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Well, we ought not to be so smug. Those first idol-makers
were very innocent in what they did, and very devout at the same
time. They were deep thinkers who realized that there were
powers or even A power in the universe much larger than they.
They could see lightning, hear thunder, feel the wind and
realized early on that something very special was going on,
something that deserved hearty respect...even reverence.
They wanted to express what they felt. But how could that
reverence be put into words? There WERE no words. At best,
there were mental pictures - the lightning flashed like the
tongue of a serpent, the thunder roared like a gigantic lion, the
wind blew with the swiftness of the hawk. So these devout folks
put knife to wood or chisel to stone and gave those mental
pictures some substance. Of course, they knew that serpents and
lions and hawks were not God - God was bigger than any of those.
So the images took on grotesque forms, not to say that God was
grotesque, just that God was greater than those things that
people saw everyday. That was pretty good theology.
When their work was finished, were they worshiping strange
looking serpents or lions or hawks? Of course not. All these
statuettes and figurines were simply a way of expressing the
inexpressible, a way to make visible the presence of an invisible
God. Images were a means to an end. When we think of it that
way, idol-making does not sound all that foolish anymore...not
even in the twentieth century.
You may be familiar with Woody Allen's critically acclaimed
film, "Hannah and Her Sisters."(2) Near the end of the movie,
Woody was asked by one of the sisters why he had been so out of
touch recently, and he responded like this:
Now, I confess that I do not think of Woody Allen as a
significant theologian. But if there is any modern statement
that explains why people would make idols - even dumb ones -
Woody's is as good as any. In an uncertain world, a world where
jobs always hang by a thread, a world where the stock market
makes wild roller coasters seem tame, a world with political
moorings coming loose amidst Washington sex scandals, we crave
certainty. We need to feel CONFIDENCE in something...or else we
go bonkers and start looking for rifles.
To be sure, having a good idol around can fill that bill.
Back in the ancient world this was a god with which people could
deal, a god they could see and touch. If the crops would begin
to dry up for lack of rain, the people could come to the idol and
make their prayer. If an enemy were laying siege to the town,
they could come to the idol and call for deliverance. Of course,
those early theologians knew that the statue could not answer
prayers, but it was comforting to have something visible and
touchable there, something reassuring in the midst of difficulty,
something more than Woody Allen's MAYBE, to represent what they
were convinced was the larger reality.
But as with so many things we human beings do that start out
in perfect innocence, it did not take long for that kind of
reverence to degenerate. Think of the idol-maker's little
children. When times were rough and the crops needed help or the
enemy was about to storm the gates, the youngsters saw Daddy go
in and talk to that statue. Hmm! To the immature young mind,
there would be no distinction between the idol and the god it was
supposed to represent - the image would BECOME God.
It is not hard to figure what would happen as those children
would grow - they would take their early understanding (or
MISunderstanding) with them and expand on it. They would no
longer be content to just come and make their prayers in front of
their little shrine, they would come prepared to make deals.
This was the kind of a world into which a rag-tag band of
former Egyptian slaves would come to form a new nation, Israel.
And it was the religion of this kind of world from which Israel's
God, the God of all the universe, wanted to protect the chosen
people. Enter the Ten Commandments, and number two in
particular:
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the
form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on
the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the
earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing
children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and
the fourth generation of those who reject me, but
showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of
those who love me and keep my commandments.
That seems pretty clear - no more carved statues. And
frankly, if the Hebrew word is to be taken seriously, we would
have to say no other statues either, no portraits or photographs,
images of any kind. In other words, no graphic arts. That is
what it sounds like, right? And such a command might be
appropriate. After all, think of the danger those things had
been posing to proper worship for all these years.
"You shall not make for yourself an idol," or in the
language of the King James Version in which many of us were
nurtured, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." What
does it mean? Before that, we should consider what it does NOT
mean. It does not mean that we should not have any paintings or
sculpture or photographs (although some traditions have
interpreted it that way). There were artists in the days when
this commandment was given, and there were never any instructions
that they should find another line of work. When it came time
for the construction of the tabernacle, God said only the best
artists and craftsmen should be used for the job. Over the Ark
of Covenant God told them to sculpt two magnificent images of
angels.(3) On the hem of the robe of the High Priest, God
instructed that tailors include likenesses of pomegranates and
bells.(4) If no images of any kind were allowed, God would never
have had theses things done - God is not self-contradictory. So
the implication is clear: God does not object to images, but when
they are made as objects of worship, God calls a halt.
One would think that such a commandment would not be very
hard to keep. The whole idea of making something with your own
hands for the sole purpose of worshiping it sounds ridiculous.
The prophet Isaiah laughed at it in our scripture lesson. But on
the other hand, there is nothing more natural than taking
something that we think of as a representation of the divine or
divine power and allowing ourselves to give it a reverential
importance far beyond what it actually has. And that is why, in
the whole Bible, there are more references to this Second
Commandment than to any of the others.(5)
The story of the brass serpent in the wilderness is a
perfect example. Do you remember it? In the 21st chapter of
Numbers there is the account of an attack on a grumbling nation
of Israel by poisonous snakes. The people were dying like flies
until Moses asked God for help. So God instructed Moses to have
a brass serpent fashioned so that those who looked on it might
live. So far, so good. The next time we hear anything about
that brass serpent is in the 18th chapter of II Kings. Over the
centuries that separate the two accounts, the people had come to
start looking on that snake as something more than simply a
reminder of God's power; they had begun to worship it. They were
even burning incense to it. It got so bad that King Hezekiah
smashed the thing into little pieces. It had become an idol,
just like the grotesque hawks and lions and serpents of centuries
before. What had started out as a REMINDER of God finally had
BECOME a god. The means had become the end.
People do the same thing today. They look at something that
represents security and fulfillment, the kinds of things that a
gracious God would be thought of as providing, and they begin to
credit them with inordinate value. Not gods carved from wood or
stone but big houses, flashy cars, a million shares of Microsoft,
the trappings of success. Means and ends have become confused
once again. And people make sacrifices of time, talent,
treasure, and even the welfare of their children to those
material gods in ways which would have made the ancient idol-makers think us just as absurd as we think them. Idolatry is
still around; it has become a bit fancier, that's all.
In McGuffey's Reader is the old fable about the miser who
had a sub-basement under his regular basement, known only to
himself, where he kept his silver and gold.(6) Each day he would
come down and run his bony fingers through the coins and say, "My
beauties, oh, my beauties." One day the wind howled through that
basement and blew the door of the sub-basement shut with the man
inside. The door was fastened with a spring lock which could
only be turned from the outside - no way out. Years later when
the house was torn down, the workmen found a skeleton draped over
a heap of coins. Money had become his security, his idol, and
his idol had destroyed him.
"You shall not make for yourself an idol." There is one
other reason for that prohibition, and it is simply this: NO
representation, no image, of the Lord of the whole universe could
possibly convey the whole story. ANY representation would be, at
best, incomplete. And sometimes, in its incompleteness, the
image could be a blatant misrepresentation.
Have you ever had a bad picture of yourself taken, or one
that you did not like? In my entire adult life, I have only had
two pictures taken of me that I DID like. They did not look much
like me...they looked like some movie star. That is why I liked
them. ("Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher.") But if we
know that there are pictures of ourselves that displease us, God
has every right to feel the same way.
Representations are not the real thing. This beautiful
cross that graces our sanctuary...or for that matter, the shiny
crosses that we wear on necklaces or lapels? To be sure, the
cross of Jesus Christ is central to our faith. But does this
cross...this polished, clean, lovely thing...represent the pain,
the sweat, the agony, the blood that was shed for us on Calvary?
Of course not! The cross was a horrible thing, the first century
equivalent of a hangman's noose or an electric chair. Who would
think of gold-plating one of those? But we have done it with the
cross. Hmm.
Or even the Bible. We say it is the Word of God. As the
bumper stickers have it, "The Bible Says It; I Believe It; That
Settles it." Simple. TOO simple. Because it is too easy to
defend almost any position one wishes to take by quoting the
words of scripture. "Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and
killed him" - Genesis 4:8. "You shall do the same" - Deuteronomy
22:3. "Do quickly what you are going to do" - John 13:27. THE
BIBLE SAYS! Of course, that is foolish...but no more so than
some of the other strings of quotations we hear from those who
are deadly serious with their religion. As one commentator
writes, these folks want "a settled, sovereign God who...is only
a set of fixed propositions that give certitude and stability."(7)
Wrong and dangerous. We call that sin "Bibliolatry."
"You shall not make for yourself an idol." You see how easy
it is? Yes, we crave more certainty...but we are not to look for
it in images or pictures that take on an importance that is not
really their due, not in words that tell an incomplete story.
God warns what will happen if we do. The sin will be passed
on to our kids and theirs after them, in just the way the
children of the ancients got confused while watching Daddy pray
at the idol's feet. The text says, "...punishing children for
the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth
generation..." That does not mean our great-grandchildren will,
all of a sudden, be penalized for something we did years ago.
That would be unjust and certainly not characteristic of a loving
God. But it does mean that, so many times, the consequences of
our sins are passed on, the same way that a mother with AIDS or a
father in jail pass on misery to their kids.
Fortunately, there is one more part to this second
commandment - a promise: "...but showing steadfast love to the
thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my
commandments," which parallels and contrasts the third and fourth
generation reference in the warning. What a marvelous contrast
it is too. God's love is infinitely greater than God's anger.
If we keep God's commandments, not only our children and
grandchildren will know that love, but untold generations in the
future will too. It was that kind of love that sent Jesus to the
cross. And it is that same kind of love that brings us to
salvation...wholeness...life.
Near the end of Woody Allen's movie, after his complaint
about life's uncertainty and his abortive suicide, he says,
"MAYBE is very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but it is
the best we have." Is it? Not for me. I hope not for you. We
are not likely to take a log and use half for firewood and the
other half to make a god in our quest for certainty as the
ancients did. No, the certainty for us, and for Christians
throughout the ages, is in faith...faith in a loving Lord, one
who loved us so much that he died that we might live.
Let us pray.
O God, we know that the commandments were given for our
benefit, to keep us from confusing means and ends. Help us to
increase our faith and then to be faithful. We pray in the name
of Jesus. Amen!
1. Isaiah 44:9-17 2. Orion Pictures, 1986, Robert Greenhut, Producer, Written & Directed by Woody Allen 3. Exodus 25:18-20 4. Exodus 28:33-34 5. John A. Redhead, Uncommon Common Sense, Vol. II, The Ten Commandments,
(Greensboro: Worth Family Foundation, 1997), p. 34 6. W. Herschel Ford, Simple Sermons on the Ten Commandments, (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 1956), p. 32 7. Walter Brueggeman, "The Book of Exodus," New Interpreter's Bible, Electronic
Edition, CD-ROM, (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996)
All who make idols are nothing, and the things they
delight in do not profit; their witnesses neither see
nor know. And so they will be put to shame. Who would
fashion a god or cast an image that can do no good?
Look, all its devotees shall be put to shame; the
artisans too are merely human. Let them all assemble,
let them stand up; they shall be terrified, they shall
all be put to shame. The ironsmith fashions it and
works it over the coals, shaping it with hammers, and
forging it with his strong arm; he becomes hungry and
his strength fails, he drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line, marks it out with a
stylus, fashions it with planes, and marks it with a
compass; he makes it in human form, with human beauty,
to be set up in a shrine. He cuts down cedars or
chooses a holm tree or an oak and lets it grow strong
among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and
the rain nourishes it. Then it can be used as fuel.
Part of it he takes and warms himself; he kindles a
fire and bakes bread. Then he makes a god and worships
it, makes it a carved image and bows down before it.
alf of it he burns in the fire; over this half he
roasts meat, eats it and is satisfied. He also warms
himself and says, "Ah, I am warm, I can feel the fire!"
The rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, bows down
to it and worships it; he prays to it and says, "Save
me, for you are my god!"(1)
...Just out of curiosity, can you ever imagine yourself
doing something like that? Turning half a log into firewood and
the other half into a god, an object for worship? Pretty dumb,
or what? We are much too sophisticated to do any such thing, and
to be honest, we are tempted to wonder if those folks way back
when who took pieces of wood or stone and ended up bowing down to
them might not have had an ancient screw loose. Go figure. How
could they have done that?
One day about a month ago I really hit bottom.
You know, I just felt that, in a godless universe, who
wants to go on living? Now, I happen to own a rifle...
which I loaded, believe it or not, pressed it to my
forehead...and I remember thinking that I'm gonna kill
myself. Then I thought, `What if I'm wrong? What if
there really is a God?' I mean, after all, nobody
really knows that. Then I thought, `No, MAYBE is not
good enough. I want certainty or nothing.'
Woody sat there frozen, gun to his head, debating whether or
not to shoot. All of a sudden the gun went off - he had been so
tense that his finger squeezed the trigger. But he was
perspiring so much that the gun barrel had slipped off his
forehead and he blew a hole in his wall. Good old Woody.
"Mr. idol...Mr. Baal...Mr. Moloch, if you will do
this for me, I will do this for you. You want me to
dance? OK, I'll dance. You want me to cut myself with
a knife? OK. Martha, bring me a knife. You want me
to slash the throat of my first-born son? Well, OK, if
that is what it takes to make things right."
What had begun in one generation as a represention of
something holy, in the minds of succeeding generations would
BECOME holy - the means would become the end. The idol would
become almost a sanctified rabbit's foot - as long as you have
that idol in the house (or town) and you went through the proper
rituals, things would be all right...no MAYBE'S...no uncertainty.
What had begun in perfect innocence and reverence would have now
degenerated to the ritual murder of little babies.
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