Too Sexy for...GOD?!?

According to dictionary.com an idol is:  “an image or other material object representing a deity to which religious worship is addressed.” Our English term “idol” is from the Greek “eidolon” which can mean: image, idol, imprint, or example. Oddly enough the ancient etymology of the term is unclear, Mundle, in NIDNTT, notes that the term was generally not used for the image of ancient Greco/Roman gods..but is often found being used for “an unsubstantial form” (like an image in a mirror, or a reflected image on the water). The Hebrew language has fifteen terms for idol, and the prohibitions of worshipping such images appears early on in Old Testament literature (for instance it was at the TOP of God’s list of the Ten Commandments!!).  The New Testament simply carries both the vocabulary and the condemnation of the worship of false gods from the Old Testament.

Our world is filled with idols and idol worshippers. Someone told me once that if you want to see what you really worship all you have to do is to look at your calendar and your checkbook…the things that you spend the most money and time on are the things that you probably worship!  However, the depth of our idolatry goes much deeper than that.  I find it telling that professional athletes who are on the roster but will never actually play on the field make several times more for “warming the bench” than the average person in the US makes for working every day.  The highest echelon of actors makes more for one single movie (which may take months--up to a year to complete) will make more to show up the first day than the rest of us will make for an entire year of work, AND will make more money than the average person would see in SEVERAL life times by the time we take the movie in at the local theaters.

By now you may be asking what the point is in “raging against the machine”…I have often said publicly that Christians cannot blame the world for being the world! There is also an old proverb that goes something like this: all that is necessary for evil to thrive if for good people to do nothing.  But what can one person do?!?!?!?

Actually, there was a PERFECT example of this in, of ALL places, TIME magazine (vol 178, no 14, 2011—“Special Money Issue”), it is a small side bar story on page 55, and oddly enough it is listed under “agriculture” in the “Culture” section.  The article states that a farmer in Northern Ireland agreed to allow pop star Rihanna to shoot a video in his barely field.  However, when the crew and star arrived and began filming the owner of the property immediately stopped the filming and asked everyone to leave because the singer was “too scantily dressed…” and he recommended that “she and her friends…acquaint themselves with a greater God.”  I am not naive enough to think that this little article is not fraught with all sorts of implications (as opposed to simply and categorically stating the truth) but clearly this is an example of a person who has decided to throw a wrench in “the machine” and I applaud him for tilting at this particular windmill!

Will his suggestion be heeded? No, because we live in a world where sex sells and money & image rule—so they will simply find another barely field or create one via CGI for the video which will undoubtedly generate income for everyone involved. But I am reminded of a verse in scripture that is all too often quoted at a time like this, and almost always quoted out of context…Matthew 10:32-33 where Jesus says:

³² “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. ³³ But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.

In the context of Matthew chapter ten these verses mean more than simply “being a witness” for Jesus.  In this chapter Jesus is sending out “the twelve” those whom He chose to carry on His ministry and bear witness to His testimony. All four of the gospels name the twelve and then give vivid descriptions of Jesus’ directions to them about their mission.  These directions including specific instructions about how to travel, what to take on the journey, and what to expect as the begin their ministry (for those who might be considering “ministry” as a vocation…it is NOT pretty…I suggest you skip this portion of Scripture for now and come back to it later!). Then Jesus details the difference between Spirit and flesh and the world and the Kingdom, ending in verse thirty-one with an illustration of how much God cares for us…the reason that we are not to fear! Then Jesus inserts these famous verses about confessing before men and the Father.  The context does not change the meaning of the way it is often quoted out of context but it does make it vital that we understand the circumstances that we are expected to encounter.

It is because of God’s great love, through Christ Jesus, that we can have faith to “make a stand” when we find ourselves in adverse circumstances.  This verse simply tells us to wage war carefully, expecting both good and bad things to result, knowing that we are called to a higher standard as citizens of the Kingdom, resting on the promise that God’s love is greater than any circumstance, and that following Jesus in not always easy, predictable, or safe.  In the words of C.S. Lewis, “he is not TAME...but he is good!”

I am doubtful that we can change the world, perhaps not even our little corner of it, but I believe that we serve a God who already has, and will continue to do so through the faith of those like the Irish barely farmer.

Sex might sell in a world gone wrong…but not on his farm…and not in the Kingdom he serves.  Tilt on Irish farmer Quixote…I will gladly play Poncho and support your right to decency on your land…there is a “greater God” than the one the world serves and perhaps through our “tilting at windmills” some might find Him, “get acquainted” with, worship Him, and ONLY Him.  Sola Deus!