“Idols”
SCRIPTURE
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took these from them, formed them in a mold, and cast an image of a calf, and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.” They rose early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being, and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to revel.
—Exodus 32:1-6
DEVOTIONAL
My childhood idol was not only the greatest running back but, in my opinion, the greatest football player of all time. A two-time All American, Heisman Trophy winner. He broke rushing records, was voted player of the year, played in pro-bowls and was eventually inducted in the Hall of Fame. Off the field he was a committed father, he supported charities, he was funny and personable. He was everything any kid would ever want to be. That was, until we turned on the TV and saw him driving in a white, Ford Bronco down the LA Freeway.
In shock, we watched the O.J. Simpson trial over the next several months, hoping that he was innocent – that he was (in fact) all that we made him out to be. Or, maybe found guilty – that he would get all that was coming to him. After all, he let us down. Idols are like that.
Philosopher Jean Luc Marion talks about the power of an idol. 1 While an icon is like a window, through which we can connect to something beyond the self, an idol is like a mirror. He describes how idols are created by a reflection of our own projections; gods made in our image that affirm our agendas, agree with our ideologies, and live in narratives where we are cast as the powerful hero or the undeserving victim. However, like mirrors, idols only look back. They cannot reveal anything new because they have no life. The only way to see beyond them is to break them.
Two thousand years ago, the hopeful had their ideas of what the Messiah would be. Some imagined a warrior who would yield military power to crush the enemy and enthrone a Davidic King. Others thought it would be a cosmic power to destroy the old world-order to make room for “a new heaven and earth.” When Jesus showed up, he broke a few mirrors. He was not the God of anyone’s making. He was a servant, humble and forgiving. He found the beauty in the broken and the beloved in the outcast. He welcomed the outsider, the sinner, the unfaithful to reveal that God was less interested in looking back than calling us into a future world we can’t yet see. On that journey, God gives us life, calling us to live into an image that God created; forgiving, humble, looking for the beauty in the brokenness and the beloved in one another.
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- What (or who) are your idols? What are those things (or people) who affirm your sense of the way the world should be? When have your idols disappointed you?
- When God saw that the Israelites were worshipping a calf, God had planned to end the Covenant with them. When have our idols gotten in the way of living into a Beloved Community?
- How might our sacred spaces, traditional confessions, and religious convictions become idols? When do they block our vision of what God might be calling us to become?
“Do not mistake the finger pointing to the moon for the moon, itself.”
—Buddha
PRAYER
Lord, you are not the God we would have chosen, had we done the choosing. For that we are grateful. Break the mirrors we ordain so that we might experience a peace that comes through a relationship more than an understanding, a mystery more than a clarity, a wonder more than a certainty. Amen.
1 Marion, Jean-Luc. God Without Being, Chicago: University Press, 1991.
The daily devotionals for the season of Lent are written by Rev. Dr. Kirk Hall, Associate Pastor of Formation at First Presbyterian Church from 2010-2013. He is currently a founding partner at The Metis Project, LLC. and lives with his wife and two girls in Salisbury, Connecticut.