9 August 2019
Friday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
In Deuteronomy 4:32-40, Moses invites the children of Israel to ponder whether any other god is as the God of Israel, for “did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, with his strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terrors, all of which the LORD, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?”
We may claim to be Christians, but so often we bow down and worship other gods, whether wealth, reputation or success, pleasure or the power that comes from instant access to things that we want through technology. Let us be clear: these are more gods than servants, and we sacrifice time and treasure to these gods so that they will give us what we want (but we pay a higher price than we imagine in the bargain).
If we pay attention to the way that Moses invites us to reflect on the greatness of God, we see that the invitation is not only to note the great wonders of that God’s works in creation (for false gods have analogous works which can captivate our attention as well), but above all to note just how much that God has ventured out and done battle in favor of his chosen people. So, too, let us notice that none of the false gods to which we sacrifice time and treasure genuinely care for us. It is Jesus Christ himself who comes to save us as the God of Hosts fought for Israel, and He will do battle for us even to the farthest reaches of Hell. Let us then wonder at how great this God must be to make himself so small for our sake, and let us abandon our false gods and follow the one true God, revealed in Jesus Christ, with all of our heart.