American Idols
Acts 17: 22-31
We are hungry. Have you noticed that? Americans are hungry. Not for food of course, we consume much more than our share of that. Americans, it seems to me are anxious, at the end of our ropes perhaps. We have always been a seeking people, a people seeking more freedom, more space, more rights, more hope, a more perfect union. From the creation of this country, we have been a seeking people, a hungry people. I bet this is not unique to us, but this is my home and this is the place my heart knows the best. As I look out over our hills and plains, through our cities and ocean sides, I see a hungry people. We are hungry for meaning, hungry for purpose and hungry for significant lives. We are hungry for days that make sense and lives that flow in a scheme that is clear. We tell ourselves that we can endure pain and disappointment if it is a part of something bigger, a plan perhaps, a roadmap to meaning that we simply cannot see. We put up with a lot, leaving very little space to be present in the moment. And we are adept at putting our whole selves into that which fills our lives. We devote ourselves to our work, investing our health and sometimes spending our families in an effort to be somebody, to climb a ladder that never seems to end, looking to satisfy that yearning- that growling pain of hunger that never goes away. We put our hearts into convincing our neighbors and perhaps ourselves that we have made it- that we have found that satisfaction- that we are no longer hungry and the proof is in the stuff we wear and carry and drive.
We are hungry, so hungry in fact that I wonder if we are beginning to wear thin. I wonder if our search to satisfy this hunger, this longing for meaning; this search for something great, something of God, is leading to us other gods. It’s like trying to grocery shop on an empty stomach, suddenly those freakishly light cheese puffs look like some kind of delicacy. When we are hungry, really hungry, we tend to grab for what is there, what will temporarily wipe away the ache. This hunger, this yearning for meaning and for God perhaps seems to be wired into us. Maybe we are created to seek relationship with the Divine and when we come up short, we need to put our devotion toward something, anything that will numb the hunger ever for a minute. If worship is adoring reverence, devotion and time, I wonder, are we worshiping idols?
It is question Paul posed to the crowd gathered on his trip to Athens. It was probably a question that stopped them in their tracks just as it does us today. He surveys this glorious city of architectural wonder and finds himself confused. These people seem to be religious; they are extremely dedicated in their devotions and investing a lot of time and energy, crafting art and ways of honoring “unknown gods”. And Paul finds himself wondering aloud as he stands before this city, are you worshiping idols? He finds statues and altars that indicate the faithful are confused. They seem to be investing their hearts in things and spreading themselves among all kinds of gods just to be sure their bases are covered. Perhaps it was an ancient Greek version of what is today a sort of American pastime- a sort of spread out, pop religion that is symptomatic of the American spiritual hunger. Our cars have a rabbit’s feet sitting in the cup holder, a four leaf clover rests on the dash, a virgin Mary air freshener dangles from the rearview mirror, a bobble head Buddha sits in front and a Jesus fish affixes itself on the bumper. Our human longing for meaning leads us to a bit of misguided devotion. We often seem to be confused about where God is, about where to find God in this busy, bustling world.
My Christian Education professor in seminary once said that you know best what or whom you love by how you spend your time. The world can tell what matters to us by where our devotion and time lies. And however the results come out, for better or for worse, our time is a statement of what matters to us, of what we value and the direction we want to point our lives. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans spend half of our “leisure time” watching television. This is no surprise to us; it has become such a part of the American routine. If Paul pulled into just about any city in this country, what might he say to us? He would enter our homes and find an odd square box on an altar and in some homes he would find this object of devotion in nearly every room. He might survey the land and enter our homes and wonder aloud, are you worshiping idols?
Of course it doesn’t end there. Paul is on a mission. He made a life of calling nascent Christians to task- he made no bones about telling them what he thought and what God might have to say about how they were living. And Paul has more questions for us. Paul might ask us about what we do with our days and about our children. He might see our workday and wonder about our devotion to the god of success. He might see our children dying and wonder about our devotion to the nation state and the sacrifices we offer to this god. He might see our homes and wonder about our love of bigger and more and our devotion to the god of never enough. He might see our churches and wonder about our devotion to our buildings instead of the Lord our God. He might see how we pretend that our lives are all in order and wonder about our devotion to the myth of perfection. Paul might look out across our land full of hungry people and wonder, are you worshiping idols?
We are a people yearning for God, desperate to find meaning in a pain-filled world. We are hungry for days that make sense and lives that flow in a scheme that is clear. But as Paul’s words ring out before us today, I wonder if we are really that far from those whom Paul questioned in Athens nearly two thousand years ago. Today, just as in his time, we are anxious to get it right- desperate to satisfy our hunger for the Holy and so we construct altars and offer sacrifices. We sacrifice our health, our families, and our sanity all in an effort that will always come up short. Jesus came to us so this frenzied; fruitless, heart-wrenching struggle could end. Paul tells the gathered crowd that they must let go, and let God. He says, “The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’…” In our living loving God we live and move and have our being.
Augustine wrote, “Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee…” Our hearts will never rest; our souls will always be hungry until we have found a home in God. This means that nothing, no level of devotion to the struggle for meaning, no amount of work or education, no amount of entertainment or possessions, nothing can satisfy this hunger, this seeking and yearning, longing and waiting, nothing but God.
The incarnation of God in Jesus our Christ means that our attempts at altars and sacrifice and devotion to empty things can end, the incarnation means that God is the source of our life, the ground of our being. And our shared covenant of baptism reminds us that we are already God’s beloved and to be welcomed into “God’s mighty acts of salvation is a gift from God, offered to us without price.” The heated rush can end; the sacrifice was already made. Beloved of God, we are not judged by the sacrifices that we make, we don’t have to, God ended that with Jesus. Amen.
Idol Behavior (Acts 17:22-31; 1 Peter 3:13-22) by Jenny Williams The Christian Century, April 19, 2005, p.19.
http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/14/pf/time_use/index.htm
Living By the Word by Kelly Lyn Logue for The Christian Century April 22nd, 2008