"Earth's crammed with heaven. . ."

Here's the question and answer from yesterday:
Mon, Mar 16: Whose descendents live in Seir? (Dt 2)
Deuteronomy 2:4 4 Give the people these orders: 'You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, but be very careful.

And here's the question of the day:
Tues, Mar 17: Who spoke out of the fire on the mountain? (Dt 4)

And here's the reflection of the day:
Moses gives quite a speech here in Deuteronomy 4. It's a "rally the troops" kind of speech, meant to stir the emotions and to touch the heart.

The purpose of the speech is to a) remind the Israelites of who they are, b) remind the whose they are, and c) remind them of the kind of danger they are facing.

The speech comes in two parts: vv 1-20 and vv 21-40. The first part declares that the Lord has made a covenant with the Israelites in the form of the 10 Commandments. Covenants, however, are conditional, and the second part of the speech highlights the conditions of the covenant. This condition specifically surrounds the second commandment, a theme the whole way through the chapter.

Generally, when the Bible talks about "idolatry," it generally means crafting an object and worshiping it as though it were divine, like God. Now, it's not terribly clear why exactly there's such a problem about this. Some scholars suggest, as Clements points out, creating images of God were closely linked to the use of imagery in certain cultic fertility rituals. Apparently, it was too close for comfort for the Isrealites to create images of God because it was too much like the "world" around them.

Besides, what picture of God is going to truly do justice to the Lord Almighty? Moses reminds the Israelites that God, in all of his awe-full glory, had been revealed in the fire and smoke on Mt. Sinai. Clements says, "an image made out of stone or wood could convey nothing of the true majesty of God. It was more appropriate and meaningful to recall the unimaginable glory of fire and smoke filling the heavens than to suppose that a man-made artifact could conjure up divine power."

We certainly think of idolatry a little differently today, don't we? Like Paul, we tend to think of idolatry more as worshiping someone or something instead of God. It's more like the tenth commandment because we "idolize" or COVET things.

I would guess one of the biggest forms of idolatry is actually, as Clements says, "to believe that God can be kept 'in one's pocket.'" When we lose sight of God's transcendence and mystery, God becomes flat and ordinary. Each day, we should be searching, even in the midst of the ordinary, for the sight of God, present with us.

It all reminds me of a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. . .
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes of his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

If we could just see "every common bush afire with God," I don't think we would EVER forget God's transcendance and mystery.

Keep your eyes peeled for God at work in your life!
Allison