The Park Road Pulpit

  Sermons from Park Road Baptist Church 

      Russ and Amy Jacks Dean, Pastors

A Half-Baked God

Exodus 21.4-6; Isaiah 44.9-23

Russ Dean, June 16, 2002

            I love to watch people work with their hands. Whether a woodcarver or cabinetmaker, plumber or electrician, auto-mechanic or seamstress, I love to observe the hands of that person, who through years of hard work and repetition, has fine-tuned his skills to the point that his own hands have become his finest tool. I am a carpenter and carver, furniture maker and plumber -- -- wanna-be. (Though Bill Hefner told me just last week not to give up my day job!) Because of this desire of mine to be a jack-of-all-trades, I am grateful for, and intrigued by, the motor and mechanical abilities of so many, whose skills are necessary for our survival and comfort, and for the way that the hands of these people become expressions of a God-given artistic talent. (Yes, plumbing is an art!)

            I was building a house one day with “Habitat for Humanity,” working alongside an real carpenter and learning from his every move. He had no idea I was watching, or how impressed I was with one simple action I observed. We were nailing sub-flooring to the floor joists (back in the old days, before those nifty pneumatic nail guns were available!) As he nailed with his right hand, subconsciously with his left hand, which was filled with a bundle of nails, some with the heads up, some with the points sticking up, he rotated one of those upside-down nails, turning it with two fingers. So, without missing a beat, when one nail had been driven home, this next nail was already in place and ready. His was a constant rhythm. My hammering was punctuated by the frequent interruptions of the sound of my little handful of nails spilling on the floor so I could find the next nail, get it turned over, and position it for the hammer. For this carpenter, over time, hands and hammer had become a part of each other. Together they worked smoothly, seamlessly – like a well-oiled machine.

I love to watch people work with their hands.

Given the automated production of nearly everything under the sun, our modern society has undoubtedly lost some of its ability to craft things with our hands, while the craftsmanship of the age of antiquity was advanced beyond its time. Isaiah’s careful description of the work of the blacksmith and carpenter, suggest, I believe, that he, too, loved to watch people work with their hands. But his tone is sarcastic as he derides the foolishness of wasting such valuable skill to craft a beautiful image, which he then worships as a god. Isaiah carefully describes how the worker chooses his wood, marks it, and works it -- while using half of that same wood to build a fire and warm himself, to bake bread over its coals. For Isaiah, this act is beyond comprehension. Who could really worship such a Half-Baked God -- an image of one’s own creation?

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.[1]

This prohibition against idol-making is a frequent concern of the Old Testament, and is closely related to the first commandment, you shall have no other gods.  In fact, these two prohibitions are treated as one command in some traditions. John Holbert says that in the biblical chronology, only with the book of Ezra is there finally silence concerning idolatry -- suggesting that it took more than a thousand years for mono-theism (belief in only one God), to fully take root in the Jewish mind.[2] Holbert also says that the form of this commandment suggests “with certainty that Israel did not avoid image-making or the worship of images.”[3]

As physical beings it is no great surprise that this word was difficult to keep. And though most Americans do not possess literal idols, physical graven images, which we carry in our hands, and worship, literally, we deceive ourselves if we dismiss this prohibition as the sin of an ancient and superstitious people.

Picking up on last week’s sermon, I want us to consider this morning the ways that our “image” of God can become an idol. Do we really worship the God who is, or is our dedication and devotion really to some Half-Baked God of our own creation? This is not an easy question to answer, but it is one that cuts to the heart of our faith.

As physical beings in a physical world, we want to see things, concretely. We need to see things, visually. Children learn by correlating the tangible, concrete things in their world to the truths they learn. Everything is concrete for a child. They have no ability to think abstractly, to “see” Truth which has no concrete correlative.  In a recent newsletter article, I recalled an example of this. Jackson asked me, “Daddy, when you graduate and get your “D.Min.” degree, is mama going to get a “D.Women” degree?” Jackson’s developing mind demanded a concrete explanation. I am a man, so this degree he had heard so much about must have something to do with the male gender.

Advertisers understand that even adults see better when things are concrete, so they pay big money to graphic designers whose job it is to give everything a visible symbol. Perhaps the Nike trademark is the most successful example of this in the world. You don’t need to see even the name “Nike;” you don’t need some written explanation that assures quality of production; you don’t need to see a picture of Michael Jordan or to hear him pitch his product -- all of those images come instantly, subconsciously, to mind as soon as your eye focuses on that simple, up-turned “swoosh.”

There is great power in the visual representation of the non-visual. Those ancient Jews perhaps knew this better than we. They interpreted this prohibition against graven images to exclude the use of any physical icons or images for worship. Some protestant churches have interpreted this prohibition similarly, and design their worship spaces free from stained glass or other images for this very reason. The Jewish interpretation prohibited any symbol to be used to represent the God who is. They knew that as soon as they allowed any image to represent “God,” we would surely come to worship our understanding of the symbol instead of the God who cannot be contained in any image.

This is a difficult concept to teach. I think we understand the idea that God is more than any “symbol for God,” but in actual practice, the subtle ways we abuse this prohibition are much more difficult to detect. I suspect that the Bible, as we have received it, does not help us much in this regard.

The Bible is the single greatest source and resource that we as believers have to understand God’s nature and God’s work in this world. It is unique. It is indispensable for the Church. It is where we must begin. A thousand years from now the Bible will still be as relevant as it is today (or as it was a thousand years ago) -- but only if we can apprehend it as a symbol which points us to God. Neither the Bible, nor the images which it paints of God, is actually God. So, the Bible, just as any other image, can become an idol. If our understanding of the world and our relationship to the world; if our understanding of our neighbors and our relationship to our neighbors; if our understanding of God and our relationship to God are fixed, limited to concrete pictures derived from the Bible, then these images will ultimately lead us away from God who is.

The story of the giving of the ten commandments is repeated in the book of Deuteronomy. This account comes from a later period in Israel’s history. The storyteller recalls the giving of the Law on Mt. Horeb, and says as part of the introduction: Be careful… watch yourselves so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen…[4]

What are the things that your eyes have seen? Had the people seen God? Have we? They had not, for the writer continues:

Remember that day… you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain… then the LORD spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound… there was only a voice…[but] You saw no form of any kind… therefore watch yourselves so that you do not make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape…[5]

There is a subtle but important lesson here. We, modern believers, sophisticated and advanced as we are, are still too much like children who need the concrete, the tangible, the provable. But God is not provable. Even those who in the biblical account stood on the very mountain with God did not see God. They only “heard a voice.” The second commandment challenges us spiritually, to grow up, to learn to discern the voice of God, to be comforted by the presence of God -- because God cannot be seen. We can only see where God has been.[6]

How many times have you demanded a sign, a symbol, a kind of visible image of God? (If only in your mind.) Have you made the stories of scripture so concrete, read the experiences of God’s ancient people as so literal that they form your only image of God? Have you bought into the idolatry that the God who is can be made to do our bidding? The televangelist says, “God wants to bless you.” That if you are faithful enough and pray fervently enough, the tornado will change its course, the cancer will go away, even the parking space near the front door will be available for you when it rains! This is the idolatry of a God who can be controlled. The idolatry of the image of an interventionist God -- a God who is far from us, but who can be coerced, convinced, nagged or manipulated into doing what we want. It is a 21^st-century attempt to control the zealous, uncontrollable God who is, to create God in the image of our desires, to treat God as a good luck charm, a relic, an idol. This is a Half-Baked God of our own making.

Amy and I have made some rather startling declarations from this Baptist podium. We are grateful for an open pulpit, and for pews filled with open minds. We have claimed that “God always does everything that God can do,”[7] a statement which echoes Paul’s affirmations, that all things work together for good,[8] that God is above all and through all and in all,[9] but it is a statement which also reckons with the reality of a universe guided by natural law.[10] The God who is, is not a distant, interventionist God to be manipulated by our fear-filled obeisance, who decides by decree or caprice who deserves divine help and who does not. God is always doing all that God can do. So faith is not the discipline of getting God to work “for us,” but the discipline of seeing God -- already at work in our lives.

We have said, “You don’t have to taste the wine to believe the sign.”[11] There are unexplained happenings in this physical world, for which believers rightly give thanks to God. But if our faith is simply a quest to define God, to prove God, to “see” God in the “miraculous,” we will miss the God who is where this mysterious God is found most often. More than in the spectacular miracle, God is to be found in the inner peace of the difficult decision; God is to be found in the resolve of a commitment “for better, for worse;” God is to be found in the sustaining grace that accompanies us from the hospital room to the funeral chapel and back home where we find God, with us – still, “in the land of the living.”[12] I do not deny the unexplainable, but to base my faith in the miraculous is to limit God to one “image,” it is to look for God in only certain places, to expect God to work in only certain ways.

We have said perhaps the disciples of Jesus “saw nothing, but experienced everything.”[13] Jesus blessed the doubting Thomas but added, and “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”[14] Has your desire to “see” God in biblical proportions blinded you from the daily experience of the sustaining presence of God? The skeptic will always doubt your sight. But the skeptic can never take away the reality of your experience.

So this command brings us to the heart of faith: to believe in a God who will not be contained in any image, is to know God, to experience God as the sustaining presence of life itself. Period. To know this God is to know freedom, liberation, life.

God is. And it is enough.

So let us worship -- and live and love and serve and be found faithful -- in Spirit and in Truth.

May it be so. Amen.

Let us Pray:

God who is:

            forgive our childish need

                        to see, concretely,

                        to understand, completely,

                        to know, convincingly;

            forgive our grown-up idolatry,

                        for images designed to make you

                                    controllable,

                                    tolerable,

                                    explainable.

God who is:

            open to us

                        the freedom of your Spirit

                        and the power of your Truth

            that we might grow up, and be

            completed

                        in your love,

            perfected

                        in your grace which is sufficient

God who is

            teach us your Law,

                        write it on our hearts

                        that we might live and move and have our being

                                    only in you.

God who is

            may it be so

                        through Christ, our example. Amen.