Idol In the World (Day 19 of A Simple Lent)
Wednesday
Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that ‘no idol in the world really exists’, and that ‘there is no God but one.’
What do you suppose is the question Paul is trying to answer?
It always helps me to think of Paul as writing to real people with real problems. The church in Corinth had some real problems and divisions. Norms of behavior were all over the place. And the people didn’t treat each other well.
But there certainly is a question being raised to prompt Paul’s response about the eating of idol meat.
It is pretty safe to say that most Jews were raised to obey the dietary laws, which prohibited certain foods and certain circumstances for eating food. And there are many laws regarding the animals sacrificed at the temple: how to sacrifice, what to do with the animal and it’s body, and who gets to eat it. We can see the early version of these laws in the first books of the Bible, what we call the Torah.
There is also a concern about serving gods that are not GOD: how are the people to interact with other religions and their practices? Would eating the meat of an animal sacrificed to another god be idolatry?
That Paul needs to respond to these two ideas proves that there is some confusion about eating of animals sacrificed and eating animals sacrificed to other gods.
Paul takes as a given what I’m not sure his people do:
Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that ‘no idol in the world really exists’, and that ‘there is no God but one.’
We believe in GOD, the one GOD. We could say the Sh’ma with authority
Hear O Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD is one.
We’re good on that part. But I’m not sure we (and certainly not they) felt so sanguine about the idea of idols. Particularly so comfortable as to say that “no idol in the world really exists.” Because idols caused a great deal of trouble for the Hebrew people throughout history.
The Existence of Idols
Idols are things that get in the way of GOD. They are representations which get worshipped in place of the true GOD. They are the things we love more than GOD. They are our divisions and sources of disruption. They are tools that distract or drive us away from not only the love of GOD, but the sharing of that love with our community.
I see idols everywhere.
Money. TV. Guns. Prestige. Organizational authority. Nature.
We make an idol out of harmony and unity when we ignore justice.
We make an idol of religious celebration when we break our community and bully one another into saying “Merry Christmas!”
We make an idol of our families, who we elevate to royalty, to the exclusion of the rest of our community.
It is hard to say idols don’t exist.
But to Paul, it is not do they or don’t they as much as it is consistency of belief. If GOD, the god we worship, who was called YHWH and revealed GOD’s self to Moses as the great I AM, saying to him “I Will Be There Howsoever I Will Be There,” and who brought the people out of Egypt and returned them from Exile, who liberates the captives and frees the slaves, who has a preferential option for the poor and demands we love the widow, the outcast, and the immigrant as much as our own children, if GOD does all of that, and we come to see that god as The GOD, then there are no idols or false idols. There is no idolatry, because there is no thing or being greater than GOD. There is no thing to worship above GOD.
And Herod?
There is something powerful going on in Mark’s telling of the death of John the Baptizer that reminds me of this idolatry issue.
We receive the death of John in a flashback sequence in this gospel. It is a flashback in the middle of an interlude. Herod hears about Jesus and thinks it is John back from the dead – so we then get to hear why he is dead.
Herod is not a good man. Clearly. But a curious thing happens after he arrests John. It says
When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him.
John was speaking in such a way as to disrupt Herod’s world. And I think, he was hearing the Good News and being moved by it. And one has to wonder what might have happened if he had more opportunities to deal with being “perplexed”.
Then, in killing John, Herod isn’t able to see what Jesus would hope he sees and hear what he would hope he hears. He hears John ringing in his ears like a Shakespearean ghost.
It is telling that Herod makes an idol of family and commitment and promise to them. He promises to do anything for them and then holds that above the commandment to not murder. How often have we encountered such an inclination? And I don’t mean to suggest that we all have families that encourage us to commit murder. But I mean the abstraction of that:
I would do anything for my family!
Anything being the idolatrous word.
Freedom
Our GOD is a god of freedom, however. A GOD whose hallmark is the Exodus story, who has shown a regular commitment to liberation and has demanded our participation in the liberation of our people and our neighbors. And that isn’t just about slavery and exile, but in our shackles of commerce and consumption and injustice and poverty and hopelessness.
So…what if we treat Paul at his word and act as if our idols don’t actually exist? Those things that get in the way of GOD are phantoms. Like living in The Matrix. This stuff isn’t real. It’s real, as in its physically present. It’s real in that our addictions are powerful and willpower is so often not enough to break those bonds. But they aren’t real in that our future is not written and our separation from GOD is not inevitable.
What if we acted as if we were unbound from that which destroys us? And what if we embraced what restores us?
What if we shed all of the destructive and evil and sinful possessive idols in our world and surrounded ourselves in light and love and hope?
Doesn’t that sound like real freedom?
Daily Office Readings
Or visit the alternative Daily Office I often use.
Homework
This week’s homework is to surround yourself with what brings joy to your life.
Download the worksheet: A Simple Lent-Handout 3!
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