Putting Everything in its Right Place
Service Link: https://youtu.be/sHwkg423tmw
Readings: Ezekial 14:1-11, Psalm 51, Daniel 3:13-30
Today begins the season of Lent. A 40 day season, discounting Sunday, where we prepare ourselves for the struggles of the cross and for the hope of the empty tomb. This season is often marked with repentance, prayer, fasting, giving and many other spiritual practices that are meant to help us recentre ourselves on God. We will be looking at those spiritual practices through our Lenten bible studies, but I will be looking at one of the greatest things that stands in our way.
What do you think stands in your way? What do you think gets in the way of your relationship with God? Is it time, busyness, expectations, success, other people, desire, or something else? The truth about all of these things as good as they may be is that they can become idols. Whether they are literally a physical object or not, they can so easily become like that statue that ancient people used to kiss, bow down to, and sacrifice to. They become something that transforms into a barrier between us and God and so they become a barrier between us and loving gracious fellowship and joy, even if we might trick ourselves into believing these things provide all the fellowship and joy we need: they are only fickle substitutes.
Ezekiel shows us the truth. The biggest problem is not that there are idols in the world, the problem is that there are idols in our hearts. We have taken things in our lives and loved them, cared for them, desired them more than we have desired God. The first thing is to recognize that this is the case and that it is not right. We should not guilt ourselves about doing this, as it is hard not to create idols. Early Christians used to escape into the desert to try to escape this temptation, most monastic life is designed to structurally do this. Our lives will be a continual journey in trying to put things in their rightful place, with God at our center.
I am not pretending that resisting idols is easy. Our Canadian culture, economy, and society are not built to make God the priority. In fact, most of what we know and see is designed to try to take his place. Everything around us is demanding our time, attention and devotion and they will take it if we let them. The thing is that the more we resist, the more we trust and make room for God the easier it will be, even if greater temptation comes our way.
Ezekiel points us to one of the reasons idols can be so bad. He tells us that due to the idols in our hearts, our iniquity has become a stumbling block. What does that mean? Well, in our lives we will screw up, we will go wrong, but it is God that saves us and forgives us. Idols can’t do this, instead they make things worse, they increase our failures, they blind us, they put our faults in our way, so that we will trip over them, so that we will screw up even more, and so that we will end up hurting ourselves and others.
Let's just take a small modern-day example. Let’s say one day you spend a little more than you should or that you become jealous of what someone else has. If you have an idol of wealth, this might make you want to work so hard that you burn yourself out, or that you don’t take time for your family, or so that you don’t give and care for those in need around you. We will come back to this another Sunday.
The interesting thing is that as much as we still have these other idols in our hearts, we can often sort of hedge our bets and still seek out guidance or help from God. This is far better than not reaching out to God at all, but it is not far from treating God like an object or using him for what he can give us. Thankfully, God is loving and gracious and so wants to take hold of our hearts, even if we do not give Him the place he deserves, but the problem is that he will only fill as much space as we give him and so we will be lacking. Even worse than that, if we continually follow these other things and refuse to follow God, the result will be that we follow them to their end and ours.
The idols we create and follow might feel like light frivolity at times, but the problem is that they make us the same as they make us fickle and frivolous.
We can see the stark difference of God vs. Idols when we look at Nebachanezor and Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego. Babylon, like many cultures at the time, had many idols of gods representing anything under the sun. Nebachanezor has now gone one step farther setting himself up as a great statue and requiring that everyone worship him and all of the idols. But these three Jewish indentured servants refuse. They refuse because they don’t want to set up any idols in their hearts or lives that aren’t God. It is not about them rejecting Nebachanezor as a leader, or refusing his commands, because they often do follow and listen to him, but they know that this is one thing they can’t do or it would destroy them too.
Other leaders betray Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego, just as they would later betray Daniel and throw him into the lion’s den. The other leaders betray these Jewish servant leaders, because these jewish men are different and because they are jealous. Showing us that these other leaders have set up idols in their hearts - idols of self, nation, honour and success.
Nebachenezer gives them a chance - if this was just an accident bow down now and we will be fine, but of course they refuse. Nebachenezer probably thought he was being very merciful. When they refused Nebachenezer becomes very angry. But why? When Shad, Mech, Abed refuse to worship his idol, what they are doing is saying that Nebachenezer is not god, he is not as good or great as he believes, he cannot fill their needs and ultimately they are saying the same about the other idols/gods too. They are putting things in their rightful place, the rightful place where each can serve their created purpose with their created capacity. Often when we challenge the idol of self in ourselves or others, people don’t like to hear it. They will become angry and lash out, or retreat and build up walls. That is what the Christian faith does, it challenges us to realize that we and all of creation are weak and fickle without God. So naturally, people will resist seeing themselves for what they are.
On the otherhand, Shad, Mech and Abed, don’t feel like they need to defend God. They praise him with their actions and responses. They say God might save us or he might not, either way we trust in him. God does not need our defending him, because there is nothing anyone can do that will tear God down from his throne. It is we who need to worship and trust in Him, because it is we who need him on the throne of our hearts.
In the end, Nebachenezer does everything in his power to kill them, but he is not strong enough, or capable enough, he is not Lord over all things. In this moment, God shows himself very distinctly as he walks with them in the fire. No idol or person would have stood against that fire, but God is the only one who can. The only way we might ever stand whether it be in fire, or storm or in our everyday lives is through God. It is through the trust and Lordship that these three jewish men live out. They keep things in their rightful place and so they find what can truly save them. Our challenge this Lent is to move the idols out of our hearts and put God in His rightful place. AMEN
