“Walking in the Light: Keep Yourselves from Idols”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. David McMaster
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Text: 1 John 5:13-21
Five or six years ago, a friend and former parishioner retired from his job as a service manager at a large car dealership. He has always been active man, if not over-active, and his wife decided that he needed a project in retirement. She went out and bought him a 1967 Rolls Royce, Silver Shadow that needed a bit of work. It was a brilliant idea and I can remember the notes of glee that George had as he began work on the Rolls. It became a labour of love and it was lovely to see the Silver Shadow drive up to Timothy Eaton Memorial Church a few weeks ago, bringing his great-niece, dressed in white finery, to her wedding.
Occasionally, we experience feelings of awe and passion, when we work on something that we consider valuable or sacred. In high school, I became interested in photography and I still remember the wonder I felt when I built a darkroom and developed my first picture. As that first piece of photographic paper sat in the developing solution and the image began to appear, I was awestruck.
Year's ago I became a Christian and was considering ministry. In the last year of my Economics degree, I decided to take Greek as an elective. I was passionate about learning the language and remember the day, half way through the course, when a member of the Canadian Bible Society came and gave each of us in the class a Greek NT. It was like gold. Our professor asked us to translate some verses from John's Gospel that night and I remember the warm feeling as I worked with the text in its original language. There was something about it, the idea that I was reading words that one of the apostles had spoken or written; something holy, something sacred.
I had a similar feeling some seven years later when I had branched out from my theological studies into ancient Near Eastern Studies. I spent a number of years dabbling in archaeology and ancient languages. I don't recall ever feeling like an Indiana Jones, but I remember experiencing a great feeling of wonder as I looked at the Hammurabi Stelae, began to copy and translate words that were written in cuneiform; words written by some human being in ancient Babylon almost four thousand years ago.
“Why were you doing that?” you may well ask. Well, I was trying to understand better the setting, the culture, the worldview in which Abraham and his descendants lived. And as I looked into the ancient world and its religions, I couldn't help but notice the tremendous similarities between the ancient religions. The names and the details might change, but the stories of the gods were much the same from one region to another. The worldview was polytheistic. Their gods were the powerful elements of their experience. The burning sun was a god, the moon a goddess. The mighty river or storm were gods; the earth, a goddess. Some animals were particularly esteemed and appreciated for their power, or fertility. Images of them were produced and set up on high places and in homes and the thought was that the gods, the powers which the images signified, would be influenced by human obeisance and ritual.
And it was into this environment that the God revealed himself to Abraham and his descendants. God was not the sun or the moon, nor the mighty river or storm. God was not a fertile bull, or powerful bird, he was the Creator, the primary force behind all manifestations of power. He was one God, beyond the world and the things of the world. No earthly image or representation could ever do justice to the greatness of God. The great gods, Marduk in Babylon, Ré in Egypt, Ba`al and Asherah in Canaan were as nothing before him. Their images, mere pieces of wood or metal or clay, had no power, deserved no honour, nothing! It took a considerable time for the Hebrew people to actually get it and polytheism and monotheism existed side by side in Hebrew thought for years, but God kept revealing himself:
I am the Lord your God … You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God … (Ex.20:3-5).
Moses and the prophets would continue the theme for centuries. Yet, it was evidently still an issue when John wrote his First Epistle. Perhaps in the first century, the Jewish people understood the concept very well but the gospel was going beyond Judaea, out into a world in which polytheism was still the norm. John has counselled his people in terms of what it means to live in the light and ends with the short sentence, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
It's a strange sentence. Tacked on as a sort of addendum to the letter. There's no apparent context, idolatry is not referred to anywhere else in the letter. It's just there. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
But it was around Ephesus that John was writing, and it is often said that no town in the world had more connections with ancient gods than Ephesus. In Ephesus was the great Temple of Diana, one of the wonders of the ancient world. In the temple were all manner of statues, and objects of worship.
Polytheistic worship frequently involved some of the most lewd practices one can imagine. Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, was called the weeping philosopher because he would never smile. Heraclitus said once that the morals of the temple were worse than the morals of the beasts, and that the reason he could never smile was that he lived in the midst of such terrible uncleanness. Astrology, sorcery, fertility rituals, the sale of amulets and charms connected with superstition and magic, all were attached to the temple of Diana.
It is hard for us to imagine the religious atmosphere of Ephesus but it was pervasive and it would not have been easy for a Christian to keep away from the idols and pagan practices in that place. It had to be done. For the sake of truth, it had to be done and John says, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” These things were nothing, not worthy of replacing God.
But what does that mean for us? As a society, we've moved far beyond polytheism. We are modern, advanced, scientific! Or, are we? Have we moved as far beyond primitive thought as we think? For all of our science and advances, it seems as though there are still those who function in a pre-modern manner.
Memory is failing me a bit on this but cast your mind back to 1976. Our beloved Maple Leafs with Darryl Sittler and Lanny MacDonald were on a playoff run. Coach, Red Kelly, put pyramids around the dressing room and each player had to sit under one or have one under his bench. The city was a-buzz. Pyramid-power was front page news. The pyramids were finally going to get the Leafs past Bobby Clark and the Broad Street Bullies from Philadelphia. Well, they didn't, but many believed there was power in the pyramid.
It's not that different than the minister who came into my office as I was leaving a former pastoral charge and placed a gift before me. It was a tiny, pewter angel and I was told that this angel would go with me and guard me wherever I went. I was surprised at the conviction with which this was said for I had never really attributed power to angels or figurines of angels. But one day, years later, when I was preparing a sermon, I “googled” the word “angel” and was taken aback at the sheer amount of material that is on the web about angels. While I may not believe, there appear to be countless people who carry angel-figurines with them, place angels in their cars, put them in their homes and actually believe that there is some associated power that will help them in time of need. As I surfed the web that day, I found it astonishing that people are so ready to believe all sorts of fluffy stuff about these angels in such an uncritical way. Yet, when it comes to Christianity they balk and take a hyper-critical approach. They'll say that they are spiritual but not religious and that seems to allow them to believe anything that they want.
It doesn't stop there. In preparation for this sermon, I was looking into Ephesian gods and goddesses and the first site that I came to on the internet was dedicated to Diana. The website opens with soft music and a prayer:
Hail Diana
Hail Artemis Diana
Blessed Lady of the Beasts
I dedicate myself to You
May my path honor Thee
May my spirit celebrate Thee
May my life force magnify Thee
These things I pray
Be fulfilled this day
Goddess Mother help me
to know what is right
Apparently, the ancient gods and goddesses are worshipped still and the pre-modern thinking (I use the word in a non-pejorative sense) that allows for such worship, belief, and attributes power to images is still out there, and more than we think.
But should I really be that surprised. When I was in graduate school, there were a number of people in the Department of Religion and Culture, educated people with degrees and working on Masters degrees, who were dabbling in the Wiccan movement and alternate religious experience. I had lunch every day with a woman who was the priestess of the group. She set up candlelit ceremonies and rituals for 20 women who met regularly for “worship.” Because I was studying ancient religion, I was intrigued and interested because of the parallels. At the time, I did not think it was a widespread phenomenon but, perhaps,it is more widespread than we think. Perhaps, we ought to pay more attention to William Barclay who states in his commentary on John's words, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols,” …“The Christian must never be lost in the illusions of pagan, religious practices.” The words of the commandments still echo in our ears, …“I am the Lord your God … You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.”
John, however, may also have had something else in mind when he added this addendum to his letter. And, perhaps, this is even more applicable to our situation two millennia later. The Greek word translated, idol, carries not only the connotation of “an image” that is a part of some primitive worship, but can also carry a more figurative meaning. An “idol” can be anything that human beings allow to take the place of God, anything in this life which human beings worship or serve instead of God. The great NT scholar B.F. Westcott stated, “An idol is anything which occupies the place due to God.” He translates this verse, “Keep yourselves from all objects of false devotion,” such that a person may make an idol of a host of things such as money, a career, pleasure, a hobby, a sport, anything that would take the place of God in life.
We know this general truth from elsewhere in our NT. Jesus spoke once of those who put the accumulation of wealth so high on their agendas that they were consumed with it. He said, “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (or wealth),” (Mt.6:24). A little earlier in the same chapter of Matthew's Gospel, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Mt.6:19-21).”
Of course, Jesus is not telling us that treasures and riches are bad in and of themselves. He knew the uses and value of money, for instance. What he is saying, however, is that riches and the pursuit of them, are not to consume us; earthly gain is not to be our ultimate goal in life. Our ultimate goal is to know God and if we seek first the kingdom of God then God will look after the rest - our needs. John says, perhaps in this light too, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols,” - “Keep yourselves from all objects of false devotion.”
Think of other things. Today, we live in the most advanced society in the history of the world. We live in a country that is lauded as one of the best. The United Nations always places Canada at or near the top of its “best country in the world to live in” list. We are a privileged people. The problem with privilege and having so much available to us is that it is easy for us to: set God aside, forget to honour the One from whom all that we have comes, we have so much, we're content and forget that we still need God. We can get pre-occupied with the good life.
So many things can absorb our time. For some it is a career, for others it is success. For some it is recognition by others, for others, it is a sport or activity. For some it is the pursuit of knowledge, for others it's a pursuit of technology or leisure or pleasure. There are so many things that can take up our time and our energies, and some engage us so much that there is no time for God, no time for Church, no time for worship and doing the things that help us put life into a real perspective.
Do you know where the lowest level per capita of Church attendance in North America is? It is on the west coast. And the reason seems to be leisure. On the west coast, oceans and mountains are just an hour or two away. Beaches, rivers, rocks, and desert, all beckon the weekender. People have no time for God. They are so involved in leisure activities. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
A few years ago when the current version of the Canadian five dollar bill came out, there was a bit of an uproar from some Christians. I don't know if you have noticed but on the back of our five dollar bill, there is a depiction of children engaging winter sports, tobogganing, skating, and playing hockey. Good Canadian stuff, you think. But there are also a few words written there in French and English. They are barely visible, especially to those of us with post-40 year old eyes, and they come from Roch Carrier's short story, “The Hockey Sweater.” In English they read, “The winters of my childhood were long, long seasons. We lived in three places - the school, the church, and the skating rink - but our real life was on the skating rink.”
I have been there with two boys playing “rep” hockey. Especially, at “AA” and “AAA” hockey, it is all consuming. I've had to work through the Sunday sports phenomenon and what to do about it, and what to do about church and bringing children up in the ways of the Lord while allowing them to have the fun and competition that others are having. It is not easy. I remember my younger boy's first coach “rep” coach. He sits here in the nave with us on many Sunday mornings. When the tryouts were over that year, he phoned me up and said, “I'd like to have your boy on the team but I know what you do on Sundays and there are practices every week on Sundays at 8:00 am. Let me know whether you can do that?” I wanted my boy to have the experience but I also wanted him at church. We managed to work it out such that I'd drop him off at 8:00 and coach would drop him at the church at 9:45. But then there are tournaments, extra games, extra activities and unless you are incredibly committed to God and church, God and church just seem to slip away.
I remember when I was young, we used to go on family vacations. There were days on beaches, evenings - fishing, nights by an open fire. And then on Sunday morning my Dad would always lead us all to church. I didn't particularly want to go. We were on holidays, but it was not an option. “God did not take holidays and there were no holidays from God,” I was told. Regardless of where we were, how much fun we were having, Sunday mornings were for church. As I look back, in some sense my Dad was telling us something about priorities. He set a pattern for a weekly coming back to a place in which one can sit and ponder deeper things. Recognize the Creator and Sustainer of life and the giver of all good things.
It may not be as easy to do in a post-Christian society but, I think that we need to try. We need to make God a priority. Home or away, we need to get ourselves to church some where and some time during the week. And whether that be a trek to a village chapel on a Sunday morning, or gathering with friends or family members for a few moments to read the word of God and pray, we need to set aside a little time to re-focus and to remember the God who has so wonderfully given.
And there's something to the routine of it. We often think that it doesn't matter if we miss one here or miss one there. But too often the one here and the one there grows into quite a number here and quite a number there. This is especially important for those of us raising children, the routine is what gives them a sense of the priority of God. If we make it a priority, they will tend to make it a priority.
“Keep yourselves from all objects of false devotion.” Nothing should be allowed to take the place of God in our lives. So let us keep all things in perspective, let us walk in the light - seeking first his kingdom (Mt.6:33); “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”