We have previously spoken of how difficult it is to be the love of God to ourselves and to others. But Fr. Ron Rolheiser notes that the first part of the commandment, our reflection verse today, is the most difficult to keep. He goes on to write that we are forever worshipping strange gods. Idolatry, more so even than atheism, is what is natural to us. The idolatry that afflicts us has little to do with worshipping icons, misguided devotions, and other such things. It is subtler. It has to do with the false images of God to which we give obeisance. Allow me to name ten such false gods whom we habitually substitute for the real God, Yahweh, the Father of Jesus Christ.
– The arbitrary god of fear.
– The insecure, defensive, threatened god.
– The dumb, non-understanding god.
– The exotic god of special places.
– The ascetic god whose Christ does not proclaim feast.
– The emasculated god of unbalanced piety.
– The orthodox god of strict theological formulation.
– The unholy god our own image and likeness.
– The overly intense, wired, god of our own neuroses.
– The anti-erotic god, anti-enjoyment, god of our guilt.
Space does not allow for a commentary on each of these but allows me a few more general reflections. By and large, we still believe that God is petty, defensive, and threatened by us. We feel God likes us better when we are uncreative and docile and don’t steal his fire. It is no accident that many creative persons leave the church and that the church has so often been defensive about progress, evolution, and human creativity. The God we believe in is too threatened and defensive. We also habitually worship a god whom, unconsciously, we consider rather dumb and lacking in understanding the complexity of the human being. I once officiated at a funeral for a young man from a very religious family who, while away from the church and living rather dissolutely, was killed accidentally while drunk. One woman remarked: “He was a good soul underneath it all. I knew him. If I were opening the gates of heaven, I would certainly let him in despite his irresponsibility.” She was an understanding woman, but she was not giving God credit for the same thing. All of us tend to mirror that attitude. We do not give God credit for being as bright as we are. We commit idolatry, too, when we make God more monastic than domestic and when we limit God’s presence to churches and holy places and do not notice God in our kitchens. When I cannot see the wounds of Christ in the pained face of the person across the table from myself, then my crucifix is more gold calf than icon. Finally, we break the first commandment when we make the worship of God more a question of proper orthodoxy and correct doctrine than letting the life of the Trinity and its love flow through us. God, I suspect, prefers a loving, gracious heretic to a person who is theologically correct but bitter and unloving. Whenever we conceive of God as somehow being defensive, anti-enjoyment, less compassionate and intelligent than ourselves, and preferring orthodoxy to compassion, we are breaking the first commandment. Such is idolatry.