Sermon from Worship on August 22, 2021, Lectionary 21

Have you heard the midrash about the young Abram and his father Terah? Many thousands of years ago human civilization was beginning to develop in the fertile crescent, that is, in the area of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Some human beings were able to specialize in trades as a result of a developing economy centered on agriculture. One such man was named Terah. He had sons: Abraham, Haran, and Nahor. They lived in Ur. Terah was an artisan. He made the most beautiful statues of gods and goddesses. He worked with stone and clay. All the people knew that he was the most gifted artisan in Ur. Furthermore, the power of the deities were attested to as well. They were supposedly efficacious at receiving offerings and influencing nature. It was widely regarded that they were not merely stone objects but vivified beings; powerful deities who were alive. 

Abram was the most precocious of Terah’s sons. He would ask unusual and difficult questions of his father Terah. He wanted to know in detail how the deities worked. When did they come alive? At night? Could you see them? It was bothersome to Terah that Abram would hone in on contradictions and question the long held traditions of Ur. Occasionally Abram would wonder out loud if there was only one God. Again and again Terah would lecture Abram that he must stop with these foolish questions. Their entire livelihood depended on the fact that everyone believe and not question that the deities were real. 

Then, one day, when Abram was a teenager, something monumental happened. His father Terah asked him to watch the shoppe while he went out to run some errands. While the father was away Abraham impulsively took a hammer and began to smash to pieces all of the deities. He smashed the large ones, and the small ones. He smashed the expensive and the economical. He smashed statues and images that appeared like men, women, and animals. He smashed them all to bits except for one. He left one idol untouched. He rested the hammer in the idol’s hands and then took a seat on a stool in the corner of the shoppe, put up his feet and relaxed. A while later Terah came back to the shoppe. His eyes grew as big as an owl’s and he put his hands on his head while he squatted down on the ground and yelled at the top of his lungs: “What did you do!” He stood up turning on his heels rounding on Abram staring at him with bloodshot eyes. Abram sat slouched a little and in a soft voice and gentle eyes said, “I didn’t to anything father. That one god over there did it all.” He pointed at the statue with the hammer in its hands. “It is powerful and alive, isn’t it father?” It’s no wonder they left Ur and headed to a promised land. 

Have you ever noticed that it is kind of impossible to control people? Why is it that the harder and harder you try to tell somebody something the harder and harder they resist? 

God has told us as humans repeatedly not to worship anything other than God; and yet we keep doing it. 

“I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods. You shall not make false idols.”

Hundreds of years after Abram, Joshua gave his big speech at Shechem. Joshua reminded the people of Abram and how he led his family in leaving behind idols on the banks of the Euphrates. That was when a move from polytheism to monotheism took place. Kind of. Joshua’s speech was very inspirational. All of the tribes stood at attention and pledged that from this day forward we will leave all of the idols behind. They really meant it this time! If they quit once, they can quit again! 

Have you ever asked yourself: What’s the problem with idolatry anyway? Why is that commandment one? Are we supposed to criticize, judge and feel superior to polytheist