The Second Commandment

Exodus 20:2-6

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.  You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

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It was the summer of 1566 in the Dutch Lowlands when mobs of Reformed Protestants embarked on a rampage of destruction. What were these Reformed Protestants looking to destroy? Well, they were on a mission to destroy Catholic icons, crosses, and other sacred art. The Beeldenstorm, or the Great Iconoclasm, was a period of during the Second Reformation.  Reformed Protestants targeted Catholics, Lutherans, and even Orthodox churches over their use of religious iconography. The driving force of these riots, which spread to several other European countries, was spurred on by a Reformed interpretation of the Second Commandment. What belonged and didn’t belong in our worship of God was an essential question as Reformed Protestants clashed with the Catholic Church and similar traditions. Images possess meaning, in case you didn't know that already, especially if they become an item of our worship. And if we aren't paying attention, then the temptations of life may become the center of our affection. 

Of course, it should be made clear from the very beginning that we shouldn't go around hacking up other people's crosses or other sacred art out of a sense of religious fanaticism. What we should be doing, however, is channeling the question that Reformed Protestants asked themselves, which was, "What is our object of worship? Are we worshiping God or, are we making something in the form of something more appealing to our desires?" If this question sounds familiar, it should because it's closely related to the First Commandment, which we looked at last week. The First Commandment tells us to follow God and God alone, and this week we hear the Second Commandment, which reminds us to avoid making an image of the God our heart has chosen to follow. The tricky part is that the idols or other graven images the Second Commandment prohibits do not always come in the blatant form of a giant golden calf. 

The danger is that the tools we use to help our worship can become the object of our worship. When I talk about worship though I'm talking about a holistic act, it could be something we use or do  on Sunday, but it could be what happens throughout the week as well. For example, King Jeroboam in the Book of I Kings constructed golden figures set on pedestals to represent God who was invisible; however, they soon began to revere the golden figures, instruments of worship, instead of God. The gifts we have received (i.e., material wealth, power, privilege, influence, etc.) are all things that we can utilize to the glory of God. Yet, they can quickly become things that become the center of our attention, dare I say, the center of our worship. We may think then that what we are doing is in the name of God, in the name of worshiping God, but we couldn't be farther from the truth.

If we looked around, could we name the idols of culture or the idols in our hearts? Perhaps wealth has become our idol, an idol that comes at the cost of human lives and the beauty of God's creation. Maybe it's a sense of power that has become our idol, and when others challenge that power, we feel threatened. The struggles of idolatry continue into the New Testament, where we hear once again that objects of worship created by our hands are not living and cannot compare to the light and the life that comes from God. The Second Commandment is a call to challenge the norms we face regularly. Material goods, power, and so on, they are not objects to be worshiped. God continues to journey with us, offering life and love, and so it is our task to reform the ways that the tools of our worship have become the objects of our worship. Doing so is counter-cultural and revolutionary, but necessary if we are to proclaim the love, justice, and mercy of God. 

There is a trajectory to the Second Commandment, which presents a Venn diagram of sorts for us to consider. On the one hand, we find a political or an earthly realm, the kingdom of Caesar, and on the other, we come upon the heavenly realm of God's Kin(g)dom. Somewhere in the middle, we discover ourselves walking on a tightrope. The Kin(g)dom of God doesn't dismiss the reality of our world that requires the use of money and other goods, but it does as that we stop and ask if they have become idols, objects of our worship because the realm of Caesar can all too easily turn into a god. The Second Commandment orders us to call out greed, call out abuses of power, and corruption, because it keeps us on track to living as faithful citizens in God's Kin(g)dom that offers life, salvation, and freedom to all people, unlike the corrupt kingdom of Caesar. 

The annals of history would remind us how every time we created something where we could place our trust, our faith, things went awry. And while we may think of idols as being in the form of some ancient statues made out of gold and silver, they are all around us today, causing vast amounts of suffering and destruction, some doing so even in the name of God. May the Second Commandment compel us to do better, to live better in the name of God. Living out the Second Commandment is an ongoing task, one that requires a community of imperfect people striving to follow the will of God. So let us go and unveil the places in our communities, church, and world where idolatry has caused harm and suffering, and work to root out such evil so love, the love of God, and the love we have for one another, has a place to grow. Amen.