Not Just Words But Power
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, October 16, 2011
I am going to ask you this morning a rather impertinent question: Do you worship idols? Now, before you recoil with some anxiety for being asked such a ridiculous thing because it is totally un-United Church-like to talk about such things in public., you must understand that there is another dimension to worshiping idols other than then the one you have in probably have in your mind right now. How about, then, if I were to ask you another question? What are your obsessions? Now you might be thinking that is a question worth answering. What I propose to you this morning is that what your obsessions could in fact reflect the answer to the first question. It seems to me to be a very close parallel to what we obsess about and what we actually worship and value the most. This really came home to me a number of years ago in Ottawa when I realized that not very far from my church there was a lady who decided she was going to paint her driveway white and she used the thickest white paint she could find. It went all the way up to the very front steps of the house. The only problem was that this lady could never keep the driveway as clean as she wanted. Every time a leaf fell from a tree, she was there with a broom and a bucket to pick it up. Every time a bird flew overhead, I swear, she ran under the bird with a piece of paper to make sure nothing would deface her white driveway.
God forbid that I would ever walk my Cocker Spaniel with muddy paws anywhere near her driveway for fear of losing my dog or my life! And God forbid if any delivery person would drive a truck with an oil leak within a kilometre of that driveway! They would be chased out of the city! Early in the morning, late in the evening, this lady kept her driveway immaculately clean! But, over the years, I noticed, despite all her good intentions, it got greyer and greyer and greyer: she didn't succeed.
I have thought about that woman many times over the years for, in a sense, her beautiful, white, pristine driveway had become an obsession in her life, and one that was starting to dominate it. It was Martin Luther who said of idolatry that it is not in a sense the way in which we become consumed by the bad; it is rather when we become overly convicted of the good, but at the expense of God. In other words, it is not that we always follow or become obsessed with or worship bad things; it is just those things that are good can in fact become obsessions that cause us to turn from God.
For example, take our health. Health is a good thing: proper nutrition, food, rest, medications, haircuts are all good things. We have been given this body and we should look after it. But, if we become so obsessed with our health that it is the only thing that we think about or talk about or care about, when we are so worried about doing something for somebody else because of the stress that it might cause us and the fear of what that stress might do our health, and we turn away from that person who is need. Or, if we become so consumed with our health that we do not spend time on other things in our lives, then what was a good thing has turned into an obsession.
It is the same with education. Everyone applauds good education. Who does not vaunt it in a solid, democratic society? Education is the great social leveller, the great source of opportunity, the great way of expanding our minds. But, when education becomes a source of snobbery and boorish elitism, or if that education becomes an all-consuming thing, then it becomes in the end an end and not a means to an end, then that education itself can become an obsession and an idol.
So it is with religion. Religion is a good thing. It talks about our relationship with God: how we relate to one another, how we carry out our rites of passage, how we negotiate with one another, and our language about God. These are all good things! But, when religion becomes a source of division, when it becomes a means of separating ourselves from other people in society or doing good, at that point our religion can become an idol and an obsession.
Even our love of creation, of animals, of beautiful things, which in and of itself is a good thing in a time of environmental degradation, can become an obsession. This is where we are so concerned about secondary things that we forget about primary things: the good and the wellbeing of people. Even becoming so consumed with one issue in our society or our world that it so dominates our minds that we are unable to see other issues that might arise that are equally valid or even more important. Those issues might be commendable on their own, but they can become an obsession at the exclusion of a wider thought and perspective.
There is no question that it is not in a sense the bad things that we glory in that become our idols; it is the good things which often are at the expense of God, and God's will and purpose. They become the focal point of our worship and our adoration, for what you obsess upon you ultimately worship and can make your God. I think it is fascinating that these obsessions can metamorphose into idols, not that we create monstrosities and bow down before them, not that we have a particular image before which we bow and scrape, but obsessions can become idols.
In writing to Thessalonians, this beginning, this incipit of The Book of Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul is writing to gentile Christians who are new in the faith, and he is recognizing that they have a strong faith and a strong conviction that has seen them through difficult times. But, he also knows that they have turned from idols, or to use another phrase, they have rejected their idols.
Now, of course, we know that the idols in the gentile world were not just the idols of obsession: they were the idols for example of the Emperor, they were the idols of the gods who represented parts of creation, and they were the idols of power. And, while a name was given to them often, and people bowed down to those idols, they in fact represented, and this is key, obsessions of people. Whether it was the obsession of the power of the Emperor, or whether it was the obsession with a force within nature, or an obsession with a creature or the seasons of the world, so much so that those idols that the Greeks had to deal with were in many ways idols which were idols of the imagination, and had been created by the human mind.
In writing to these Thessalonians, Paul praises them. He says, “You know, you have trusted and you have served God. You have been faithful and you deserve praise, because you have turned from those idols.” So, I ask this morning, “What is it about those Thessalonians, what did they have that caused them to turn from idols? What power did they have? What convictions did they have that enabled them to deal with their idols?” For sure, ours are often not named. They are not on street corners or on pillars or in the market place, but they are real, and they are obsessions.
Clearly, Paul is saying that the Thessalonians had a very great power to overcome these. He said, “You did not only receive the Gospel in word, you received the Gospel with power.” There was something about their faith that enabled them to withstand the lure of the idols that were around them. Paul, of course, was thinking of the classic Jew. All the scholars agree that Paul so often intimated in his writings his Jewish thoughts and his background.
You see, for the Apostle Paul there was absolutely no question that idols had no intrinsic power: they only have the power that is afforded them and given to them. This is important! They have no intrinsic power except that which their believers give to them. God on the other hand, Yahweh, on the other hand, according to Paul, is the true source of the power of good. And, when you look back at The Old Testament you can see that this truth comes out.
As the great writer Miskotte says, “So often, in the faith of the great Lord, the gods, the idols are actually silenced.” When the People of Israel left Egypt and established their camp in Sinai, they realized that they had no power in Egypt even though they had worshipped under the rule of the Pharaoh, but now there was the power of Sinai and the power of the law and the power of Moses. Elijah, when facing the gods of Ba'al and their prophets, stood against them in the name of Yahweh. Why? It was because he had the power, and not the gods and prophets of Ba'al.
When the Pharaohs were loved and worshipped, Joseph recognized that it was not the Pharaoh that had the power, but it was him because of what God was doing through him. When Daniel stood toe-to-toe with Nebuchadnezzar, who built a great idol to God and himself on the Plains of Dura, it was Daniel who had the power, not the idol made of gold on the Plain of Dura. You see, the idols have not intrinsic power except that which is afforded them by their believers.
So, the things that we obsess about have no actual power except that which we decide to give them. Therefore, in taking on those powers there is this great resource, and the great resource is the authentic power of good, and that is God. That is why Paul, talking about his own words, and this is fascinating, says, “You received The Word, but you received it not just as a word, but with power and the Holy Spirit.” Paul did not suggest that it was his own words or the preaching of The Gospel in and of itself which had given this great power to the Thessalonians to turn from idols; it was the very power of God working within the people that enabled them to do it. That is humbling! It is humbling for preachers!
I love one of the great preachers in the United States, Henry Ward Beecher. He is one of the greatest preachers of all time! He had a great sense of humour and a great sense of humility about the fact that the most important thing was what the audience or the congregation experienced rather than simply the words that he spoke. He illustrated this in a rather humorous way to his congregation one day to convey the message to them, and it was maybe not the nicest message. One day, he got a letter in the mail after about sermon that he had written, and it had only one word on it: fool. Fool! It was addressed to him. Fool!
So, the next Sunday, realizing that there was quite a bit of buzz about the fact that this letter had come calling him a fool, he got up and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I have read many, many letters that have never been signed, but I have never seen one that was signed with no letter attached!” Henry Ward Beecher thought the audience was more important than himself, and he was saying humorously what he thought of it.
Paul, on a more serious note, understood that the real power came from amongst the people, and that the preaching of The Word was important and fidelity to The Word was important, but it is what the power of The Spirit does in the lives of the believers that gives them the power to turn from idols and to worship the authentic God. Paul knew that power had been at work in the Thessalonians. Is it working in you?
They also had a deep conviction. The thing that made the Thessalonians Church so strong was not only power, but deep personal conviction, deep personal faith, a faith that was able to withstand all manner of tyranny and all manner of oppression. Be under no illusion, the Thessalonians in turning to Christ faced incredible opposition from those who still worshipped idols.
Idol worship was synonymous with national pride, and it was synonymous with being a good character. Idol worship distinguished who you were by which idol you followed. When the Christians came along, as well as the Jews who had come before them, and would not bow before such idols, they faced enormous rejection and even persecution. Still, they had conviction that their obsessions with other Gods would be put to one side, and they would seek to follow Christ and Christ alone.
Now, you might be saying, “Well, is this still applicable today?” Well, my friends, I was reading The National Post yesterday morning, one of the numerous Saturday papers that I get, and there was an article by a Father De Sousa, and I have read Father De Sousa many times and I really appreciate some of the things that he says. But, he was writing yesterday with a passion that I haven't seen in him for a long time.
He was writing about the massacre of Christians in Egypt, and he was talking about the fact that the Christian community has been in Egypt for two thousand years, that it predates many other movements that have come along, and that the antecedents of those Christians within the Coptic community go back hundreds and thousands of years even before Christ, and yet, the Sunday before, coming out of Church, Christians were shot. He wrote the following and I think this is profound:
An Egypt without Christians would be the product of a cultural
vandalism equivalent to an Egypt with the Pyramids. The Pyramids
are the tombs of the past. The Christians of Egypt hear that their
fellow citizens are preparing for them the tombs of the present.
There is sometimes a great cost to be paid for turning to idols, of not turning or being forced to leave the faith that you have. While we are under no such pressure or potential conflict or death, still, the moment you turn from your idols, the moment that you do not give them the power that they want, at that moment a cost is borne: it is the cost of fidelity to God in Jesus Christ.
Some time ago, I read a piece by a famous Russian poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko. He is now living in the United States. He is an older man now. He was instrumental in writing poetry during the time of the fall of the Soviet Union. He was a supporter of Boris Yeltsin. Yevtushenko, in his poetry and in his writings, talks about the power of freedom, and how freedom is a wonderful thing, even in the face of tyranny.
In one of his writings, he tells the story of how when Stalin's body was being taken through the City of Moscow people lined the streets and the Great Square, and at one end of the square were great buildings and on the other were tanks and military vehicles. As Stalin's body was moved through, people crushed in and came in great numbers to see the deceased Stalin. Many of them were there to pay their respects; others delighted that he was dead.
The crowd grew and grew, and there was such physical pressure on the place where they were that people started to be trampled to death. Yevtushenko says that one of the things he saw was people going to and asking the tank commander, whose vehicles were positioned at the end as a safety valve, whether he would move the vehicles in order to release the pressure of the crowd so people were not trampled. He said to the crowd, “I have no instructions”. He stayed there, and people died.
Yevtushenko said, “This is what happens with tyranny!” This is what happens, as I am saying, with idolatry. When you have no instructions, following an oppressive leader causes you not to do the good that is right before your eyes. So obvious! Standing on instructions is a good thing. Being loyal to your nation is a good thing. But, when that loyalty reaches the point that people die, it becomes an idol. It becomes an obsession!
So, today, whatever your obsession and your idol may be, there is one power and there is one conviction that enables you to address it and turn from it, and He is Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.