Worshipping Idols: Dare I hand my self over to God?
What is so precious to you that you cannot hand it over to God? career? ministry? money? health? appearance? beliefs? your child? your self?
There is nothing wrong with having a career, pursuing our vocation or earning money. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look good, be well and have beliefs. There is nothing wrong with loving our child or our self — AND — anything good can become an idol.
An idol is something or someone we hoist to the crest of a holy hill, enshrine with glimmering foil and dig our fingers in as if our life depends on it.
What are your idols? What do you refuse to hand over to God?
True confession. I am clinging to the belief that there is something special for me to do. This is my idol and I fear it boils down to me, the doer! After all, I have had several careers and was given all that I needed to succeed in each. Surely there is something more for me to do? So I keep fishing for something, casting my net this way and that, hoping against hope to drag something to the surface, something to resurrect this ‘doer.’ What will happen if I hand this ‘doer’ over to God? Ironically, I have no idea how to ‘do’ it!
I believe this is the point of the infamous biblical tale of Abraham and Isaac. (See full text from Genesis below)
Few have received a gift more precious than did the elderly couple Sarah and Abraham. It was the gift of their son Isaac, born to them when they were no less than 90 and 100 years old respectively. Everything personal and everything transpersonal hinged on this elderly couple giving birth to a son. It was a matter of honor for Sarah, a middle eastern woman scorned for being barren. It was also a matter of fulfilling Abraham’s covenant with God, that he would be the father of all nations. So why in the world would the editor of the Hebrew Testament text include what is arguably the most prickly and perverse story in the Bible?
“God tested Abraham. God said to him, “Abraham!”… “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” What are we to make of this? Why would such a horrifying tale be spit from mouth to mouth until it is written down hundreds of years later? How do we sync this tale of God telling a good and faithful man to sacrifice his only son with the claim that God is love?
If God really is love, shouldn’t God be telling Abraham to wrap his son in cotton, put him in a closet so no harm can come to him? Why is the Bible full of so many ‘hard stories?’ ”For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” (Matthew 10.35–36). “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away…. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away…(Matt 5.30–31) Not to mention Jesus telling at least three people to sell everything they own and follow him. These are hard words. They are particularly ‘hard’ if we read them literally.
I believe these “hard’ Biblical teachings are mythic rather than literal. Myths are stories of human actions that seem to take place within history and have a semblance of reality. Myths operate on the psychological and symbolic level. They represent beliefs and values held by the group or culture from which they emerge. Myths are teaching stories, not historical accounts.
How do we hear these hard stories? As Cynthia Bourgeault points out, if we hear the stories literally with our small ego selves, our immediate response is, “No way.” (Wisdom Jesus, 51) From the perspective of our small selves, we cling to what we have, what is literally in our hands. There is no way we would agree to pluck out our eye, chop off our right hand, sell all of our possessions or sacrifice our child. But the ‘hard teaching’ stories are not literal instructions intended to dictate external actions.
These ‘hard teaching’ tales are about inner transformation. To ‘hear’ the deeper level of meaning intended by these stories we must learn to listen with our hearts. Listening with our hearts we realize we do not want to cling to anything that stands between us and God. Listening with our hearts we realize that whatever stands between us and God are our idols… our Isaacs.
What are your Isaacs? What are your idols? What will it take to hand your idols over to God, even when it means handing over your child or your very self?
When all reasonable hope of having a child was long gone (he was 100 years old after all) Abraham received the unspeakably precious gift of a son. Naturally, Abraham loved Isaac. He must have adored him. Perhaps even worshipped him. So God invited Abraham to grow into the place where he could hold Isaac with open hands, where he could give back to God what was God’s in the first place. Abraham had to realize that all that he had was gift and to cling to anything, even and especially that which was most precious, would separate him from God. In this mythic tale, Abraham did what was unthinkable. He bound his son Issac and handed him over to God. And God returned Isaac to Abraham, unscathed.
The binding of Isaac is a tale of the radical and reciprocal faithfulness of a man and God. Holding nothing back from God, God holds nothing back from humanity. In light of the fact that there is no separation between Humanity and Divinity, how could it be otherwise?
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All words are generated by grace and the grit of a real human being. Debra Asis
Genesis 22:1–14 God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.
When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”
