By God’s grace, I have had the privilege of visiting the great nation of India on several occasions. My first trip took place in December of 2011 to the city of Warangal. The purpose of our trip was to visit with friends from across the nation who were attending a national gathering of Baptist youth in the region. While we were in the neighborhood, so to speak, we made the rounds to visit some historic locations and do a little shopping for gifts for family and friends who weren’t blessed to join us on the trip.
As we walked down the street during a break one afternoon, I noticed a shop filled with a menagerie of hand carved animals. I pointed it out to my American companions and we bee-lined for the door. Once inside, we watched as a man, using nothing more than a collection of knives, chisels, and mallets turned a small block of wood into an ornate Indian elephant. I had to get some for my wife and kids. We perused the store for a bit and each of us purchased several hand carved figurines. I myself purchased 3 small elephants like the one the man was carving.
As we made our way down the street, my Indian friend squeezed my arm and asked if he could ask me a question. He said, “I don’t mean to be offensive, but I must ask: why did you and the other pastors purchase idols at that shop?” I was genuinely confused. I asked him, “What idols are you talking about?” He then explained that the craftsman whose shop we had visited was carving idols representing various deities so people could worship at home. I felt a flood of embarrassment for failing to demonstrate any semblance of cultural intelligence and playing the ignorant American so completely. I quickly explained that in our culture, those elephants would simply be seen as decorative items or toys for children and nothing more; they certainly weren’t going to be treated as gods. The explanation calmed my friend’s concerns and we went on with our day without another word about it.
While we may not call them idols or believe we worship them, we have dangerous infatuations with athletic achievement, professional and academic advancement, public personalities, political power, and a host of other evidences of human greatness.
That interaction has stuck with me. I still have those hand-carved elephants to this day. Every once in a while, I’ll catch sight of one of the wooden figurines and feel a mix of shock and sorrow that there are people in the world who are led astray by something so simple. Any sense of cultural superiority quickly melts away, though as I consider the long list of ridiculous idols we choose to bow down to here in America. While we may not call them idols or believe we worship them, we have dangerous infatuations with athletic achievement, professional and academic advancement, public personalities, political power, and a host of other evidences of human greatness.
In Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13, Jesus warns that “You cannot serve both God and mammon.” Mammon is a word that is hard to pin down. In many modern English Bibles, it is translated simply as money. Throughout history, Christians have associated mammon with gluttony, materialism, greed, and worldly gain. Some believe the word is actually a proper name, referring to a spirit or demon of greed. Others believe it is a variation of a Hebrew word meaning “that in which one trusts.” All options have their merits, but I prefer the last. It presents mammon as a placeholder for any idol that draws our attention away from the Lord God. Often, as all definitions of the term suggest, those idols find their genesis in our own hearts and minds; our own appetites and drives become the false gods that lead us astray.
We must make every effort to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, because where we focus, our lives will follow.
In Matthew 6:22-23, Jesus says, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.” Jesus is warning, not about what comes out of our eyes, but about what we let in. He’s encouraging His followers to be aware of that which is demanding and dominating our attention. We often struggle to recognize an idol when we see one. It’s understandable and of little concern when we’re walking the streets of a foreign context; there’s not much of a draw to worship a hand-crafted animal representing an unknown foreign deity. It’s much more of a danger when we fail to recognize the idols hidden within our own thoughts and desires. We must make every effort to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, because where we focus, our lives will follow.
