(I know I said that I was burned out on theological topics and that I was going to write about my romantic ineptitude from my pre-marriage days, but I couldn’t pass this up. Have no fear, I’ll be talking about my clumsy adventures with girls soon enough…)
A co-worker returned from a business trip this week from India. When he came back, he brought all of us gifts from the country. He handed the gift to me, a wood carving, and told me it was a carving of an Indian god. I paused for a second and studied it carefully. At that moment, I came face-to-face with a real, physical idol. So this is what tripped up the nation of Israel time and again in the Old Testament and eventually led to their downfall. This is what the Israelites wanted more than Jehovah God. It seemed so innocuous and harmless to me, a simple wooden carving. Now, I suppose the case is a little different here. People don’t actually bow down and worship this actual physical object like the Israelites did. This carving isn’t actually the god, but it does represent a god and Indians do keep things like this in homes, cars, and such believing it gives them good luck, or good favor, or whatever. But still, the parallels were in my mind. The wooden and metal objects that the Israelites craved, sacrificed and bowed down to weren’t all that different to this little wooden object.
As I put it in my backpack, I hesitated for a moment. I thought back to all my readings in the Old Testament and all the dire things that happened to people when they brought idols into their home. Was I in direct violation of some Levitical code that would bring curses down upon me and my household? I also mused as I placed it in my backpack that there were idols already in my backpack that were far more deadly than this little carving. The laptop …. the iPod … they both get far more of my attention and time during a day than the Word of God. I’m known to waste hours upon hours on the laptop doing whatever. I’m known to have an unquenchable thirst for music. I’ve written about idols before, but it seems to me that the devil has gotten to be a far better player at this game of distracting us from worshipping the true God and we do it without even needing to bow down to physical objects. We bow down to self-image, pride, reputation, you name it, but they consume us, occupy us and even when they let us down and disappoint us and leave us a shell of ourselves, we keep coming back to them one more time. We eat the lies of the media that tell us we must be popular, beautiful, funny, new, hip, and then become sick to our stomachs when those lies turn on us like too much candy. God help us from these idols.
In the end, I decided to keep the little carving and place it right next to my Homestar Runner figurines in my office. There were a couple reasons I kept it. First of all, I don’t believe it has any power at all, no more than the little Strong Bad figurine it sits next to (though, I do spend a lot of time at http://www.homestarrunner.com, so maybe I’m in more danger of worshipping Strong Bad….) no good luck, no blessings from a god, nothing. It’s just a wooden carving as far as I’m concerned. Second, it reminds me of India and of the plight of the millions of Dalit, the lowest caste of the Indian culture, a group of people that number almost the population of the United States. The Dalit are denied basic rights such as proper education, food, water, and are treated as less than people. Thanks to the Gospel of Christ, they are now being told that they have worth and are loved by the true God, and they are throwing off the shackles of their oppressive caste system and standing up for themselves. Visit http://www.dalitnetwork.org/ for more information. Third, it’s also a tangible reminder to pray for the millions, maybe even billions that are deceived by a religion that leaves them empty. May the Good News open their eyes. I feel those are all pretty good reasons to keep it.
On the other hand, if my house gets swallowed up by the ground, I’ll know I was wrong.
Jeff Holland, 4/22/2005