"False Gods and American Idols”

Isaiah 44: 9-20

August 29, 2010 + Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ

400 Glenwood Drive

Chattanooga, Tennessee 37404

As I begin this message, I have a confession to make: if you came here this morning hoping to hear something about the popular television program, “American Idol,” you’re in for a disappointment. I haven’t watched a single episode and I don’t expect to do so in the future. I’m glad that those with modest musical talent have their moment in fame’s fleeting spotlight, but I don’t enjoy listening to their music. If you do, go for it. As the Latin has it: “De gustibus non disputandum.” (“There is no disputing about taste.”)

In this life we can rightly disagree about many things but one thing is not up for debate: the true God exists; idols – American or otherwise – do not. That difference is what I want us to think about this morning. Let’s begin by trying to define the difference:

The true God creates us; we human beings create false gods.

The true God is a verb; false gods are nouns.

The true God gives us what we need; false gods give us what we want.

The true God is beyond any human description; an idol is easily described: it is a person or thing or institution that is the object of intense admiration or devotion.

God is eternal; every idol has its day and dies.

A few moments ago I showed this pre-Columbian Incan idol to our children. (Holds up the idol.) I doubt that any of you have such idols in your home for worship and devotion. Few of us are like that foolish fellow in Isaiah’s famous parable, our scripture lesson for this morning:

“A certain man . . .  plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it can be used as fuel. Part of it he takes and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Then he makes a god and worships it, makes a carved image and bows down before it . . . he prays to it and says, ‘Save me, for you are my god.’” (Isaiah 44: 14-17 selected)

We know that is nonsense, don’t we? How could any object we create out of wood or metal or stone have any power to help us? But let’s not be so quick to congratulate ourselves that we are vastly superior to Isaiah’s superstitious woodcarver. The worship of false gods and foolish idols is flourishing in our world today. And I don’t mean “over there” among some benighted savages but right here in sophisticated twenty-first century America. Let me describe some of the idols around us and those who urge us to worship them.

The first idol is the false God of Money and Alan Greenspan is its prophet. The devotees of this god perform their daily rituals on the floor of the stock exchange in Wall Street. Evangelists carry the Gospel of Greed through the land and millions give their offerings through investments, many of which they cannot afford. When Prophet Greenspan finally admitted last October that he had found “a flaw in the model” – that markets are made up of human beings who suffer from a flawed nature – the time to save ourselves from worshiping this idol had long passed. From the federal government to state governments to local governments to American families drowning in debt, we are awash in unsecured borrowing. We are leaving a fearful financial legacy to our children and grandchildren. And please do not tell me I am giving aid and comfort to Republicans, Conservatives, “Tea Partiers,” and all the rest of the hypocrites who are now telling us we spent the store. They – more than most – were first in line to bankrupt the country.

A second American idol is the false God of Hedonism and its prophet is that jaded and nearly senile satyr, Hugh Hefner. If I may satirize Sarah Palin: “How’s that “If it feels good, do it” thing workin’ out for ya?” Male/Female marriages and traditional families are disintegrating all around us. According to the Pew Research center, four in ten babies born in America today are born to single mothers. More and more young adults cohabit and have children outside wedlock. Increasing numbers of children will grow up without the dimmest notion of who their fathers might be and those who do will have little contact with them. And this is the basis on which some want to deny Gay and Lesbian couples the right to marry and have families of their own?! What hypocrisy! Until we heterosexuals clean up our act, we have no right on any basis to speak about “traditional marriage.” Of course, you and I believe that marriage is a civil and religious right that should not be denied to any couple, regardless of their sexual orientation.

Here’s another false god many worship today: the Idol of Institutionalized Religion and their (now) disillusioned prophet is Anne Rice. Poor Anne. Recently she announced on her Facebook page that she has quit Christianity “in the name of Christ” because she has found too much hypocrisy in the institutional church. What a surprise! In what cloistered world has this woman been living that she never noticed this before?! Of course, organized religion has been taking a beating for years as more and more Americans believe that it’s better to be “spiritual” than religious. But as our wise former pastor, David Beebe, reminded us in our current newsletter, to be “spiritual” in any meaningful sense of the term is to be religious. “Religion” is how we human beings express our spirituality. The issue is not whether we will be religious – all human beings are, even devout atheists – but what kind of religion are we creating and following? Yes, any and all human religions will have the foul taint of hypocrisy because all human beings have a dirty streak of hypocrisy. Friends, there is no perfect church or religion because there are no perfect people and no perfect religious leaders. Our calling is not to worship this or any church but to be sure Pilgrim Church loves God and our sisters and brothers everywhere with unconditional love. Will we fail in that? Of course, we will! Then with God’s help we’ll do our best to get back on the right path again.

I have another false god to share with you before we go home. Some of us may feel happy that the idols I have described thus far are not ones we have been worshiping. In that respect we may be like a certain man I heard of, an unrepentant sinner if there ever was one. He came to church every Sunday, listened to his pastor’s sermons denouncing evil, then greeted his pastor at the door with the words: “Great sermon, Pastor. You really gave it to them this morning.” This went on for months. No matter what the pastor said the man’s response was always the same: “Great sermon, Pastor. You really gave it to them this morning.” Then one cold and wintry Sunday a minor miracle took place. No one made it to church but the pastor and this member. “Now I’ve got him,” thought the pastor to himself. His sermon described all the man’s sins and the pastor all but named him by name. Once again after the service the man greeted his pastor: “Great sermon, Pastor. I think it’s the best you’ve ever preached. You really gave it to them this morning. Too bad they weren’t here to hear it!”

If hypocrisy is one of the sins of all believers, then spiritual blindness has to run a close second. That’s why I want to suggest there is another false god believed in by many of us in liberal churches. This is the Idol of Inevitable Progress and its prophet is . . . Dave Brown! I believe I came close, perhaps too close, in my sermon last week to inviting you to join me in worship of this false God of Never-Ending Progress. One of my wise friends pointed out that in my last words I seemed to suggest that with just a little more effort on our part, and with the benign blessing of God, we could bring in the kingdom of God in record time. Do I really believe that? No, but like all liberals I share a hopeful vision of the possibilities of what Mark Twain called “the damned human race.” I want to believe that Anne Frank was right when she wrote in her diary before the Nazi’s took her and her family to the death camps. “I still believe that people are basically good.”

Was she simply being incredibly naïve? I don’t think so. I believe that we human beings are capable of great goodness but also incredible evil. Human history is not a story of inevitable progress. America, our beloved country, is now at a difficult crossroads in our history. Will we continue to take the doomed path of so many other militaristic empires trying to force other peoples to serve our economic and national needs? Will we attempt to deny to our own people the rights and freedoms we have enjoyed  so long? If you listened to and believed those who spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial yesterday, the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech challenging all Americans to share his dream of an America where all are loved and respected; if you listened to and believed the words of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and all the rest that we must “restore America’s honor” (which will be no honor at all) then Dr. King’s dream will die and we will plunge our nation into a nightmare. That is the choice we face today: Dr. King’s dream or Glenn Beck’s nightmare? Which will we choose?

I don’t know the answer. We have made so many foolish and even wicked choices in my lifetime. I am a very chastened liberal. But I still dare to believe if we have the faith, the wisdom, and the courage to reject the false idols we and other Americans have been worshiping, then there is still hope. The greatness of the Hebrew prophets was that while they could pronounce the judgment of God on God’s foolish people for all the sins they had committed, their last word was always a word of hope. Though we as Americans may have abandoned God, God has not and will not abandon us. False gods and American idols will not save us, but the one true God will. And to that God be glory in the Church forever. Amen.