Twenty second
Sunday after Pentecost
October
12, 2008
Exodus 32 :1-14
Philippians 4:1-9
Is an idol a good or a bad thing? Well, it depends in what context you ask the question. If you ask the question in a church, the answer is going to be “Idols are bad things”. In a Christian context, the word “idol” evokes grotesque statues and pagan rites. In the Bible, the second commandment expressly forbids the manufacture of idols of any sort. But if you read about ‘idols’ in a fashion magazine or a television guide, you get the impression that everyone wants to be an idol. We idolize celebrities. We talk about certain great actors as icons of our times. We idolize our teachers, our mentors, and even sometimes our religious leaders or politicians. There is a television program where viewers call in to vote for an “American Idol”, usually based on a person’s ability to sing, dance or act. What does the word ‘idol’ mean in this context? Have we debased the word, or does it really signify something good rather than something bad? In this latter context, I think it refers to someone onto whom we have projected our own desires. We project our own desires onto such an individual so thoroughly, that the person onto whom we have projected those desires ceases to be an individual at all, and becomes an idol.
Perhaps
it is for this reason that there is inevitably something unreal about an
idol. Idols fool you. Idols are supposed to embody our desires or
our hopes. But all they succeed in doing
is getting in the way of claiming those desires and hopes as our own. Idols are always manufactured; they are
never born. Idols are products of our
imagination and our creativity – often wonderful to behold, but rarely
something we fall deeply in love with.
By its very definition, you can never have a relationship with an
idol. There is nothing inter-personal
about an idol because they are by their very nature artificial – an artifact that we have created. You can control an idol. But you can’t control another human
being. And you can’t control God.
People
need idols for all sorts of reasons. We desperately need images of what it is
like to be successful, beautiful or happy.
The world can be a frightening and lonely place, and idols speak of our
longing to make connections and escape from our isolation. Even the most horrible of idols speaks of our
desire never to be alone. Why then did God forbid us to make idols? Precisely because of the fact that when we
lose faith and no longer believe that God is with us, we invariably turn to
something else to give us a sense of security.
That
is what happened in the story we heard read from the Book of Exodus. When
The
basic human instinct to make idols has not disappeared. We see a cheapened form of it in the modern
cult of celebrity. But we are all guilty
of doing the same thing. We make idols
of money, possessions, pride, ambition, physical appearance, power, success,
academic degrees, sports, career, alcohol, of our own opinions and even of
religion itself. People idolize the
Bible, the cult of saints or the so-called perfection of our own particular
denomination.
Because
it is an inherent and ineffaceable part of being human, we must constantly be
on our guard against this tendency to make idols for ourselves. When times get more difficult and we feel
more isolated or afraid, we can be sure that our need for idols will only get
more acute. Fear is a great generator
of idols, and the only way to overcome that fear is to learn to trust and to
love. In our reading from the Gospel of Matthew,