Exodus 20:4-6
“God’s Jealousy”
March 17, 2002 - Fifth Sunday in Lent

         George’s heart broke when he heard that Larry had broken her jaw. Yes, George real­ized that life with him had lacked the excitement which Barbara had wanted so desper­ately. His idea of a great evening out was two-for-one cheeseburgers at McDonalds and a ninety-nine cent video rental on the way home. But he had never really believed the day would come when he would watch Barb hike up her skirt and climb into the shotgun seat of Larry’s cherry red, jacked-up Ford truck with the go-go girl mudflaps. She waved as she left George for good.

         When friends passed along the news that Larry treated Barb like dirt and had another two or three women on the side, George began to hope she might come home. But then came the well-meaning phone call from one of Barb’s girlfriends, telling him how she had spent the night before in the emergency room. The rotten jerk had actually punched Bar­bara, then driven away in that asinine truck, leaving her to call the friend for a ride to the hospital. George thanked the woman for her call, clicked the phone off, and wept.

         George’s story is God’s story when you or I break the Second Commandment. The sin of idolatry brings out in God all the feelings of a jilted, abandoned spouse. He experiences the pain of rejection, a heart-sick anguish for the pain we put ourselves through, and as verse 5 says, a bitter jealousy at our unfaithfulness.

         As I explained last week, we need to adopt the numbering of the Ten Commandments which separates the command to have no other gods from the command not to make idols. While in one sense all worship of idols is the worship of other, false gods, it is possible to create an idol of the true God, mistaking our devotion to a thing we’ve made for genuine worship of God as He really is. We need the specific and distinct directive to avoid idols as well as other gods.

         This commandment is central to Israel’s identity and history. To the ancient nations surrounding the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness, the Hebrew practice of making no images seemed very strange. The creation of idols was common religious prac­tice. Everyone else had some visible focus for their worship. Israel was culturally absolutely unique in their opposition to representing their God in some artistic form.

         The Second Commandment has had a continuing effect on Jewish life and culture. Jews have made great artistic contributions to the world through literature and music. Yet there have been very few Jewish painters or sculptors. The concern to avoid images re­sulted in Israel’s general avoidance of the visual arts.

         However, it is fairly clear from the record of Scripture that the intent of the command against idols was not that extreme. It is not, for instance, what Muslims interpret it to be. Islam observes this command so strenuously that no representation of anything in nature, plant, animal or human, is allowed in Muslim society, and especially not in a place of worship. That is why mosques are decorated with abstract, geometric patterns. But the biblical view is different. Turn over just a few pages to Exodus 25 and God’s detailed plan for the making of the Tabernacle. You will find Him telling Moses to have someone craft two im­ages of angels, cherubim, to stand on either side of the Ark of the Covenant.

         Idolatry, therefore, does not consist just in making images. Otherwise, every painter and photographer would automatically be an idolater. The sin of idolatry consists in mak­ing an image which then becomes an object of worship. As William Barclay puts it simply, idolatry is “worshipping things instead of God.”[1]

         When God gave the Law on Mt. Sinai, the primary concern of the Second Command­ment was with carved images, either of wood or stone. In the Lord’s directions immediately after the Commandments, in verse 23, idols cast of gold or silver are also excluded. Most often, these would be representations of the various gods of the Canaanite people who lived around Israel, Baal or Asherah or some other local deity.

         However, idolatry could also be committed when some object created as a symbol of God’s own power and presence was held up and worshipped for itself. II Kings 18 tells us that the bronze serpent made by Moses, which Jesus would later claim as a symbol of Him­self, had become an idol by the time of Hezekiah The people were burning incense in front of it. In the book of Judges, Gideon made a golden ephod, or breastplate, which was to be a symbol for worship of the Lord. But the people began to worship the ephod rather than God Himself.

         You and I find it pretty difficult imagine what the attraction was in the worship of those wood, stone and metal statues. Why was it so difficult for the people of Israel to get rid of the silly notion that they needed to express their devotion to an object like that? Why is the Old Testament a rather dismal record of God’s people continually falling back into this same sin, over and over? Idolatry just seems ludicrous to us.

         You can see how lightly we take the whole question by the way a Hindu idol is ridi­culed in an episode of “The Simpsons.” In his store, Apu, the Indian owner of the Kwik -E-Mart, has a little statue of Ganesha, an elephant-headed deity who is one of the most popular gods of Hinduism, the god of worldly wisdom. When Homer places a peanut be­fore the figure, Apu responds, “Please do not offer my god a peanut.” Homer replies, “No offence, Apu, but when they were handing out religions you must have been [in the rest­room].

         As modern, western people we cannot conceive what people like Apu might see in the funny looking image sitting between the hot dogs and slurpee machine. We consider our­selves relatively immune to idolatry. We are sophisticated people who know there is no power in things made of wood.

         We are not so immune, though, to idolatry focused on much the same things as idols like Ganesha represent. For Hindus, Ganesha is the god of good beginnings, of profitable undertakings. He is the patron of merchants. He signifies our desire for practical knowl­edge that will bring us success and well-being. It is not so easy for us to disclaim any devo­tion to deities such as those. Profit, success and good health are pursued with religious fer­vor everywhere, but probably nowhere so intensely as here in our country.

         In the New Testament the understanding of what constitutes idolatry is expanded so that what was implicit in the idols contested in the Old Testament is made explicit. In the time of ancient Israel, idols were carved for fertility deities like Baal. In the New Testa­ment, Romans 1, Paul makes it clear that sex itself can be an idol. The Old Testament warns against gods made of silver and gold. In Colossians 3:5, Paul states that just being greedy is idolatry.

         Whenever and however we give devotion to things instead of to God, idolatry is being committed. It can be a car or a house or a collection. It can be a hobby or a job or a rela­tionship. If we offer more attention to any of these than we offer to God, than we have fallen prey to an idol.

         Augustine said that “Idolatry is worshipping anything that ought to be used or using anything that ought to be worshipped.”[2] It is a mistake both about things and about God. It is imagining that a thing can be worshipped and that God can be used, when only the oppo­site is true.

         Thus part of the attraction of idolatry is the kind of god which it offers. Idols are gods which can be controlled. You can carry them with you, place them where you want them. And their purpose is to give us what we think we want. Idols are gods we can use, that we can manipulate for our own purposes, for our own happiness. Another Simpsons episode mocks a 1995 Hindu craze in which Ganesha idols were supposed to drink teaspoons of milk. Apu offers his Ganesha some Yoo-Hoo, a chocolate milk drink, asking the god to get rid of protesters outside his store.

         Idolatry develops in us whenever we begin to feel like we have our God under con­trol, rather than seeking to place ourselves under the control of God. And the very idea of being controlled motivates us even more strongly toward idolatry. The warning issued with the Second Commandment rankles us. How can God be so jealous that He would visit the punishment for idolatry even upon one’s innocent children and grandchildren for genera­tions to come?

         The answer is that not all punishments for sin are direct acts of God. Often, sin is pun­ished by its natural consequences. Drink too much and you will get cirrhosis of the liver and other health problems. Smoke and you will get lung cancer. Idolatry carries its own consequences that affect even our children. Look at children raised in a home where par­ents are absolutely devoted to a career or a business as their idol. What happens to chil­dren and even grandchildren when families are broken up by individuals who have made an idol of their own happiness?

         And though I realize very well that Andrea Yates may be a sad victim of mental ill­ness, part of her story is the mistaken ideas of God and eternal life which she carried in her mind. Giving in to those false images had horrible consequences for her children. As much as we wish it were not true, children suffer for the sins of their parents, including idolatry.

         Yet as I suggested with George’s story at the beginning of this sermon, judgment and punishment for idolatry is not the result of God’s concern for Himself. Like George’s feel­ings for Barbara, God suffers from the pain which comes to us when we abandon Him for an idol. If He acts in jealousy and allows there to be consequences for our sin, it is for our sake more than it is for His own.

         My mother can tell you the story of the day when I was a toddler and she taught me not to run into the street. We lived on a busy road and she was constantly worrying I would run in front of a car. So she spent an afternoon watching over me and giving my little legs the barest slap with a little switch every time I stepped off the curb. Say what you want about the approach, I’m here to tell the story because she loved me enough for there to be consequences when I broke the rule.

         Love is the greater story here in this commandment. Yes, God’s jealousy is said to ex­tend three or four generations. But His love will be shown to a thousand generations. The prohibition against idols is not some small-minded restriction on free expression. It is the passionate jealousy of a God who loves us more than we love ourselves. It is for our own good that He forbids us to turn away from Him to a substitute god which will only do us harm in the end.

         Therefore, we as Christians must somehow come to terms with all the things we own, play and work with in the world. We must discover the way to use them without worship­ping them, while at the same time learning to worship God without using Him. In his book Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton said “one must somehow find a way of loving the world with­out trusting it.”[3] That is the right approach to all that we find in the world. It is acceptable even to love a thing, whether it be a fishing rod, a garden, a book or game. What we cannot do is trust such things. They will not save us. They cannot help us in the end. If we place trust in them, they will fail us someday. There is only One who can always be trusted.

         Yet we have a need for tangible objects of devotion. We look for symbols we can ex­press with all the artistic skill God has given. Protestants look down on the statuary of the Catholics and the icons of the Orthodox, but we fill our bookstores with little crosses to carry in our pockets and “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelets and Thomas Kinkade prints. We all grave some spiritual satisfaction for our eyes. We all want to see the God we worship.

         That is why God never left His people to worship merely an abstract concept or a spiri­tual force. Even on Sinai He gave them fire and smoke and the shining face of Moses as visual evidence of His being. Ultimately, however, God answered that need in us which goes wrong through idols, by giving us Himself in earthly form. When God took on a body, every false image was swept away by His true image. As Colossians 1:15 says, Jesus Christ “is the image of the invisible God.” I John 1:1 tells us that the faith of the apostles was that “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and touched with our hands—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” God’s Son became flesh and blood so that we would no longer have any need of idols, but would find all that we need to see of God in Him. Jesus was a perfect combination of God’s Word, which Is­rael always had, and God’s image, which had always before been hidden.

         Therefore, my own contribution to the definitions of idolatry which I’ve offered you this morning is to suggest that idolatry happens whenever the Image is presented without the Word. For fifteen hundred years, God steered Israel away from images so that they might better hear Him speak. Then God sent to them and to us His Son, the speaking im­age, the Word made flesh, as John says. In our faith, in all our thoughts and images of God, we must keep it that way, keep Jesus incarnate, Word and image together, inspiring mes­sage and living person, true fact and real flesh, one Lord.

         So we must guard against idols, even when they are supposed to represent the true Lord. The great Catholic thinker Thomas Aquinas said clearly “Not even to a statue of Christ is any reverence owed, since it is only a piece of carved wood.”[4] Yet we must realize that idolatry happens when our words lose the image of God in Christ, or when our images of Christ lose their connection to His Word. We must keep our Lord and His Word to­gether, not only for our sake, but for everyone’s sake.

         In a P. D. James murder mystery,[5] Mandy is a nineteen year-old party girl working as temporary secretary in order to earn just enough to live on and enjoy riding her motorcycle and drinking and dancing in bars. One night, however, her world is turned upside down when she is the first to discover a woman’s drowned body dangling in the river by the straps of a leather handbag. In her horror she goes into a nearby flat to telephone the one person she thinks might help her, a woman who would listen and offer some comfort.

         In the bedroom where the telephone is, Mandy spies a crucifix hanging on the wall. She knows nothing of Christianity or why Jesus is hanging on the Cross. But she knows that religious people pray in front of this image and hope their prayers are answered. So she di­als the phone, fixes her eyes on the suffering body of Christ and whispers, “Please let her pick up. Please let her pick up. Please let her pick up.” But the phone on the other end just keeps ringing. There is no answer. So Mandy goes on home alone.

         There is a world of Mandys around us, for whom all the symbols of our faith are grasped only as idols, images that can be manipulated in order to get what they want. They are desperately in need of the reality to which the symbols point. Mandy cannot yet be helped by the image of Jesus because no one has spoken the Word of Jesus to her. She and all those like her wait for a real encounter with the Living Word.

         This Lent, let us remove the idols from our own lives and return to true faith in Christ who is the Word made flesh. But let us then show Jesus in the flesh to the world by the way we live, by acts of love and kindness. It’s the best way they can see Him. However, let us also speak and share the Word about the One we serve. Let us learn to explain our faith clearly. Let us combine faithful service with faithful teaching. Then neither we nor anyone else will be tempted any longer by idols, for Jesus Christ, the true image of God, will be here among us.

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2002 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj