The Secret of Idolatry

Amos 6: 1a, 4-7
1Tim 6:6-19

The passage we read in 1Timothy 6 talks about not loving riches more than God and how to be a person of God. It's some really good advice.

It reminds us how easy it is to be idolaters, in fact, much of our society has become about worshiping things rather than God. If we begin with tv shows, we'll skip past American Idol that has idol in its name and think instead of reality tv stars like the Kardashians or the Hiltons. We follow them and enjoy seeing pictures and hearing about their lives and their children and the clothes they wear and we enjoy them so much that tv producers have created shows to help us indulge in our fascination with these people.

Now let's talk about tv shows that aren't reality tv. The Vampire Diaries and Breaking Bad and all these other shows that we simply MUST WATCH AS SOON AS THEY COME BACK ON! And how teenagers post pictures in tumblr and adults write posts on Facebook and everyone talks about it at the water cooler at work. We learn that we can escape our life and we begin to crave that escape to such a point that it becomes more important than doing things with our family or praying to God.

Let's talk about music. This one in particular I'm guilty of because I do not go anywhere without music handy. ANYWHERE. Every single time I'm in the car, the radio goes on or Pandora gets plugged in. EVERY TIME no matter if I'm going ten feet or ten thousand. Many of us go to concerts and we follow the bands on Facebook and twitter. I spend more time listening to music than I do anything else. Music has become such a huge part of what makes me who I am that I'm not sure what I'd do without it. (That is a scary statement to make about something so trivial as music... shouldn't I be able to say the same thing about God and MEAN IT like I do about music? Shouldn't we all?)

What is your vice? What is your idol? Some of us have more than one.

Food has become a major topic lately in the health world because people are talking about how there are teenagers and adults who eat too much or do not eat enough. If we were to talk to these people we would hear things like they spend all day long thinking about food and thinking about the calories in food and how much exercise it takes to get rid of a chocolate bar. There are others who will admit that when they are stressed or upset they find themselves reaching for food to make them feel better. They have idolized food and made it their way of coping with life.

Food and music and tv shows should not be the things we think about all day long. But there's more idols than just those such as body image. There's nothing wrong with worrying about taking care of your body - God did call it a temple after all. But we obsess. How many calories are in that pie? How many minutes of exercise so I can eat it without guilt? What can I wear to hide my huge thighs and cover my fat rolls? What makeup can I wear to hide those lines on my face and what clothes can I wear to look more professional? I think I'm getting white hair, I need to dye my hair. What color should I dye my hair? Does any of this sound familiar? Have any of you obsessed about your body and face and the image you present to the world?

Then there's Social Media, and the many moments we spend thinking about it. Wanting to check Facebook and see what our friends are up to and if anyone has liked our posts. Our inability to go a moment without posting or tweeting about what is happening in our lives. Our constant desire to see what others are doing and so we get online to check out what they are doing tonight. And if we happen to get bored we do not read a book or sit quietly, instead we reach for our cell phones and begin texting people until someone responds so we don't have to spend a moment alone or bored.

These are all idols because they are things that are more important in the course of our day than anything else and maybe we would deny that they're more important, but the amount of time we spend thinking and worrying about them tells us the truth. It should alarm us how our connection to people and to God have become sublimated by things. Our possessions are way more important to us. Humanity has always been this way to some extent which is why a 2000 year old text can still be relevant today.

It's not that money is evil, the having or even the wanting to have it. It's what we DO with the money when we get it. It's what we have DONE to obtain the money or what we TRY to do to get money. Because we want money so we can possess things. And there is nothing wrong in owning a nice car or flat screen television. However, do we help others? Do we care about what happens to the world and if we care, do we act? Do we offer ourselves for a weekend to Habitat for Humanity? Do we give our canned goods to the food pantry? Do we help out at the homeless shelter and do we make time for our friends and family who need real relationships with us and not just the occasional text?

Idols slowly take over our lives without us even being aware. It's insidious and once it has us it's even harder to let go because we make them all seem so innocent. "I just watch Breaking Bad, I am not a tv junkie like some people!" "I just listen to music because it's too quiet for a 2 hour drive." "Everyone has to eat, so what that I like to eat pie instead of broccoli? I exercise!"

None of these things are bad in moderation. It's when they become all we think or care about that we have gone wrong. When we can't wait to get home so we can eat that pie or watch that show. When we can't sit in silence because we might start thinking about things we don't want to think about and so we flip on music to silence our inner reflections.

Whether we are Christians or atheists, when things become more important than people and our connections to them - that's a problem. Easy idols are things like drugs and alcohol and sex - everyone knows there are people with THOSE kind of problems and some of us have sympathy and some of us think we're better than that. But we're not. None of us are. We all have something we depend on to get us through life and more often than not it isn't our family, friends, and God. Whatever it is - that would be your idol. And idols will destroy your life even while they pretend to make them better.

What is truly important are the people who love you and who you love. What is truly important is God. Not that we treat them like they're the most important thing in our life because if we're honest, we don't. But maybe the first step in fixing that is being aware of the things we dwell on most in our minds and making sure they do not take up more space in our hearts and minds than they should.

And as a church, we need to start looking around and thinking about the things we have considered more important than God and what God wants us to do. For example, we do not have adequate handicap access into the sanctuary. I have been told by multiple sources the reason for that is because it was expensive to do and because it might mess up how pretty our church looks outside.

In the last month we have had four funerals and two of them have been here at the church. There were several people in wheelchairs that needed to get into the sanctuary. The chair we use to get them down the stairs is awkward to work the first time and the person in the wheelchair sits and looks at it and us helplessly and with no little embarrassment as we try to figure it out. Then, we have to make them get up out of their wheelchair to this tiny chair that will lower them down or take them up. We need to move their wheelchair and make sure to not hit them in the process since they are suspended in that chair, waiting for access to it. It's slow and it's not big enough for a heavy person and it will not work if the person cannot get out of the wheelchair on their own.

Because we do not want to spend the money and/or do not want to make our church less pretty, we have basically told anyone in a wheelchair that they are not TRULY welcome here. We do not consider their safety and comfort more important than money or aesthetics. This is our idol as a church and after I saw the embarrassment on that woman's face as we tried to get the lift to work, I realized we need to address this.

We need to start talking about it. We need to remember what God has called us to do; to NOT put riches and idols above our Christian duty. I have been told by others who are getting older that going up and down even those couple steps is becoming more and more painful, and they will never use that lift.

And it's not just older people that are in wheelchairs or find stairs difficult to navigate. There are all ages. We are called to welcome people, all people who are different from us. It is very important that we relook at this and think again about how we are the only church that is not fully handicap accessible and what we are saying to those outside this church by not working on it. Whether we meant to be hurtful or not, we are causing others pain.

As your pastor and as a Christian, I think this is something we have neglected to look at properly. My hope is that we can revisit this and that we will educate ourselves about what it would take to make everyone feel welcomed, comfortable, and accepted inside our church.

Amen.