Paul, Silas and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: grace and peace to you. We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia - your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead - Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.
(1 Thessalonians 1:1-10)
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I think it was on a Saturday afternoon maybe two or three weeks ago. It was a lazy day, and I was sitting on the couch surfing through various television channels just to see what was on – and, for reasons I still don't quite understand, I ended up watching “The Brady Bunch Movie.” Most of you probably know The Brady Bunch. Mike and Carol; Greg, Peter and Bobby; Marcia, Jan and Cindy. And Alice of course. You can't forget Alice. There were a couple of movie made a few years ago now that took the 70's Brady's and transplanted them (still stuck in the 70's) into today's world. They were fun movies. Not great movies, perhaps, but fun. The movie I watched (which was the first one) had an original storyline, but it took some of the storylines from the old TV series and used them to weave things together. One of the old storylines used was a trip the Brady's made to Hawaii – and one of the challenges this blended family faced as they made their way through Hawaii was that they came across an old Polynesian idol – an idol that wreaked havoc upon them and caused them all sorts of troubles.
It was a very traditional view of idols. Some false god that's been created by people out of wood or metal, but that for some reason has real power over the lives of those who come into contact with it. Idols have always been around, but they don't have to be the kind of idols portrayed in The Brady Bunch or that we probably think of when we think of idols. The Bible has a different view of idols. In some ways it's a more comforting view; in some ways it's a more frightening view. I suppose it depends on how you approach it. Paul, I think, had an understanding of idols that was very spiritually mature. His basic message about idols was that idols are nothing. They're powerless – or maybe to the point, idols have only the power that we choose to give them. And there's the rub. If we choose to give our idols power then they have great power. Paul understood that. His consistent message to Christians was "give up on idols and turn to the God revealed by Jesus." But I wonder if he went far enough? Is it simply a matter of turning away from idols and turning to God, and - lo! - the battle's won? He seemed to imply that in 1 Thessalonians.
"... you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God ..." It sounds like a done deal. Take that step of faith, trust in God, and all those idols will disappear. Well, far be it for me to take issue with either Paul or the Bible, but I wonder if that doesn't leave the wrong impression? If that doesn't make things too simple? I don't want faith to be a complicated thing. At its heart, Christian faith, summed up in Jesus' message, was surprisingly simple: live in love for everyone, respect all and honour God. But I think idols are complicated things. I don't think it's just a matter of believing in God and setting aside idols once and for all. I think we're involved in a constant fight against idols, that requires not a one time decision to set our idols aside, but an ongoing willingness to discern what our idols are and then repeatedly setting them aside, because idols are all around us, and they are constantly pulling us away from God.
What, after all, is an idol? An idol isn't evil or satanic or devilish. At least not overtly. It's not a statue like The Brady Bunch idol I talked about. Idols can be everyday things, which is why they're all around us. Idols are those things that claim our allegiance, over and above God. Idols are those things we place our trust in, over and above God. Idols are those things that hold us enthralled, when only God is worthy of our worship. Idols are those things we choose to serve, rather than being content with serving God. Idols are the things that replace God in our lives, or that, at the very least, render God a distant second in our list of priorities.
It's easy to think of examples. A few weeks ago I mentioned that one of our major banks had conducted a survey that suggested that a disturbing number of Canadians thought that winning a lottery was their best chance to finance their retirement. The lottery becomes the idol. Money in general becomes our master. Celebrities become objects of adoration to the point of worship. We trust the police to protect us, or the government to take care of us. There's nothing inherently wrong with any of those things - except that they can easily push God out of our lives. And they're all around us, always beckoning us, always calling us. Which is why we need to stay centred on God.
Paul commended the Thessalonians for setting aside idols and choosing to serve the true God. They had their priorities straight, Paul was saying to them. Would he say the same to us, I wonder. In our world full of idols, do we have our priorities straight? Do we serve God above all else? I wonder about that. Actually, I wonder if the greatest and most dangerous idol we don’t create is sometimes ourselves. When we choose to trust in ourselves and our own abilities instead of in God; when we choose to believe that we’re self-sufficient and can take care of our own challenges without any help - even from God; when we choose to think we can become our own god, and forget the God who’s really there. This has always been a problem. It’s one of the foundational stories in the Bible. Remember? In Genesis 11, humanity built a tower that reached into the heavens, to prove that they could do anything; to prove that they were like God. That didn’t work out so well. Creating idols, and putting our faith in them instead of God never does. And, given human history, I wonder if we don’t do that all too often.
I may wonder about that, but what I don't wonder about is this: whatever our priorities may be, whatever temptations we may fall before, whatever idols we may choose, God's priority is clear. "... God so loved the world that he gave his only son ..." Idols are nothing. They have only the power we give them. God's love is everything. And it's poured out for us - and it's more powerful than any idol.
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