Friday, April 16, 2010
Idols
Beginning to think about next Sunday's sermon on "idolatry". Wonder what makes the difference between enjoying something like food, or a new car, or a job, and making it your idol. Well, not what "makes the difference" because that is clearly worship and the place the thing has in your heart. But more the question is: How do we stop good things that we enjoy, becoming idols in our lives? Any ideas?
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This series is looking promising Richard.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if one of the roles of fasting is to break our myths and reliance on good (but not ultimate) things.
Having given up things through Lent I was surprised to see that new desires grew for other things. We can't help but look for happiness in life. The power of the old things was broken and something else filled that space. The joy of taking them back again after Easter had more to do with the new position they occupied; life had moved on. Good things can be replaced, switched and even given up altogether and life would still have meaning.
But how do we stop good things becoming ultimate things. For me, it has been about increasing my awareness and worship of the ultimate "thing": God. I don't see how one can have an idol and worship God at the same time. There may be an unhealthy obsession with competing good things but this would not seem like idolatry to me (more #'s 7. 8. 10).
As a Christian, then, my ability to minister to those who worship idols will be in direct proportion to the vision I have of God. Is God really more satisfying than my plummeting super package? Do I really find more enjoyment with God than I do with planning my child's future? It seems like idolatry is not a sin of degree; it's more binary than that.
Even more insidious aspects of idolatry can creep into Christian worship, and all of a sudden it's the created being venerated rather than the creator. I've been to some church services where the music and the performance takes on something of its own, and I've wondered that the focus hasn't shifted away from where it should be: on God and his grace.
ReplyDeleteI don't pretend that I'm immune. I can't afford to become arrogantly smug about "other people's" idolatry lest I get caught up yet again in the quagmire of my own idolatry. And the list of possibilities is endless: money, stability, travel, academic achievement, my child's abilities, more technical gadgetry (i.e. toys), how my church is superior to others, etc., etc.
You asked “How do we stop good things that we enjoy, becoming idols in our lives?”. My suggestion is that we need to keep hungering for God; even when we have found Him we need to deepen our hunger for him.
ReplyDeleteIn his book “Hunger for God” (http://174.129.25.97/ResourceLibrary/OnlineBooks/ByTitle/1591_A_Hunger_for_God/) which is about fasting, John Piper referencing Mark 4:19 writes:
“ “Desires for other things”—there’s the enemy. And the only weapon that will triumph is a deeper hunger for God. The weakness of our hunger for God is not because he is unsavory, but because we keep ourselves stuffed with “other things.” ”
This is very true for me. I get distracted; I have pursued activities, things and careers just because they are there to be chased down or taken, they seem the natural next step and because I can.
Later in his book, Piper writes that the greatest enemy of hunger for God is not so much the big ticket vices but the “endless nibbling at the table of the world” and the “pleasures of this life”, “your basic meat and potatoes and coffee and gardening and reading and decorating and traveling and investing and TV-watching and Internet-surfing and shopping and exercising and collecting and talking” which replace our hunger for God. They are all good things but Piper says idolatry of this sort is “scarcely recognizable and almost incurable”.
SK Huang
Just recently I've started thinking about poverty and about possessions and whether or not it's right for me, as a Christian, to live as comfortably as I do.
ReplyDeleteAbove you talk about "the difference between enjoying something like food, or a new car, or a job, and making it your idol."
Given that everything we have belongs to God, do you think it's appropriate for Christians to consume as we do? Jesus talks about helping the poor and James talks about looking after the orphans and the widows (1:27).
If every person is of equal worth in God's eyes, why do so many of us consume so much? If the summary of the law is to love God and others (Mark 12:29-30), how do we justify the choices we make when most of the world is desperately poor and needy, especially given that all humans have equal rights and that we don’t live in one of the world’s wealthiest countries because of what we’ve done?
Is it necessary to own a new car? Shouldn't we be buying the cheapest cars we can and be giving more away? In fact, should we be buying cars at all? What about owning houses or having savings? How do we justify choosing pizza over rice or Coke over water?
1 Timothy 6:10 talks about the love of money being the "root of all evil." At what point does it start being "love" and not "use"? How many of us would find it impossible to live without possessions or savings? I think this is roughly what Seak King was talking about above; an idolatry that is "scarcely recognizable and almost incurable" (Piper).