That wich we worship is What we are

[Apostle Charles Joseph]

Have you ever had the experience of talking on the phone with someone for several moments before realizing there’s nobody on the line? I did this recently when a friend called me on her cell phone.  I was making a point, pitching an idea, but there was no response. The silence felt awkward until I realized the line had gone dead. Even though I was alone at the time, I felt embarrassed, talking so enthusiastically into thin air.

The prophet Jeremiah says that’s what it’s like when you pray to an idol. You’re addressing your concerns to a block of wood or a piece of stone or a fashioning of metal. You might as well be worshiping a bottle of soda for all the good it will do you. In one translation, Jeremiah calls idol worshipers “complete idiots!”

Fortunately we’re modern people. We know better than to worship idols, to bow down to statues as though some god is hidden beneath the plaster. But do we? Look at the celebrity idols who fascinate us. I remember attending a Michael Bolton concert several years ago. It was a steamy August night. In the middle of the concert, Michael wiped his sweaty brow with a tissue and then handed it lovingly, with a flourish, to one of his screaming, adoring fans, who must have cherished it forever. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like worship to me.

Our idols take an infinite variety of forms—people, health, education, money, success, shopping. They are golden and beautiful, and we think that if only we can attain them, then we will be happy, then we will be safe. But they never quite deliver. People disappoint. We fall ill. The stock market refuses to answer our most fervent prayers.

Fortunately we don’t have to live that way, chasing every little god that comes along. Instead, we can fulfill our need for worship by bowing down before the one  Scripture calls El Chay, the Living God who transcends culture and time and who yet is present with us. This is the God who made heaven and earth and who fashioned each of us inside our mothers’ wombs. He is not the work of our hands. We are the work of his hands.