S
TRENNA
2007
by Pascual Chávez Villanueva
LOVING LIFE
THE PATH OF LIFE
THE 10 WORDS
“I am the Lord your God … * you shall not have other gods before me... * You shall not take my name in vain... * Remember to keep the sabbath day holy... * Honour your father and your mother... * You shall not kill. * You shall not commit adultery. * You shall not steal. * You shall not bear false witness... * You shall not covet what is your neighbour’s... You shall not cover you neighbour’s wife” (Ex. 20,1 s passim)
God’s original plan did not include sin and death leading even to the destruction of creation. But then, not even the later covenant sealed with the human race, with the promise not to annihilate it through another flood that would have thrown creation once again into chaos, succeeded in convincing mankind that only in God would the fulness of life be found. To draw mankind back into God’s orbit, the Lord had to create a history of salvation that would start again from Abram, who would thus become the father in faith (cfr Gn 12). From him there came the people who one day He would have to free from slavery in Egypt and with whom on Sinai He would seal a bilateral covenant: God promising to be the God of Israel and Israel promising to be the People of God.
The ten commandments indicate the terms of the agreement sealed with His people and the moral and spiritual situation in which Israel found itself and which determined the limits of the kingdom of life. Going beyond those limits meant entering the realm of death. The ten commandments therefore are the ten words intended to safeguard life in the same way that parents guide their children seeking their good. They are ten paths that lead to Life itself - to God. It is significant that in presenting the terms of the convenant of Sinai the sacred author declares: “These are the words that God proclaimed…”. And it is equally significant that Deuteronomy, which gives us the second version of the decalogue (5,6-22), introduces the history of salvation in this way: «These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan, in the winderness, in the Araba…» (Dt 1,1). What God had done on behalf of Israel becomes the foundation of its statutes and ordinances. The ten commands indicate the way that the Lord offers his people so that they may walk before Him, along the path of life. Here is a beautiful family catechism lesson: «When your son asks you in the time to come, “What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the ordinances which the Lord our God has commanded you?” Then you shall say to your son: We were Pharoah’s slaves in Egypt and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. The Lord showed signs and wonders great and grievous , against Egypt and against Pharoah and all his household, before our eyes. He brought us out from there that He might bring us in and and give us the land which He swore to give to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes … It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to do all this commandment … as He has commanded us ». (Dt 6,20-25).
On account of this, Moses, the mediator of this extraordinary covenant, invites the people to live according to the new possibilities God Himself gives them: «I have taught you statutes and ordinances as the Lord my God commanded me that you should put them into practice in the land which you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them … because that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who when they hear all these statutes will say: This great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is near to us …?» (Dt 4,5-8). Therefore God is to be loved “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” (Dt 6,5) and one’s neighbour is to be loved as one loves oneself (Mk 12,30-31). There is no room then for any kind of idolatry, adoring gods that cannot save, that “have eyes but do not see, that have ears but do not hear, that have mouths but do not speak”(Ps. 115,5). It is real madness to adore human beings, animals, the stars of heaven, the work of our own hands (Wis 13,1ss), or the divinities of conquering peoples. Precisely because the law of God is nothing other than the path of life, the essence of which is love, it is for us to accept what Moses says: «You shall be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the way which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land which you shall possess » (Dt 5,32-33). How different from today’s thinking that wants to present God and His law as a threat to man’s happiness! Jesus summed it all up in the commandment of love, the only force capable of giving real meaning to life and opening the gates of death.
