Day 146: Avoiding Idols

"Little children, keep yourselves from idols.  Amen."  1 John 5:21

I have always found this verse to be one of the oddest things in the bible.  It's the closing of a letter, but it seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the book.

John, as I said yesterday, writes all about the Antichrist and about God's love.  Idolatry doesn't really get all that much attention in the first letter of his.  The last two chapters talk all about Jesus and how to follow him, so I'm surprised that it doesn't end with a doxology (glory be...) or some sort of closing blessing.  Instead, the letter ends with a brief note.  It's as if John wanted to write a P.S. before the custom was popular (I'm not sure how letter writing conventions of the first and second centuries AD were).

But, when I think about it even more, the note at the end had to be important enough for him to include it.  I remember when I was in high school, playing in an orchestra rehearsal, the guest conductor was not happy with how somebody was playing Mozart.  In fact, he stopped and said, "You know, back then, paper was expensive.  Ink was expensive.  Writing music was tedious.  So, if there is a dot on each one of those notes, you'd better play each one."  Perhaps the same logic can be taken here, where paper was scarce, and literacy was low.  This note seems to be important.

The other thing about this note, though, is that John assumes that the readers know what exactly he's talking about.  And, if we as modern day readers think about it, we know exactly what he's talking about.  It seems that following Jesus does require some explanation, and the explanations that John has given us reiterate everything that Jesus has taught us: to love unconditionally.  But ridding our lives of idols, now that's an easy one for us to understand.  We don't need an explanation for that because we know what idols are.  We know that our faith is being stretched just as our attention span is.  We are drawn to money, to beauty, to celebrities, to many other things besides God.  Those idols tempt us each day.  The same thing has been happening all throughout history.  Read any two chapters in 1 or 2 Chronicles and you'll see that.  Look at the wisdom books in the bible and you'll see so much about not straying from idols.  Yet, we always need a reminder.

Perhaps, John is giving us an answer to a question that we'd have after hearing his statement.  It's a summary of the entire letter.  We have a way out of our temptations of all those other idols.  When we devote our lives to idols, we no longer have the time or the energy to love.  So, when we love as Jesus taught us, as John reminds us, then we will draw ourselves ever closer to God.

Day 123: Spiritual Awakening

"But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich."  Luke 18:23

I read something recently that said, "The truth hurts a lot before it feels better."  That's how I feel about this verse.

Jesus speaks to us all through a Gospel of truth that seeks to save us out of pure love for us.  Of course, the truth is the first part that is going to hurt.  It's going to hurt because it's getting us out of our comfort zone.  It's the thing that will call you out of your bed and into the streets.  It's what will reveal all the imperfections in your life that you have grown to become quite used to.  Jesus wakes us up.

I'm writing this from a hospital bed, where I have come to after quite a number of rounds of tests in order to find what's causing my stomach to feel bad.  I find that the Gospel works in the same way.  It puts us into sometimes seemingly uncomfortable situations in order for our doctor, Jesus Christ, to let us know what we need to do to improve.  Do we need to eat less of the gluttony that exists in our lives in the form of spending money and eating unreasonably exorbitant food?  Do we need to exercise more in our lives as spiritual beings, with prayer and reading?  Do we need to calm down from the stresses of life?  Jesus is there to tell us what to do and how to do it.

In this reading, we find that there is a rich man who is sorrowful after hearing that in order to attain ultimate spiritual greatness, he needs to give up his money.  I interpret this not so much as a condemnation of money, but as a condemnation of the care of money.  This man has defined himself by his money.  How many of us are guilty of similar things?  Do we like to show off our worth with our clothes, shoes, cars?  Do we like to flaunt our degrees with high language and off-putting, vacuous philosophical discussions?

Jesus is calling us to remember to care for all those around us.  We need to give our time, talent, and treasures to all of those around us in order to continue the work of the Kingdom of God.  We need to get up out of our comfort zones so that those who live in discomfort can have a breath of relief.  In fact, we might even find new relief when we find ourselves out in the world doing the work we are called to do.