St Paul’s United Church Sunday, January 17, 2010

God At Life’s Centre – Rev David Mundy

Deuteronomy 5:6-18 Mark 8:27-30

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Last year one of the biggest news events was also one of the most bizarre – and there was lots of competition in the bizarre category!

It was the response to the death of an entertainer, the singer Michael Jackson. In the 1980's he was one of the most popular musical artists on the planet, and his album Thriller sold millions. He became known as the King of Pop and his influence was huge.

Then things got weird. Jackson changed his facial features through plastic surgery, as well as his skin colour. Then Jackson was charged with sexual offenses involving children and while he was never convicted there were always the questions as to whether he had bought the silence of his victims. There were rumours of serious drug abuse, and his relationships with women were odd in the extreme. Jackson became increasingly reclusive. It was difficult to know whether we should feel pity for him or disgust or a mixture of both.

When Jackson died he was working on a concert series that was both a comeback and a farewell. But his farewell from this life came as the result of a drug overdose. And something truly strange happened after his death. He went from being “Wacko Jacko” to being a shining example of everything good and wonderful in the world, if you believed some of the press and the statements by other performers. His family refused to bury his body for weeks and one of his sisters claimed that she was in communication with him. The film of his concert practices was a box office success and he became one of the biggest selling artists of the year as fans snapped up his recordings.

Is this what happens when we “idolize” individuals? We probably don’t think of our use of the word idol all that often, even when we hear it in the context of popular television shows such as American Idol. What came to mind when the surge of Jackson hero worship was at its height was a study from a few years ago which found that those who had little in the way of religious belief tended to shift their adoration elsewhere, to the likes of entertainment and sports stars. Elvis Presley and Princess Diana, as well as Jackson, are all examples of people who have been idolized.

This morning we are continuing our series of sermons on the Ten Commandments which began last Sunday and will conclude after six weeks. Last week you were invited to contribute to this series by choosing five of the commandments you would like to be explored further. An impressive one hundred ballots came back to us with about 500 choices in total. We can’t serve up a drum roll as we unveil the results, but try to imagine one!

Strictly in terms of votes the commandment with the least interest was “don’t murder” at thirty-three. The one with the most votes was “don’t bear false witness,” followed closely by “don’t covet.” The next two were the only affirmations rather than prohibitions “remember the sabbath, and honour your parents.” These four commandments will all get sermons during the next few weeks

Here is the tough part. There are two of the commandments which were virtually tied in terms of votes, and they were the first two, both of which are God-related. The first is

“no false gods” and the other is “no idols.” One of you asked what the difference is between the two, and for the sake of this series I’m going to address the two together, because of their strong similarities.

Of course in ancient times there were literally false gods, because many cultures had their tribal gods which they carried around with them. They were actually very appealing to the Israelites because their God seemed to be out there somewhere, rather than visible and present. While they were warned that these images were idolatrous, they were hard to resist.

It seems to be human nature to believe that there is an entity beyond ourselves and greater than ourselves which we call God. The vast majority of people in all places and all times have acknowledged God’s existence. It also seems to be human nature to attempt to make God smaller than God actually is, to settle for second best because we can’t fathom the infinite nature of the one true God.

You might remember from your Sunday School days that while Moses was up on Mount Sinai, receiving the ten commandments, and getting instructions on a lot more rules and regulations for daily living, strange things were happening with the people down below. They grew impatient waiting for Moses to return, so with the help of Aaron, Moses’ brother, they pooled their gold jewelry and other golden treasures and created the image of a calf as an object of worship. Actually, the calf was a symbol of fertility in other religions and, lo and behold, an orgy broke out. Read the story in Exodus 32 and you will discover that neither Moses, nor God were amused.

So we make a note to self, do not create golden graven images. But aren’t the commandments about false gods and idols really about making sure that we keep God at the centre of our lives? It is no mistake that these are the first two commandments, because they give us the orientation for all the others. It’s important to ask what idolatry and what false gods look like for our time, because we would be fools, and arrogant fools at that, if we thought that only nomads in the wilderness in ancient times took the wrong turn. Perhaps a definition of an idol would help:

1.	an image or other material object representing a deity to which religious worship is addressed.

2.	Bible.
	a.	an image of a deity other than God.
	b.	the deity itself.

3.	any person or thing regarded with blind admiration, adoration, or devotion.

4.	a mere image or semblance of something, visible but without substance, as a phantom.

We don’t have golden calves before which we bow down, but the Israelites were rank amateurs compared to the average North American.

Over and over again we put those who entertain us on pedestals from which they then tumble. If you aren’t sure if we give these people godlike status, think of the adoring crowds at film festivals or lining the streets after the victory parade for a sports team. Sometimes we just get caught up in the adulation until we have a moment of clarity where we wonder why we thought these people should be our heroes and more. Now, you may be feeling smug because you aren’t taken in by this sort of worship.

Well how about your stuff then, your material possessions? I don’t consider myself a materialistic person, mainly because I don’t want to admit that I am a materialistic person! Yet I know I have way too much stuff. And I, like so many of us, bow down before the false god of the electrical outlet. I have a laptop that I plug into the electrical god, and a cell phone, and an Ipod and, well, God knows how many other things. Sure they often make my life more convenient, but they can’t make my life full. Of course we will come back to this when we look at “you shall not covet!”

You don’t feel you are materialistic? The graven image we worship may be self-image, how we look to others. We might want others to think that we have the perfect family, or that we are what we used to call “keeping up with the Joneses.”

Perhaps you saw that classic example of film-making at its best, The Full Monty, about a rather sad-sack group of unemployed men who decide to put together a Chippendales-style strip act to make some money. It was quite funny, but it was also an interesting social commentary. One of the men had been the manager of the plant where some of the others had worked, but while he had lost his job he was too ashamed to tell his wife. He headed out the door every day, keeping up appearances for his wife and neighbours until the money ran out and the truck rolled up to his door to repossess their furniture and even the garden gnomes. Sometimes we are investing so much energy in self-image that we don’t have much energy left over to consider God

Even our religion can end up being a false god. There are times when I wonder whether people are more attached to the familiarity of their church buildings than they are to the God we worship within them. Religious nostalgia can certainly be an idol. “Remember the good ol’ days when?...” is a phrase that is often heard in church circles. It’s always important to remember where we have come from – that’s why we read scripture every Sunday and ask how it applies to the present day. But if nostalgia keeps us from relating to God in the present or to look with confidence to the future, then we are guilty of idolatry.

Idols are always a pale imitation of the real God. Idols make us slaves again, rather than free men and women. Always, always, always we are called back to making sure that God is at life’s centre. Once Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment and his answer was that we should love God with everything in us, then love our neighbours as ourselves. Isn’t this a reframing of the priorities in the ten commandments? Begin by loving the God who loves you, Jesus says, and everything else follows from there.

Here is a question we all need to answer. Have we promoted Jesus to godlike status in Christianity, when he was just another person trying to do well in the world? By calling Jesus God, are we creating another false god?

Whether you feel that Jesus reflects God’s image, or you accept that Jesus is God incarnate, his message is that we glorify God and follow God radically and completely.

When Jesus asked his disciples two questions, “who do people say I am?” and “who do you say I am?” Peter comes up with an answer: “you are the Christ, the Messiah.” Great answer but when Peter tries to make Jesus into a superstar he is told that following him will require losing one’s life in order to find it. I made a mistake in ending this passage for today too early. Jesus goes on to say that if we want to be his people we will take up our own crosses to follow him.

Being God’s person and being Christ’s person requires the best of who we are. It can never be a hobby.

Today’s commandments invite us to consider which small-g gods we need to address and to reorder our priorities. It’s hard to imagine that any one of us here doesn’t have work to do.

Then our challenge and our desire and our calling is to make room for God at our life’s centre.