"The Idols We Make" - Sermon, October 22, 2017
Community UMC,
Quincy
“The Idols We Make”
Pastor Andrew
Davis
October 22, 2017
Exodus 32: 1-14
Although the television set has come
a long, long way since its inception in the 1930’s, 40’s, and 50’s, it has been a fixture in many American living
rooms ever since. When HBO was doing one
of their free preview weeks some twenty-ish years ago, I came across Barry
Leavinson’s 1990 film Avalon, which is part of his “Baltimore Films” about
a Russian/Jewish immigrant family and is set in the 1940’s and 50’s, although
ends in the 1970’s or 80’s. One
particular scene that comes to mind is when the main characters, the Krichinsky
Family gets their first television set and the way the entire family reacts to
seeing it work for the first time, particularly the children. Almost hypnotically. In fact, one electronics company used the
same scene, but imposed a modern television set into the picture. Pretty much after that particular scene in Avalon,
the world for the Krichinsky Family would never be the same since the
television would now have its prominent role in the rapidly changing society of
after WWII. In applying some of my
background in American Cultural Studies during undergrad, a closer look at the
film will show a profound social commentary about the television and its role
in family life. In some ways, the
television became an idol and took the family away from many of the traditions
they had known, even leading to some broken relationships.
In my own years here on earth, I don’t think that
I can recall a time of not having television at home, except maybe right after
I moved here to Quincy and waited a little over a month until I got DIRECTV
installed. However, there’s still our
smartphones and other electronic gadgets that can consume a good deal of our
time. I don’t think I need to rattle off
any statistics, but we sure do spend a good amount of time on our electronics
or in front of the television. I will
own up to the fact that I’m one of them who spends a lot of time in front of my
electronics, even though I am trying to disconnect, but constantly fall short in doing so despite
my best efforts. I will often peek at my
phone to read something and before I know it, an hour or two has gone by. On the other hand, there are many things that
take us away from what is really important as Christians, and yes, our
electronics is one of those things that can be helpful or not so helpful. The theologian Paul Tillich says that “your
ultimate concern is your God,” which raises an important question as a person
of faith; ‘who is our God’ and ‘what are the idols we make that take us away
from fully focusing on God?’
Like our message on forgiveness last
month, we are dealing with another pretty heavy topic when we think about the
idols we make. The Meriam-Webster
dictionary defines idol as “a
representation or symbol of an object of worship” or “an object of extreme
devotion.”[i] As Christians in our world today, we do our best
to worship God and show God our full devotion.
Yet, we also know that it is so easy to become distracted away from
God. Even on this journey of faith just
like Israel was on the journey in the wilderness, there will be times when we
might feel like God is absent or not listening, or feel like our prayers are
not always answered. Or, we may get discouraged because we cannot physically
see the face of God, although we can see signs of God all around us and in the
people around us. Instead, there are
moments when we want certainty; we want a solid representation of God; we want
to see the face of God even though the face of God is not meant to be
seen. We also can get a little impatient
with God now and then, especially when a need is not met. The Israelite people also get into this
little bind when Moses goes up to Mt. Sinai and spends forty days there. And like the Israelite people when they
finally become impatient, we to might be tempted to focus on something else
without fully realizing it (I’m preaching to myself here too!).
In our lesson from Exodus this morning, the
Israelite people finally grow so impatient that they decided that they had
enough of following God, who earlier in the Exodus story brought them out of
their oppression in Egypt and brought them through the desert under Moses’ leadership. They are frustrated because they can’t
physically see God. Since we last read
from Exodus, the Israelite people are almost like young children on a LONG car
trip. I’m sure all of us have been on
both sides of that, where we as kids or even our kids or grandkids have uttered
those four words that make all of us cringe: ‘are we there yet?’ I do empathize
some with Isarel here because I’m sure I’d be saying the same thing, especially
if I was having to travel across a desert by foot for forty years like Israel
did. Heck, there were moments I kind of
felt that way on the road trip from California to Washington, DC when my dad
and I drove there or last year when my seminary roommate Josh and I drove back
to CA from DC. Four days in the car felt
long enough, so just imagine being in the shoes of Israel for forty years. And a journey like that is sure to test even
the most patient of people. Even amidst the normal human behavior and emotions
the Israelites showed, God still heard them and provided for them by giving
them manna and quail, or water from a rock, except the Israelite people still
have a hard time trusting God for bringing them out of Egypt on this journey to
the promised land. They want certainty
and something they can physically see.
At this point in the story where we are studying
this morning, Israel has been at the base of Mr. Sinai for forty days, as Moses
has been up there conversing and strategizing with God in making a covenant,
also known as the ten commandments.
However, the Israelite people are getting restless, wondering just where
the heck Moses is and if he’s ever going to return. They’re not exactly the poster children for
practicing patience, so they turn to their other leader, Aaron, Moses’ brother. In a ‘when mom says no, ask dad’ type
scenario, the Israelites ask Aaron to make an image of God and he complies, in
which they give him their gold and form this golden calf which becomes their
new god since they were able to see this god.
Talk about crossing a line right there, although Aaron was also a
people-pleaser or may have succumbed to the constant complaining.
Now one of the ten commandments states that there
are not to be any other gods than the God we know, which in the Hebrew Bible
texts is referred to as Yahweh, Jehovah, or I AM, to name a few. God is a jealous god here and when God sees
this display that’s happening below, God gets pretty ticked off at the
Israelites, telling Moses to ‘do something about YOUR people,’ even though God
has referred to Israel as ‘my people’ throughout the narrative in Exodus to
this point. God shifts the perspective
to Moses as the one who brought the people out of Egypt and is ready to
obliterate the Israelite people for their gross display and creating this idol. However, Moses steps in and manages to talk
God out of obliterating the people by reminding God of the promises that were
made to the ancestors that came before Moses, notably Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. After all, promises are promises,
plus after God wiped out a good part of humanity during the Great flood story
in Genesis 6, God made the promise and covenant to never destroy the earth
again. God ultimately showed mercy and
grace towards the Israelites after Moses talked God out of obliterating the
people. Now
if you want the rest of the story, I encourage you to read the rest of Exodus
32, as Moses is the one who becomes angry and gives the people a pretty
unpleasant punishment.
All these millennia later since the long journey
through the desert, humanity has created many other golden calves or idols that
tempt us away from our devotion to God and this journey of faith; yet as
happens in the remainder of the story, none of these idols have been thrown
into the fire, ground up, and thrown into the water for us to drink like what
happened to Israel. Although I’m sure
there are some out there who would love to do that with smart phones, or at
least just throw them into the fire.
While our electronics and especially social media can be an idol, it can
be quite useful in sermon planning since I do have a rule that anything posted
on Facebook or Twitter can become sermon material or illustrations. This last week when I was planning this
morning’s sermon, I did a build-a-sermon post by asking my friends and
colleagues what they thought are some of the idols we make. I’m not surprised by many of the responses,
though. Youth, beauty, and our bodies
can be one; our material possessions such as our houses, cars, or cash can be
idols as well. Athletes, celebrities,
television, sports, and the internet are among other idols we make. Or in some of the recent stories in the news,
our political beliefs, nationalism, or the flag are a few more responses I got
and one that I know can get really touchy with a number of people I know, so
not saying anymore on that. And even in
the church, our buildings, our pastors, and our doctrine were some others I
heard about. Although I’ll remind
everyone to read the text of the hymn “We Are the Church,” as the church is the
people…not the building, not the steeple, not the pastor (hence why Methodist
pastors are moved around every here and there), the choir or music director,
but the people who make up the body of Christ.
The reality is that we have more golden calves and idols that we have
made than we realize. There are things
we need, though, like our cars/transportation, a roof over our head, food on
the table, plus we are allowed to have fun, and entertainment is not
necessarily a bad thing. It’s when we
start becoming too engrossed in the things we have or the things we enjoy and
it becomes our sole focus or becomes like a
god to us is when things becomes problematic.
The good news is that while we may have things
that can be idols we make, God will still show us grace and mercy in the
long-run just like God did with the Israelite people. We do like our ‘stuff,’ yet as Hebrew Bible scholar Anathea
Portier-Young at Duke Divinity School observes (and this is a fairly long
quote),
It is easy to mistake our own creations for our God. It is
tempting to shape our plundered riches, our wages, and even the reparations for
our losses into an image that pleases our senses, mollifies our anxiety, and
invites admiration from our neighbors. But that thing we have made from Egypt’s
gold is not our god. That thing may symbolize strength and power. It may
personify virility, or femininity, or aspects of both or neither; it may embody
rebellion or conformity, generosity or greed. But as close as we draw to it, as
much as we celebrate it and place it at the center of our lives, it did not
lead us to freedom and will not lead us to our promised inheritance. It will
tether us to slavery, to a worldview in which people are expendable,
interchangeable commodities. It will moor us in the impatience of our ignorance
and fear. We may dance with it for a day, but soon find that it has led us to
our death.
The hard way forward reckons with a divine presence that
continues to elude our senses even as it fills and animates them. The hard way
forward knows the pain of absence and doubt, but still chooses to follow cloud
and fire through the desert-landscape of freedom. And the living link between
us and our God is the one who challenges and negotiates with God for our
forgiveness, for God’s enduring presence among us, and for the fulfillment of
every promise God has made to God’s people.[ii]
God is not meant to be seen, although we do sense
God’s presence around us and through each of us. While there might be times we may not always
think so, God is STILL present with us, but it takes trust and faith, even if
it’s just a little faith and just a little trust. Our stuff is not going to last forever, yet
God will be with us, even when all of our ‘stuff’ and any of the idols we may make is no longer
useful. As we enter this new week, what
ways can re-focus ourselves towards God?
What are some of the things or ‘stuff’ that has become an idol for you?
I know for me, I am intentionally placing my iPhone in a separate room in the
morning every day to start my day off with God, then completely logging off of
social media every Friday, making it a true sabbath day so that I can return my
focus to God and renew myself in the same breath. I encourage all of you to find something that
has become an idol to you and set it aside one day each week, maybe two. And remember, God will still show grace and
mercy if you don’t because as we sang about earlier, there’s a wideness in God’s
mercy, even amidst the idols we make.
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