A Safeguard against Idolatry

Idolatry makes love impossible. Perhaps that is why it is the first of all of the commandments that God gives to Israel:" Then God sppoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, you shall have no other gods before me." (Exod. 20:1-3). If we break any of the other commandments, the ones that (literally) get prime time, we have already broken the first one. We have already elevated ourselves and our perceived desires above all else.

Biblical images of idolatry, especially that of the people of Israel dancing in front of a golden calf, were of little use to me as a child, seeing more comical than not. I began to understand that idolatry was more than the literal worshipping of graven images when I was able to see it it in the context of the great commandment that Jesus gives in the gospels, to love God with all your heart and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself. And all of these loves are interrelated: self-love is nothing if it doesn't include the love of our neighbor, and of the God who created us all in the divine image. A measure of balance in these objects of our devotion is a safeguard against idolatry, which can give any of the three too much weight. We can love ourselves too much, but we can also love others to a possessive excess.

- Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris