Why would we worship this God whom
we cannot see when we can worship this person, place, or thing that we can see
right in front of us? This temptation is real. It’s lived out in today’s
reading when the people in Antioch saw Paul and Barnabus doing miraculous
things. Surely, they must be gods, they said. We don’t really know what they represent, but we do know them! We
should worship them!
We could
laugh at this, but this temptation is not just real; it is universal. It’s
really easy for us to trust in the thing we see in front of us—the person who
is doing things we like, things that might even seem miraculous. We search out
these folks as our own personal spiritual gurus. We look for that person who
embodies what we hope for, and we follow.
Of course, we
do this with celebrities. And it’s easy to criticize other peoples’
celebrities, right? Man, look at all
those dummies following Kim Kardashian, we might think. That’s a ridiculous
person to idolize. OK, but you’re telling me you don’t follow after somebody
different? You’re telling me you don’t trust somebody else in the same kind of
way?
This is all
harmless, we may imagine, except there’s one giant problem with raising up
human beings: They will fail you. Every one of them. They aren’t worthy of your
worship. None of them. Last summer, this phenomena hit the mainstream with the
announcement that Justin Bieber got engaged. If you don’t know who Justin
Bieber is, good for you. For most of us I suspect this wasn’t news we cared
about, but for teen-turned-20-something girls who grew up idolizing him, this
was earth-shattering. Every generation has their idols and Bieber was the
pinnacle for young millennials, and upon news of his engagement more than one of
these teens-turned-young-adult women openly criticized his fiancée as unworthy
because she didn’t worship Bieber the way they did.
As a person
who does some pre-marital counseling, this one was obvious: I hope she didn’t.
I hope she hardly knew him growing up. I hope she didn’t invest herself in the
idyllic image that is never reality. Can you imagine a worse bedrock for a
relationship? Because it’s built on a lie. You should not worship your spouse,
because your spouse is not God. You should not worship your children, because
your children are not God. And you certainly should not worship Justin Bieber,
because—I don’t know a lot of things, but I know this—God, he is not.
And this
might sound obvious and low-hanging fruit when talking about idolatry, but I
think we all have our Justin Biebers. When we are deciding how to order our
lives and what things matter more to us than others, we inevitably lift certain
people onto the altar of things we worship. Think about it: Who is the person
who shapes your beliefs most in the world? Someone you know, perhaps, but what
about somebody you don’t know—not personally? Somebody whose books you’ve read.
Somebody you’ve seen on TV.
Now, imagine
they were caught in some terrible scandal. Would that change anything? It might,
but first it would take some time for that belief in their divinity to die. Let’s
be very clear: All of us are sinners. The idea that somebody is immune from
sin, because they are so wise, or smart, or seemingly well-put-together is its
own kind of idol-making. All of us will fail you if you are looking for
somebody worthy to follow. Paul is so clear in Acts that it is God we worship
and not Paul in part because Paul knows his own history. He knows how terrible
a person he was and even may become again. The idea that a man who spent his
formative years killing followers of Jesus would be worshiped as a god is a
good reminder of how poor we are at picking gods.
You don’t
worship the prophet, or the preacher, or the teacher—even if they show you God—and
this is a harder distinction than we tend to believe. We like pastors and
preachers and teachers who practice what they preach, obviously. We like leaders
who follow after Jesus, not just telling us about
Jesus, but there are great preachers and teachers who are horrible
examples, and there are wonderful examples who are terrible preachers. These
two things do not necessarily go hand-in-hand, and your faith should not be in
any preacher or teacher—not me, not the guy on TV.
Be careful
who you are really following. If a crisis in the personal life of a leader
would cause you to lose your faith, then your God is not God; it is a person.
Good teachers
and preachers do have something in common: They tend to be clear that it is not
about them. Self-promotion runs counter to the good news of the Gospel, because
if Jesus Christ practiced humility by walking the road of the cross, then so
must we, and the idea that we can boast, self-promote, and make idols of
ourselves when our God did the opposite is ludicrous. If a preacher is telling
you to follow him and not Jesus, find another preacher.
So, as it
turns out, this episode with Paul and Barnabus is both prescriptive and
descriptive for us. It describes how we look to idols when we should be looking
to God, and it tells us that we should be careful about who we are following
and why. It’s seems obvious but it’s more complicated in practice, because the
idols we make are convincing, compelling, and attractive. We worship things we
really, really like.
But God is
bigger and better. And since God is bigger and better, any secondary idol, no
matter how good, will lead you away from what is good and true. Idols don’t
lead you to God. But God is better than the idols you make.
So, what? Don’t
make idols? Is that what this is about? Well, like most advice, this ends up
feeling hollow. Perhaps it’s better to understand that you will make idols. You will elevate people unworthy of worship.
Sometimes you’ll even do it with things or places or ideologies. You’ll push
God off your altar and worship other things. Even still, God will find you. You
don’t have the power to push God away. God, who died and rose for you, is not
going to be deterred by your idols. This is the good news: You are saved, not
by who you worship, because you will worship the wrong things, but by the God
who seeks you out in the midst of your imperfection and even your idol
worshiping.
You are saved
by grace. And the idols can’t do a thing about it.
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