I've been wondering about a kind of historical chronology of hope.
The question for the historian working on such a project would be, in what things do people place their hope? Over time, which object of hope has enjoyed a period of prominence, only to succumb and be replaced by another? By asking these questions we can map our a kind of timeline of hope. Perhaps it would be instructive.
For example, was there an era when people put their primary hope in war-craft above all else? Another in which they put their hope in commerce? Or in revolution? Or in nostalgic dreams of restoring something that had been lost? Or in a particular leader or idea?
Can we create a timeline of such trends? The rise and fall of these various objects of hope?
It seems to me that this would be a worthy endeavor for some ambitious historian. And as for our moment in this ongoing chronology, it's worth asking, where are we as a people placing our hope?
Is our hope to be found in what leaders decide in Washington or Copenhagen? Is our hope in the wisdom of some new best-selling guru claiming to have the answer at last? Is our hope in family, or community, or law and order, or legislation, or green technology, or money, or communication, or getting back to the land, or colonizing space?
Of course we are a diverse people with a diversity of hopes, but in our day which two or three seem to have taken center stage, drawing the most attention? About which do we tend to make the most pie-eyed claims? About which do we tolerate the least questioning?
These are questions that occurred to me this week as I read, of all things, an old mystery/thriller from the mid-twentieth century, Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely. Chandler's world is one in which hope, if it exists at all, is in being deft enough and strong enough to simply survive, for this world (Chandler's world) is all danger all the time, with its seamy underside always about to burst through even the most apparently respectable surface. Think Jack Nicholson in Chinatown.
So I'm just wondering. When we put our hope in something, whatever it is, and when we elevate that thing to the position of last and best, so that there is no higher good imaginable, we will defend that last and best hope against all competitors with all the moral indignation we can muster. My point is not to suggest that all things in which we put our hope are invalid, only that perhaps we too readily elevate our object of hope to the status of an idol.
I see evidence of this all around me. And it causes me to wonder....
Showing posts with label idolatry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label idolatry. Show all posts
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Self-life vs. Christ-life
Someone has been telling me his story.
It's a long story, with many chapters. Or layers. Or episodes.
In them all, though, he's the hero, struggling against great odds, alone and misunderstood, as is the way with heroes. He will push on, though. Heroically. In the end, he expects to win.
Another person has been telling me his story.
It's a different story, though. Instead of a hero, he's a victim. He's the eternal victim. Nobody understands. Many are against him. Especially the devil. It's hard, and someday he wants to be triumphant, but for now he's hanging in there, pushing on, etc. Someday he'll be the hero, but it seems so far away.
Then there's the story of the trickster/conniver. I guess it's a subset of the hero story, kind of an anti-hero. He wins frequently, and his story is about winning and winning again in life's little skirmishes. He is not always ethically consistent. Whatever. He just wins, which is the point of his story.
All these people have a story, and want to tell me about it. In every case they're at the very center of that story, and the world sort of swirls around them, or comes at them, or bears down in them, or whatever.
All of these people are Christians.
They frequently tell me their stories, the hero, the victim, the trickster. I want to say, "When you begin to die to self, your heroic self-image will die. Your whole story will shrivel up. It will be replaced by another story, greater by far than yours, a story with a different hero. You will be glad to give him the star part, the central role. When you begin to die to self, that is."
But I notice that a lot of Christian publishing thrives on promises that you too can be the hero of your story. That's why so many book covers depict people raising their hands in triumph atop rocky crags that they've just conquered. As if to say, read this book and become a hero, the prince or princess, the victorious warrior, the great man or woman that you are supposed to be.
This is idol worship, that's all.
The alternative? Not I who live, said Paul, but Christ lives in me. Who is the hero in such a statement?
When the serpent tempted Eve, it was by telling her that she could be a star! She bought it, she bit it, and the rest is history. The tendency of the flesh is toward repeating the very same behaviors that alienated us from the presence of God in the first place.
Bad idea, you might think. But to put it aside seems a massive and very unpromising project in self-denial, even should the spirit be willing.
Who will save us from this body of death, I wonder?
And then I remember my hero, Jesus Christ.
It's a long story, with many chapters. Or layers. Or episodes.
In them all, though, he's the hero, struggling against great odds, alone and misunderstood, as is the way with heroes. He will push on, though. Heroically. In the end, he expects to win.
Another person has been telling me his story.
It's a different story, though. Instead of a hero, he's a victim. He's the eternal victim. Nobody understands. Many are against him. Especially the devil. It's hard, and someday he wants to be triumphant, but for now he's hanging in there, pushing on, etc. Someday he'll be the hero, but it seems so far away.
Then there's the story of the trickster/conniver. I guess it's a subset of the hero story, kind of an anti-hero. He wins frequently, and his story is about winning and winning again in life's little skirmishes. He is not always ethically consistent. Whatever. He just wins, which is the point of his story.
All these people have a story, and want to tell me about it. In every case they're at the very center of that story, and the world sort of swirls around them, or comes at them, or bears down in them, or whatever.
All of these people are Christians.
They frequently tell me their stories, the hero, the victim, the trickster. I want to say, "When you begin to die to self, your heroic self-image will die. Your whole story will shrivel up. It will be replaced by another story, greater by far than yours, a story with a different hero. You will be glad to give him the star part, the central role. When you begin to die to self, that is."
But I notice that a lot of Christian publishing thrives on promises that you too can be the hero of your story. That's why so many book covers depict people raising their hands in triumph atop rocky crags that they've just conquered. As if to say, read this book and become a hero, the prince or princess, the victorious warrior, the great man or woman that you are supposed to be.
This is idol worship, that's all.
The alternative? Not I who live, said Paul, but Christ lives in me. Who is the hero in such a statement?
When the serpent tempted Eve, it was by telling her that she could be a star! She bought it, she bit it, and the rest is history. The tendency of the flesh is toward repeating the very same behaviors that alienated us from the presence of God in the first place.
Bad idea, you might think. But to put it aside seems a massive and very unpromising project in self-denial, even should the spirit be willing.
Who will save us from this body of death, I wonder?
And then I remember my hero, Jesus Christ.
Friday, November 28, 2008
On Being Cleansed of Idols
God spoke through Ezekiel, saying, "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you." (Ezek. 36:25)
I was wondering, what must it be like to be "cleansed" of every idol in my life?
I think it might be a little, well, disorienting. Perhaps shocking. To realize, I mean, how many things I'd been depending on, placing ultimate value in, things that were not ultimate. Sometimes, things that were not truly valuable at all. How many frail reeds I'd been leaning on. How many false lights I'd been basking in. How many lies I'd been trusting.
David said to God, "Against you only have I sinned." (Psalm 51:4)
It really is important to remember that He is holy, and desires us to be with Him forever, and yet every sin separates us from Him, and therefore ultimately all sins are sins against God. And this is the fundamental problem of our existence. We couldn't solve it, we could only lie to ourselves about it. Not even with our worthiest deeds could we escape this dilemma. But, though we were stymied, fooled, and rebellious, though we were helpless, God was not.
He alone is worthy of all our praise.
I was wondering, what must it be like to be "cleansed" of every idol in my life?
I think it might be a little, well, disorienting. Perhaps shocking. To realize, I mean, how many things I'd been depending on, placing ultimate value in, things that were not ultimate. Sometimes, things that were not truly valuable at all. How many frail reeds I'd been leaning on. How many false lights I'd been basking in. How many lies I'd been trusting.
David said to God, "Against you only have I sinned." (Psalm 51:4)
It really is important to remember that He is holy, and desires us to be with Him forever, and yet every sin separates us from Him, and therefore ultimately all sins are sins against God. And this is the fundamental problem of our existence. We couldn't solve it, we could only lie to ourselves about it. Not even with our worthiest deeds could we escape this dilemma. But, though we were stymied, fooled, and rebellious, though we were helpless, God was not.
He alone is worthy of all our praise.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
The Idol of Community
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the place of special importance of the act of "hearing" in the Bible. Yesterday I sat down with my concordance and made a list of many of the verses that have to do with hearing or with ears. "Let this sink into your ears," Jesus said, just before telling his disciples that he was going to be handed over and killed.
All this was prompted by my meditation on the first chapter of Colossians, wherein we find that the hearing of the Gospel played a crucial role in the transformation of the Colossians from a people under the dominion of darkness to a community of Christ-followers. The Gospel was spoken to them by a messenger (Epaphras), they heard and believed it, and the fruit of all this was a noteworthy faith and "love in the Spirit."
So all this was fresh in my mind when the guest preacher at our church began to speak about hearing, but with quite a different "take."
He said that we live in an age when the eye and not the ear has become "the organ of decision." People are looking for solutions to their needs "with their ears plugged."
This is cool, he said, because Christianity has nothing to do with words, but with deeds.
Shall I repeat that in bold?
He said, Christianity has nothing to do with words, but with deeds.
This fellow – who by the way seems to be a wonderful man and I enjoyed his sermon very much, even though I thought it was drastically wrong-headed – this fellow went on to say that the way to reach a society with its ears stopped is by being a community in which the love of God is visible. People, you see, are looking for community. They’re looking in all sorts of places. The church is positioned to be that community of love in which they can be themselves and can grow, which is what we are all looking for. The church can be that community through the following three practices: 1) fellowship, 2) forgiveness, and 3) unconditional live.
Finally, we can only be that community by dying to self, like the kernel of wheat that Jesus spoke of. We cry out for God’s help, and God fills us and empowers us by his Holy Spirit to be that community of love that people are looking for.
A few observations by way of response:
1) This is not the Biblical pattern. In the Biblical sequence, vividly described in Colossians 1, community is the "fruit" that followed from the hearing and believing of a message. That message was brought to them by Epaphras, who, by speaking the message of the gospel, ministered Christ to them. He was a "faithful minister of Christ Jesus" precisely because he faithfully spoke the message of the gospel to the Colossians.
2) The suggestion is that people today are drastically different than people in Paul’s day, and therefore different methods must be used. Back then, the ears were "the organ of decision." Now, the eyes are. Therefore, the NT pattern is no longer relevant. I’m just not willing to go there. I’m not willing to displace the message upon which depends, according to the New Testament, our very destiny, replacing that message with, ummm, my demonstrably inferior acts of love and good deeds.
3) According to this fellow's suggested pattern, our community of love is simply so attractive that people will choose us over other possible communities. Shall they join, say, the community of the Mormons, the community of the Buddhists, or the community of the Christians? Is our love as a community really so impressive? Mormons, for example, can make a very loving community.
4) One cannot help but notice that to join a community, even to join a community of loving Christians, is not the same thing as to hear and believe the message of the Gospel. It is simply to join a community. That is why, in my church-community and yours as well, I’ll bet, are numerous unbelievers. Membership in a "community," no matter how wonderfully loving, is not salvation. Believing the message of the gospel is.
And, finally, this is the most important point I want to make today: 5) We come very close to making an idol out of our good deeds and acts of love (or out of our wonderful "community"). I have found this to be a common mistake among us. But our good deeds and acts of love are not the gospel. They almost never, if ever, even come close to embodying the message of the gospel. The only act of love that did so was the act of Jesus described, for example, in Philippians 2. To displace the good news of that act of love with the demonstration of our own community of love in its stead is an act of idolatry.
I’m really quite amazed that a preacher and church planter could give such a sermon as this. That is, I suppose, a measure of the state of things in some parts of the church today. I am not, by the way, downplaying incarnational ministry as a vital part in the transmission of the message of the gospel. I am not forgetting that Jesus said that we should let our light shine before men, so that they will see our good deeds and give glory to the father. But I also remember that,
All this was prompted by my meditation on the first chapter of Colossians, wherein we find that the hearing of the Gospel played a crucial role in the transformation of the Colossians from a people under the dominion of darkness to a community of Christ-followers. The Gospel was spoken to them by a messenger (Epaphras), they heard and believed it, and the fruit of all this was a noteworthy faith and "love in the Spirit."
So all this was fresh in my mind when the guest preacher at our church began to speak about hearing, but with quite a different "take."
He said that we live in an age when the eye and not the ear has become "the organ of decision." People are looking for solutions to their needs "with their ears plugged."
This is cool, he said, because Christianity has nothing to do with words, but with deeds.
Shall I repeat that in bold?
He said, Christianity has nothing to do with words, but with deeds.
This fellow – who by the way seems to be a wonderful man and I enjoyed his sermon very much, even though I thought it was drastically wrong-headed – this fellow went on to say that the way to reach a society with its ears stopped is by being a community in which the love of God is visible. People, you see, are looking for community. They’re looking in all sorts of places. The church is positioned to be that community of love in which they can be themselves and can grow, which is what we are all looking for. The church can be that community through the following three practices: 1) fellowship, 2) forgiveness, and 3) unconditional live.
Finally, we can only be that community by dying to self, like the kernel of wheat that Jesus spoke of. We cry out for God’s help, and God fills us and empowers us by his Holy Spirit to be that community of love that people are looking for.
A few observations by way of response:
1) This is not the Biblical pattern. In the Biblical sequence, vividly described in Colossians 1, community is the "fruit" that followed from the hearing and believing of a message. That message was brought to them by Epaphras, who, by speaking the message of the gospel, ministered Christ to them. He was a "faithful minister of Christ Jesus" precisely because he faithfully spoke the message of the gospel to the Colossians.
2) The suggestion is that people today are drastically different than people in Paul’s day, and therefore different methods must be used. Back then, the ears were "the organ of decision." Now, the eyes are. Therefore, the NT pattern is no longer relevant. I’m just not willing to go there. I’m not willing to displace the message upon which depends, according to the New Testament, our very destiny, replacing that message with, ummm, my demonstrably inferior acts of love and good deeds.
3) According to this fellow's suggested pattern, our community of love is simply so attractive that people will choose us over other possible communities. Shall they join, say, the community of the Mormons, the community of the Buddhists, or the community of the Christians? Is our love as a community really so impressive? Mormons, for example, can make a very loving community.
4) One cannot help but notice that to join a community, even to join a community of loving Christians, is not the same thing as to hear and believe the message of the Gospel. It is simply to join a community. That is why, in my church-community and yours as well, I’ll bet, are numerous unbelievers. Membership in a "community," no matter how wonderfully loving, is not salvation. Believing the message of the gospel is.
And, finally, this is the most important point I want to make today: 5) We come very close to making an idol out of our good deeds and acts of love (or out of our wonderful "community"). I have found this to be a common mistake among us. But our good deeds and acts of love are not the gospel. They almost never, if ever, even come close to embodying the message of the gospel. The only act of love that did so was the act of Jesus described, for example, in Philippians 2. To displace the good news of that act of love with the demonstration of our own community of love in its stead is an act of idolatry.
I’m really quite amazed that a preacher and church planter could give such a sermon as this. That is, I suppose, a measure of the state of things in some parts of the church today. I am not, by the way, downplaying incarnational ministry as a vital part in the transmission of the message of the gospel. I am not forgetting that Jesus said that we should let our light shine before men, so that they will see our good deeds and give glory to the father. But I also remember that,
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
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