveting, illicit sexual relations are problems in any society, and must be outlawed in order for people to be able to coexist; but here they have the power of God behind them.  Killing is not just a crime against a fellow human being, but a sin against God.  The same is true for the other commandments that concern how we relate to our neighbors. 

            To make matters even more serious, the social/moral code is prefaced by a religious code—and what a code it is!  It establishes monotheism as the law of the land, an idea so radical in its day that only Israel followed it.  It is true that for a brief period Egypt had a pharaoh who tried to install a monotheistic religion, but the attempt died with him.  Only Israel of all the nations of the known world at that time believed in the supremacy of one God before whom all human beings and all other heavenly beings must bow.  This was a radical concept!

            Should this surprise us?  Not really.  If we read the Bible carefully we will see that God is a radical.  There is nothing conservative about God.  The laws given by God prove this.  “I am the LORD,” God says.  “You will worship me and only me.  No other god, no other heavenly being, no other object deserves your worship, only me, and you will love your neighbor—all your neighbors—as you love yourself.”

            God’s social code enshrines the idea of democracy.  If we read carefully we see that the commandments make no distinction among people.  There is no preferred upper class.  No one shall kill.  No one shall take what doesn’t belong to him/her.  No one has a right to another person’s spouse, or anything that belongs to any other person.  All are equal in God’s sight and before the law.  God is not a conservative.  God is a radical—and God’s law proves it.