The Lord your God you shall fear; him you shall serve, and by his name alone you shall swear.
Deuteronomy 6:13
To fear, to serve and to swear, a daunting mandate from Moses. When carefully translated from ancient Hebrew to today’s American English, this verse reads "Worship and obey the Lord with fear and trembling and promise that you will be loyal to him", a little easier to understand but just as daunting. In Moses' time however, fear and trembling were the basis for reverence, the basis for our total commitment to the God of Israel, a primary theme of the Book of Deuteronomy. This is the same as, The Great Commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy might."
Moses was worried that as the Israelites entered the promised land, and began to prosper, they would begin to feel more self-sufficient and less sensitive to their need for God, which would cause them to concentrate more on self-preservation than on thankfulness and service.
Like the Israelites of Moses' time, we too tend to get caught up in our worldly affairs and forget how dependent we are on Our Lord as our reverence shifts from the God of the Israelites to the gods of our material world. Our fear of losing our eternal salvation is replaced by our fear of not being successful, not being loved, not being respected or not having "enough" material goods. During this Lenten Season, let's take some time to think about what we really fear and serve, and where we swear our allegiance.
The Ven. Kerry J. Smith
