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ISAIAH 44: 6-22; 46: 1-13

General Points about Idolatry:

1) The Threat of Idolatry – For a people easily influenced or taken over by larger powers and cultures, the threat of assimilation and loss of a distinctive identity was great. Idolatry was about worshipping other gods than the God who liberated the people from slavery and established a covenant with them at Mount Sinai.

2) An Idol vs the One True God – A person is only as great as the God they worship. If you worship a piece of stone, wood or metal, as beautifully crafted as it may be, rather than the one true God who created all things and is sovereign in the universe, you are doomed to simply see your own reflection and nothing else. What foundation do you have to stand on other than yourself? The word: Idol in Hebrew is pesel, which means something hewed from stone.

3) The Costs of Idol-Worship vs the Benefits of Worshipping God – Our passages refer to the intensive labour involved in making a god and the burden of carrying them wherever you go. Besides this labour, they have absolutely nothing to offer you because they are nothing but beautiful objects with no life in themselves. By contrast, God is the only true source of power for vulnerable human creatures and God does not need to be made or carried. Worshipping and praying to God can empower, transform and save because God is real.

4) Dangers for the People of Israel – Idol worship was one danger, especially the temptation to adopt the idols of nations more powerful than Israel like Assyria, Babylonia and Persia. The other danger was worship of God that was ritualistic but empty of heart-felt, sincere and singular devotion. Much of Isaiah and other prophets is directed against this ‘false’ kind of worship of God as much as against the mixing of such worship with the adoption of idol-worship.

5) Self vs God or Self under God – Idol-worship is really a cover for self-interest. Idol- worshippers create their own gods and worship them for their own self-interest rather than the service of a larger justice beyond oneself, a justice to which the self must become aligned. How can we be inspired and transformed into someone better and more authentic if there is no-one we are ultimately worshipping but ourselves and what we decide we want and need? There is no genuine Other in idol worship. We can discard or change our idols anytime according to what suits our fancy, preference or advantage.

Isaiah 44: 6-22:

6-8 – God is the first and the last. Besides God there is no god. God is the only rock. Other rocks (pesels) are just rocks. And because I am God you should not fear. I will redeem you since you cannot redeem yourselves.

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9-11 – You are what you worship and what you make. If Idols are nothing, then you who make them, worship them and put all your hope in them are nothing and doomed to profound disappointment.

12 – All the effort the blacksmith puts into making an idol, going hungry and thirsty in order to make a profit and find some hope, is very sad.

13 – All the creative skill and effort of the carpenter to make an idol, and for what benefit other than profit, is also sad.

14-17 – Consider this absurd image. A skilled carpenter craftsman cuts down a tree of the best wood. He uses half for his personal daily needs and uses the other half (the leftovers) to make a beautiful piece of wood. And then he worships this wood and prays to it to save him. Is this not absurdly ridiculous?

18-20 – What blindness possesses people that they cannot see the absurdity of the fraud they have manufactured? The ‘abomination’ is that in so making and worshipping an idol of his own creation, the craftsman has also rejected the true God who alone can save him by challenging him to live toward something higher than himself.

21-22 – This is a call for Israel to turn away from the temptation of idolatry and turn to God for the only kind of redemption that is real. Yes, they have experienced the consequences of their sin. They cannot escape the larger justice that is true and the consequences of turning away from it. The solution is not escape into some kind of self- interested idolatry that doesn’t challenge a person. Redemption will come, but repentance is also necessary for the redemptive journey and reconciliation with God.

Isaiah 46: 1-13

1-4 – Bel and Nebo (gods of the Babylonians) are manufactured as idols, which are then carried on wagons pulled by animals from one place to the next. They’re just empty weight and a burden. They do not carry anyone but are themselves carried. By contrast, God doesn’t need to be carried but carries the people. God has carried God’s people from conception in the womb to life. And God will carry them even when they can no longer walk being old and grey. God alone can carry beyond anything we can carry. “I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.”

5-7 – How can you compare God to a lifeless piece of stone or wood. It is carried from place to place by human beings. They worship it and pray to it. They are greater than it and yet submit to it. I am the creator and ruler of all that is. I alone am greater than humans and deserve worship.

8-11 – Who can compare to me, says God. There is no one else at my level. “I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have planned, and I will do it.”

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12-13 – Even though you question me and resist me, I promise you I will fulfill what I have spoken. “I bring near my deliverance, it is not far off, and my salvation will not tarry; I will put salvation in Zion, for Israel is my glory.”

Questions:

1) Is Idol worship a kind of atheism? If an idol is something I control and worship only to serve myself, while I discard it if it no longer serves my purpose, what kind of faith is that? To worship God means that there is a give and take, consequences of betraying the relationship, but also true deliverance in a way beyond my personal resources or strength alone. God is the only truly Other, not just a reflection of my own needs and wants.

2) What kinds of idols are we tempted to have in our lives? Where do we put our faith, our hope and our love and attention? Is our worship of God unique and singular, or is it divided with the worship of other things, causes, people and sources of security?

For next week: read Isaiah 55.