The Second Commandment:
No Graven Images
November 16, 2008
The Reverend Anne Felton Hines
I know exactly when my obsession with shoes began. It was the day before my father’s memorial service 7-1/2 years ago. My two sisters and I were taking our mother shopping for an outfit to wear to it, as well as some nice shoes. As we waited in the shoe department at Macy’s for the sales clerk to help, I began looking at the racks of shoes on sale, and was caught by this pair that had only a clear plastic band across the toes. (Hold them up.) I will not tell you here what I call these shoes; suffice it to say that does not describe the image you would want of your minister!
Now, I had always wanted clear plastic shoes, because they were the closest thing I could get to Cinderella’s “glass slippers.” But this was the first time I’d seen any actually for sale. And while they cost more than – even discounted – I’d ever spent on shoes, these on display just happened to be in my size!
So taking that as a sign, I slipped them on and walked over to where my mother and sisters were sitting. “What d’ya think of these?” I asked, pointing to my feet.
My younger sister, Judith, exclaimed, “Oh they’re darling! You should definitely buy them!”
“But where in the world would I wear them?” I asked.
“You could wear them to Dad’s memorial service!” she said. Our older sister – who tends to be a bit more level-headed than either Judith or I in these matters – looked doubtful. But Judith persisted. “Dad would love them,” she insisted.
I turned to Mom; “What do you think?” I asked. “Why, I think your father would like them very much,” she said.
So I bought the shoes, and wore them to the memorial service the next day. When my younger brother saw them, he said rather sarcastically, “Well, those are sure appropriate for a memorial service!”
“Dad would’ve loved them,” I replied. And it was downhill from there. My next shoe purchase was only slightly more appropriate for Sunday worship – so of course, I’m wearing them today!
But you did not come to hear about my shoe fetish. If you read what this morning’s service was going to be about, you are expecting to hear about the second Commandment handed down to the Israelites from God, by way of Moses: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them, or serve them.”
A couple of weeks ago, we recalled how Moses led the Israelites out of slavery, to seek a land and a life that was promised to them by their God, Yahweh. After wandering across the desert for about three months, Moses climbed Mt. Sinai to meet with Yahweh and receive the first ten laws – or Ten Commandments – that were the sign of a Covenant between Yahweh and the Israelites.
But Moses was gone a long time, and the people grew tired of waiting. They began wondering if something had happened to him, or even if he’d just decided to skip out on them – take another route down the mountain and return to the nice life he’d made for himself before freeing his people.
To relieve their anxiety, the Israelites gathered up all their treasures that they had brought with them out of Egypt, and built themselves a golden calf – a new god that they could see and touch, a god they could worship.
Now, worshiping idols wasn’t new to the Israelites. According to William Propp, writing for the Oxford Companion to the Bible, the Egyptians, Canaanites and Mesopotamians believed that a god’s spirit inhabited a statue after it was consecrated, thereby causing the statue to move, speak, even sweat. The purpose of an idol, says Dr. Propp, was to allow the human being a vision of the Divine, and to help that person and their God focus attention on one another.
But Judaism broke with that practice when it adopted the second Commandment prohibiting “representation” of Yahweh, or any other gods, “in physical form.” Douglas A. Knight – also writing in the Oxford Companion – tells us that “the strict prohibition of idols is one of the most distinctive features of the Israelite religion.”
Knight also acknowledges that the line between idolatry and “permissible cultic objects may seem unclear.” He gives as an example the ark that the people built according to God’s orders, and which they kept in their sight on their journey. “The ark was considered not an idol,” says Knight, “but a manifestation of God’s actual presence.” The “criterion for the illicit use” of an object “lay in whether it was worshipped as a …substitute for Yahweh.”
And that’s where my shoes come in.
Was the Israelites’ “graven image” of God in the form of their golden calf any different from some of the “graven images” or idols we conjure up today – like my shoes? The people had become overcome with fear, with a sense of aimlessness while wandering in the desert. Being mere humans, they were easily distracted from their vision of freedom, of a new purpose in life, of love and compassion for themselves. And so they created something more immediate to worship. They found a substitute for God. Is that not what many of our behaviors and things become for us – substitutes for our understanding of the Divine?
Dr. Leonard Felder, a psychologist in West Los Angeles, has written a book called The Ten Challenges, in which he likens the second Commandment to “Breaking free of unfulfilling paths and habits.” He suggests that “the more fast-paced life becomes, the more our souls long for a chance to step back and gain a clearer perspective on what really matters.” But at the same time, we “get distracted or trapped by addictions and seductive habits…that eventually leave us burned out and dissatisfied.”
When I began wearing shoes that were more than the ordinary black, beige or white shoes, I began getting a certain kind of notice. People would bring me little gifts, like the plaque that says, “If the shoe fits, buy one in every color;” and cards with colorful shoes on them and the words, “All I want is peace on earth and really cute shoes!” And when I wear a pair of new shoes to church, they are almost always noticed – which means that I’m getting noticed! And somehow, that translates into worthiness.
But my shoes have absolutely nothing to do with whether I’m a good preacher or not; or whether I’m a loving pastor for you when you’re in need; or whether you can trust me to be honest. They do not make me a good minister. And they surely have nothing to do with whether I’m living my life with integrity – whether my relationship with God – with my “higher power” – is intact. Indeed, by idolizing shoes, I turn them into a substitute for God; I become distracted from that relationship and from my ideals, following instead a path that is ultimately a dead end.
I suspect we all have material things, addictions and/or habits that we’ve allow to become idols; shoes is not my only one! But some idols are far more dangerous than others, severely limiting our ability to make decisions in our best interest, and cutting us off from whatever it is we might call God.
This Tuesday, Nov. 18th, is the 30-year anniversary of the tragedy of Jonestown – a perfect example of idolatry allowing the clouding of people’s inner wisdom. Seeking to build a more peaceful and just world, the followers of Jim Jones were tricked by his charisma and his paranoia. Instead of worshipping their ideals, they worshipped this mere human being, taking on his dark visions and his sickness, believing finally that their only way out was mass suicide. It was the very thing that the second Commandment was warning against, and it had tragic consequences.
Far less demonic, but still, I believe, a form of idolatry, is the allegiance demanded by people promising spiritual or psychological enlightenment, if followers will only put their entire trust – and often quite a bit of their money – into that one person or program. We witness this in the fundamentalist preachers on television – or “televangelists.” Many so-called “mega-churches” are built around the preacher, rather than the community or even the overall ministry.
And in the ‘70s and ‘80s, a number of Unitarian Universalists – perhaps some of you here – joined “new age” movements like est – later re-named The Forum – or the Course in Miracles, etc. – which seemed to encourage worship of one person, or one book, with new language understood only by participants, and a belief that this way was the only way to enlightenment.
Participants became missionaries for the program, and I often felt as trapped by them as I did by born-again Christians trying to save my soul. It was very uncomfortable.
And now, since the election, I’ve wondered if those who oppose same-sex marriage, based on their religious beliefs, are practicing a form of idolatry when they focus all their attention on a few passages in the Old Testament, to the negation of the teachings of Jesus? Nowhere in the Gospels – which are the only places in the Bible where Jesus speaks – does he mention anything about homosexuality. Rather, the great teacher of Nazareth models inclusivity, by accepting everyone into his circle of friends – no matter how they were viewed by society. He loved them all.
So here today we have children around the world dying from war, famine, disease, and other tragedies. But in America we have people who – claiming God as their guide – are obsessed with a few words written centuries ago, that supposedly tell them to oppress a group of God’s children because of their sexual orientation. Is that not “bowing down” to idols?
Chris Hedges, in his book, Losing Moses on the Freeway, contends that, “We depend on our idols to give us order and meaning; to define our place in the world. They free us from moral choice,” he says; “determine right and wrong. Render judgment. We follow. We conform.”
In our response to those opposed to marriage equality, we must be careful not to succumb to the idol of self-righteousness or fear, and instead lead from a place of love.
The second Commandment recognizes the human longing for a relationship with something greater than ourselves – whether that be a God, or Nature, or our ideals; something that gives our life meaning. At the same time, it recognizes the human tendency to give up when the path to such meaning grows difficult. Dr. Rowland Shepard, professor of clinical Psychology at Kenyon College in Ohio, suggests that “the Ten Commandments…should be called the ten hardest things we try to do in life….The topics,” he says, “aren’t ancient history; they are the core issues most of us struggle with in our personal lives.”
What are the “core issues” with which you are struggling? What keeps you from claiming your spiritual practice, from staying on your spiritual path? What behaviors or things have you allowed to become “graven images” of the Divine? And can you imagine the freedom, the joy, the blessing you would experience if you could let them go, and turn your gaze toward the Holy?
I close with this poem by the Reverend Barbara Pescan; it is called “Blessing.”
• We spend so much time running from ourselves
• fleeing from what we know
• about the goodness in our hearts;
• we think we can escape the intelligence of our loving.
• Imagine you are standing before a bodhisattva –
• Jesus, Buddha, the first mother;
• It does not matter what you call the holy one –
• …Shining from their faces is the beam of
• All their questions, the compassion of their living.
• Can you see yourself through those eyes?
• Can we know each other like this?...
• Can we know ourselves seen
• and know each other this same way
• until our restless hearts learn to abide
• in this knowing and this love?
• Can we live in this gaze of blessing?
© 2008-2010 Anne Felton Hines. All rights reserved.
