![]() It is to substitute a safer, lesser goal for the tough and exciting work you really ought to be doing. Pressfield says that the biggest obstacle to great writing is the same for great living. There is a lovely book of advice for writers called Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield, which talks about how much easier it is to pursue a version of something than the real thing. Where we put in all the effort of declaring to be followers of Yahweh. Instead, we are more likely to live comforting half-lives of faithfulness. We are less likely to commit any of the very dramatic sins (murder! arson!). If it’s lovely to look at, its sprawling tendrils often become too hard to yank out. You don’t even have to try, and it grows to take up every available nutrient in the soil, lightly choking out other, more tender, species. Its blooms can fill a whole garden, even creeping over the edge and onto the lawn, without any cultivation. Oh, is that an idol? It looked so familiar I hardly would have noticed.Īs Martin Luther famously wrote in his Large Catechism, “That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your God.” An idol is like a flowering weed. Perhaps one that is composed of bits of things I already know are good and golden, things I melted into a godlike form. We take great comfort in our own version of God instead. ‘We are much more likely to do exactly what the Israelites have done: not to have a false image of a false God, but a false image of the true God.” other words, we are much more likely to do exactly what the Israelites have done: not to have a false image of a false God, but a false image of the true God. My sense is that we are more likely to be Judas than Peter. I work predominantly with pastors, and I have yet to hear any good sermons that come out strongly in favor of any of the exciting sins. We are not unusually haunted by the specter of our salvation or in danger of being entirely unaware of our false pursuits. The golden calf brings home the fundamental issue for Christians who are not particularly worried about being apostates. This is the festival of Yahweh, can’t you tell? ![]() They created a false image of the true God. After all, they did not create an image of a false God. They argued that they were still, somehow, not violating the first commandment. It’s not only that they immediately fashioned a golden calf the minute that Moses was “too long in coming down.” It was their defense. It’s not simply that the Israelites were wildly impatient and prone to epic forgetfulness. READ: Maybe There’s No Moral to the Story: An Interview with Kate Bowler Meanwhile, the people are getting impatient that Moses is “so long in coming down.” ![]() ![]() Moses is up the mountain receiving the rest of God’s laws on Israel’s behalf. Now, in the story, we are about to see Aaron do some spiritual improvisation. He would tend to the religious needs of the people while Moses was up on the mountain, lingering with God. The people had been given two wonderful leaders: Moses, the intercessor, and Aaron, his brother and the high priest. They have been given a series of laws like “You shall have no other gods before me,” and “You shall not make for yourself a graven image.” They are a people whom the Lord has saved and provided with all the food and water and sustenance they needed, despite much whining on their part. They have been miraculously and ceremoniously yanked out of slavery and oppression. The Israelites have already been rescued from Egypt. There’s a wonderful account in our tradition, in the book of Exodus, about our irresistible pull toward worship of the wrong thing. And let me be clear, idolatry - which is to say, comforting false images of a true God - is the most fun in town. Its wonderful accommodation to modernity has liberated the church from a great many sins (Phariseeism, disembodied love, political acquiescence, etc.), but I’m afraid it has laid itself quite open to the glories of idolatry. You can still love salty language (and I do) and feel justified by holding prevailing opinions (which I do) and have many mild to moderate faults that are not polite for me to mention. One of the defining features of cosmopolitan Protestantism is the sweet little promise - whispered even - that Christianity is not going to ruin your life. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |