Sermon for the 10 th sunday after Trinity – July 27, 2008
“ Concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. ”
WHAT IS an idol? We imagine idol worship as some naked primitive on King Kong's island offering a Fey Ray to the giant ape in sacrifice. King Kong was pretty believable as an island god, but that is the magic of cinema. The idols dug up by archeologists today look pretty silly as objects of worship. Giant Buddha statues of the Far East impress us with the power of their size and placement in golden temples, but the fat little smiling monkey-wood Buddha buddy you might buy at the House of Rice a block from here could hardly be thought of as an object of worship. What is the draw to idolatry? Why are we so continually warned in Scriptures, even the New Testament, about keeping ourselves unpolluted by them?
First, an idol can be anything , even an idea . The charm about idolatry is that it's our creation , or within God's creation it is our choice of fit objects to lift up as our gods. So, while you archeologists think the Egyptians were quaint to revere the seated figure of a human body with a coyote head, you worship your own idols without a second thought because they perfectly fit your world .
If an idol can be anything that is not God on high, then what makes that thing an idol? It takes the place where God should be in your life.
Measure it one way: time . How much time to you spend in prayer, Bible reading, worship, contemplation of the Holy Trinity? Now, how much time do you spend on the internet? Ouch . It could be any other entertainment or pursuit, like TV, music, skateboarding, white water rafting, or sex; but it has a higher priority in our emotional landscape than the Almighty who made all this and more. Or measure it in excitement —what makes you most excited? Measure it by money : beyond lodging, food, clothing, and, er, gasoline, where does the majority of your money go? See: worship isn't just tying the blonde girl to a post for that big gorilla, nor is it only kneeling in church and repeating the Amens . Worship can be gazing at a catalog.
John Eldredge gives our idolatries a look in his book The Journey of Desire . “Most of our idols come in pairs. There is the ‘nearby idol,' the thing close at hand, which gives us a sense of control over our world. And then there is the ‘faraway idol,' which provides the taste of transcendence.” A pair of skis in the garage make us yearn for the slopes of Vail. A new pair of skis would be even better! My old surfboard made me think about Zuma beach. “The bottom line,” says Eldredge, “is we don't want to wait for the promise of God to be fulfilled… The angel may be barring our way back into Eden, but we're bound and determined to get something going on our own… When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping or fishing or out to dinner. They're all imposters—every one. But we're so taken by the dizzying array of choices, we never have to stop and take a good look at what we're doing.”
Idols have a narcotic effect, not so much as to knock you out—for that might lead to repentance—but to keep you mildly sedated, moving the real, true and worthy objects of your passion and desire into the shadows, dulling the pain of never knowing a real, true and worthy thing. Blaise Pascal wrote, “The way to render a man happy, is to engage him with an object that will make him forget his private troubles… Mankind, unable to escape death, trouble and ignorance, in order to make themselves happy, have hit upon the plan of never thinking about these things… but it is most miserable consolation, since it does not cure the evil, but merely to conceal it a little while, and by concealing it, prevents men from attempting to obtain a thorough cure.” Pensees, quoted in Desire
I think our idols, far from being objects of love misplaced, are things or pastimes or relationships we create to take the place of love . For love , real love , must lead us to a proper object, or else it is mere bondage or lust or obsession—and not love. If love were to guide us, we'd find the source of that river, up into its high and glowing meadows where the snowmelt gives life to billions of tiny wildflowers, the glaciers hurt our eyes shining in the sun between granite spires rising in a blue sky painted carelessly with horsetail clouds. It lifts our eyes to a place beyond here, beyond our world. But still within our world in its places of pristine beauty, we draw close to the face of God. There is where love will lead us, if love is what we seek.
But love will hurt, it burns you, it has betrayed you and made a mess in your life before this. I don't mean romance . That's always messy. Love, that's the passionate willingness to give yourself to someone greater than you. We find unworthy objects, flawed causes, covered-up lies, fallen heroes, and we run to our idols.
Idols are weird because at first everyone knows they're bogus. “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, The work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not; Eyes have they, but they see not; They have ears, but they hear not; Neither is there any breath in their mouths. They that make them shall be like unto them.” Psalm 135:15-18 “And their land is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land also is full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots. Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made. And the mean man is bowed down, and the great man is brought low.” Isaiah 2:6-9 St. Paul wrote: “The invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen… that they may be without excuse: because that, knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks… they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” Romans 1:19-23
What is strange is not that these things aren't God. Everybody knows that, and can see that. What is strange is that, when fully involved in your idolatry, you don't seem to see that you are not God . SimCity or Civilization games let you create people and move their lives around. Who is god in this picture? We are able to build such marvelous toys these days, it might be easy to revere Microsoft or NASA or Owens Corning or Apple. If we lack anything in our bodies, there is a drug that can take care of that for you: Botox or silicone or Viagra.
Don't like this reality? lose yourself in a world where you don't really die, feel pain, or have a conscience— blam! Blam! Crash! Booom! We don't know how silly we look, lost in our mental images of ourselves running and performing marvelous acts, while our bodies are melted into soft chairs and a joystick in our hands, our faces betraying nothing but the blandness of melancholy drugged into stupor. The draw is: I am my own god . The first letter in Idolatry is the capital letter I. Now, how many things do you do where you are in control , or you put yourself into Shangri-La ? Television became too passive for us, so we invented the remote control. Now you are the god of the TV. Passion on your 19” computer monitor is just a mouse-click away. You will finally have your place in fame and fortune when you get that last photo pasted on your blog and post it to cyberspace. Is there any mystery to MySpace.com ?
Mankind is building towers, islands, luxuries beyond science fiction in a city named Dubai. The next two tallest buildings in the world will soon be completed there. Islands shaped like palm trees, covered with million dollar condos, a totally underwater hotel, indoor ski slope when it's 120 outside, and the world's biggest mall are not in Chicago or Tampa, but in the United Arab Emirates where, in 1975, Giti and I were awakened at 1 a.m. to the sound of the Concorde SST taking off over our bedroom. Babylon the great rises from the sands of Arabia.
What will become of our idols? They are short cuts that stop far short of their ends. An idol will never get you to God, nor to heaven. Die here without Him and you will only be damned. “The loftiness of man shall be bowed down… and Jehovah alone shall be exalted in that day. And the idols shall utterly pass away. And men shall go into the caves of the rocks, and into the holes of the earth, from before the terror of Jehovah, and from the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake mightily the earth. In that day men shall cast away their idols of silver, and their idols of gold, which have been made for them to worship, to the moles and to the bats; to go into the caverns of the rocks, and into the clefts of the ragged rocks, from before the terror of God.” Isaiah 2:17-22
“The kings of the earth… shall weep and wail over her, when they look upon the smoke of her burning, standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no man buyeth their merchandise anymore; merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stone, and pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet; and all thyine wood, and every vessel of ivory, and every vessel made of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble; and cinnamon, and spice, and incense, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and cattle, and sheep; and merchandise of horses and chariots and slaves; and souls of men.” Rev 18:9-13
Jesus wept over Jerusalem because on the day God Himself paid a visit to this City of God, they didn't know Him at all. “ If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” St. Luke 19
We may think such things are far from us, but when the Morning Star rises and the last breath of our world is taken away, what will we be found doing? Where will our eyes be? On what object would our heart be found longing? The drug of this world is an imposter: don't be caught by it. Go where true love leads you, to the mountain, to the summit, to the source, and then look up, for your redemption draweth nigh.
PFH+