“Come on Jesus, you’re the man! Look what you can do with your power and your insight. You are the man, go for it.”

What a wonderful account of the moral struggle that Jesus faced. Matthew even imagines it as an actual conversation between Jesus and the devil. Yes, Jesus is the man; he is every one of us in the moral struggle that we all encounter of how to use the power given to us. It is a difficult balance: error to one side and persons deny the power given to them and cave in to the powers around them, even to the point of accepting abuse (“my lot in life”). Error in the opposite direction and persons abuse the power given to them by “lording it” over others. Jesus knew well of the struggles we face, the moral questions before us--what religious folk call temptations, those things that pull us away from the integrity of our faith and our lives. It is called power politics in other settings yet regardless of the titles, we all face profound questions of how we will play the game.

Matthew asks today: How do you use your power... as a parent, a boss, a worker, a consumer, a voter? And the story is of Jesus. “Come on Jesus, turn that stone to bread and take charge of the empire.” But Jesus said, “No. Away with you Satan!” He took his stand on a bottom line of faith: “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.” One God, no others, not even the little godlets of our own making. (Matthew 4)

The Ten Commandments begin with God. Curiously, the book of Exodus does not use the title commandments, it simply says “words,” words that give life. Unlike a traditional legal code--things like a 55 mile per hour limit, theft or tax evasion, namely, clearly defined behavior--the Ten Commandments include both items of clearly defined behavior and other words that are more along the lines of a perspective or orientation to life. It is difficult to prosecute idolatry and how does one prove a matter of attitude, namely coveting? There is little doubt that western law owes a debt to the Ten Commandments and to Jewish laws but the Ten Commandments begin not so much with the laws of the commonwealth but, as Joan Chittister writes, with “laws of the heart.” “These laws,” she concludes, “were meant to be more principles to live by than minutely defined proscriptions to be followed. These laws were clearly meant to shape a way of living, a lifestyle, an attitude of mind, a spirit of human community, a people.” (The Ten Commandments: Laws of the Heart, p. 9)

The commands begin with an affirmation: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” This preface is key to understanding what follows. The law (“words,” as Exodus states) is grounded in freedom, freedom from oppression. Then the first command: “you shall have no other gods before me. And, the second: “You shall not make for yourself an idol.” (Exodus 20:2-4)

Definition: an idol is any person or any thing that displaces God and claims the full honor and allegiance of the heart. An idol takes center stage, controls a life and displaces the truth of God as Lord and savior. Lives run by greed or relationships driven by domination and control are forms of idolatry for the freedom giving and just God is displaced by systems of domination. Greed and abusive power are fairly easy to identify. What makes idolatry so slippery is that good things can become idolatrous when they get all out of perspective. But, that is hardly news to a group of Protestants. Our beginnings as a church, separate from the Roman Catholic Church, were all about the accusations that the church itself can become an idol when the church blocks the truth and justice of the presence of God. Our ancestors came to the conclusion that the very church that they loved was losing its way and replacing the Spirit of God with a hierarchy and institution of human form. In response we rebelled, we protested and created new visions of being church.

The fact that the good can be warped and twisted into something bad is a haunting reality of our daily lives. Take love of family and love of nation. Such love can be wonderful and we spend a fair amount of time encouraging and nurturing such love. Yet, when twisted such love can displace God and suddenly family or nation become the center, above reproach and idolatrous. The signs of such idolatry are seen in xenophobia or the particular problem of America that we love the system of democracy so much that we’ll try to spread through the barrel of a gun. Signs of idolatry are these: claims of absolute truth, the silencing of dissent, the demonization of opposition, the concentration of power in one person, the demand of unquestioning loyalty. Christians understand such things not only as a abuse of power but as idolatry for they claim attributes that can only be held by God.

A difficulty with the moral life is that things meant for good can be twisted: like bread from stones and the powers of the world falling under Jesus’ reign. God is mysterious and evasive; idols are clear and tangible. As Chris Hedges writes:

“Idols comfort us, reassure us and empower us. They can be understood. Idols appear, when we worship them, to give us what we want. It is easier to have idols. It is harder to trust in the unknown, in the darkness, in the voice answering Moses’ request for revelation with the words: I AM WHO I AM”. (Losing Moses on the Freeway, p. 40.)

Sometimes we see through them. Following 9/11, when we were told to restore hope by going shopping, the shallowness of it all was overwhelming. Hope by consuming is glaringly inadequate. Most often idolatry is much more subtle and dangerous.

One of the tough ones is the idolatry of being good and virtuous. This is complicated and I venture into this domain with some trepidation out of fear of being misunderstood. There is no doubt in my mind that the Spirit of God calls us to justice, goodness and to lives of virtue. Faith calls us to goodness but... let me try this out in story form.

Some years back I remember a sign in a church fellowship hall that announced a special effort to help some disadvantaged persons. “We want to help” was the call and the energy. As I read more and listened to people I couldn’t help but wonder if the desire to be helpful wasn’t greater than the hope that the others would find life and independence. I know well of the satisfaction that comes with helping and being meaningfully connected with people seeking to improve their lives. I chose to be a minister in part because of the joy of such connections but, at the end, the purpose of my help is not about me. It feels good and is satisfying to help others but do we go off to the Stanton Center or Haiti to feel good or to be conduits of what God is doing in the lives of others?

Early in his life Chris Hedges went off to the extremely poor and violent neighborhood of Roxbury, Massachusetts to live and work in the ghetto. He was a student at Harvard Divinity School but instead of the dorm, he chose to live in a formerly abandoned manse in Roxbury. He had all good intentions and worked hard. He wanted to make a difference. Hedges writes; “All this was a long time ago. It was a time I dreamed of being good. But this was the idolatry of self, the worship not of God but of my virtue.” (Ibid., p. )

This idolatry of goodness before God and virtue before the complexities of the world swirls around perspectives of humbleness and openness. There is also the question of trust and faith. Is my trust placed with my ability to be good or in God? Or to be a bit crass: Does the hope of that child on Clay Street or in mountains of rural Haiti rest in some rich person’s generosity or in the justice and mercy of God? These perspectives on life turn on the sense of good fortune as blessing or as entitlement, as a product of mercy or possessed as supposed achievement. These complex relationships can also be summed up in another, very short story: the “uneducated” vendor I met in SOWETO spoke five languages.

We are invited to find our way... a faithful way, in the presence of God--one God, a God not of our design. One God, not all the little godlets of our own making but one God whom alone we worship and serve. Idols keep us at a distance from God and one another; God welcomes us to wonder, mystery and communion.

“I am the Lord your God who brought you out of slavery. .... You shall have no other gods.”