Turning Away from Idols: 1 Thessalonains 1:1-10

 

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 (Exodus 32-33; Matthew 22:15-22)

Moses went up on the mountain and did not return for a month, all the while the people are waiting for his return at the foot of the mountain. As they are waiting they grow impatient. In their impatience they gather together all the gold they had, they melt the gold down and form it into a calf. They set the calf up in the center of the camp and declare to one another, “Here is [Yahweh] our God, who brought us up out of Egypt.” Then they build an alter before it, and offering sacrifices to it, giving thanks to it for their salvation, celebrating how it had rescued from slavery, and rejoicing in the way this god had worked out their redemption.

When Moses finally returns from the mountain with the covenant in hand and the tablets of God’s commandments, the first of which explains there shall not be any OTHER Gods and the second instructing the people to not make graven images. Now granted the people don’t know this . . .yet, but there is no small amount of irony or consternation when he finds them worshiping and giving praise to Yahweh, the calf god, for bringing them up out of the land of Egypt. Moses loses it just a little bit, throws down the tablets of the commandments and lets them know, in no uncertain terms, they have committed a terrible sin! And he returns up the mountain to speak to God on their behalf.

Moses is frustrated with the people; even so he speaks on to God, begging God not to abandon them, to not give up on them. He reasons with God, telling God if you abandoned them now, what kind of witness would that be to the Egyptians? They will think you are the kind of god who would lead your own people out of Egypt, only to abandon them and allow them to be destroyed in the wilderness. And so God agrees to remain with the people and also agrees to lead Moses as Moses leads them and then God reveals most of Godself (all but God’s face that is – for no one can see the face of God and live) to Moses, as a sort of assurance of God’s presence with Moses and with the people.

In Matthew, this morning, we read about two groups of people, who usually don’t get along, coming together in an attempt to trap Jesus.  So first are the Pharisees. Real quick recap on who the Pharisees are, they, in an attempt to be the holy people they know God called them to be, adhered to the strictest version of the Law in all things. When it came to understanding how one lived, seeking to live as God called a person to live, the Pharisees believed you could never be too careful. So they thought it was best to look at the law, see what it said, interpret it in the most conservative way possible and then in an effort to make sure to not even come close to breaking that law they would draw a circle around that law and then say, “Ok. I will not do anything within that circle, but then just to be extra safe, let’s draw another circle just a little further out and call everything inside that one, the stuff to avoid doing.

Then we have the Herodians, who are a group of Jews who have aligned with the political power of Herod Antipas. They put their hope for a peaceful Jewish future in Herod, who is sometimes called a “king” or a “governor” but in reality he was simply the governing official in charge of keeping the Jewish client state in line with Roman authority. Herod was a half Jew, but since he was Jew-ish, even though he spoke for and governed on behalf Caesar, he at least, on some level, made space for and allowed for them to practice their faith more fully than some other not-at-all-Jewish governing official might. They felt that aligning themselves with the political power of Herod gave them, as Jews, a voice in the political realm, and afforded them some semblance of stability and peace, which they might not otherwise have as a people living under Roman oppression.

So here in one corner you have the Pharisees the good ole’ fashion holiness people who did not at all support Herod and did not recognize his “false” Jew-ish-ness in anyway. He was only half a Jew at best and then, then he has aligned himself with their Roman oppressors. And in the other corner you have the Herodians, who have thrown their political and religious support behind this politician hoping that he could make life bearable for them. Herod might be a hard pill to swallow but they saw him as better than the alternative. And on most days these two groups would just go at it, come out of their corners punching and fighting, but in walks Jesus and they look at each other, nod their heads, and both turn on Jesus.

So they come to Jesus, hoping to trap him in the space between their two stances, asking him a question about whether not they, as good Jewish people, should pay taxes. And Jesus silences both parties by requesting a coin and then asking them whose image is on the coin. When they answer, that is Ceasar’s head on the coin, he tells them that a thing ultimately belongs to the one whose image it bears. Give to Caesar what is Caesars and Give to God what is God’s.

And with both those passages in mind we come to the beginning of Paul’s first letter to church in Thessalonica. Yeah, I did not forget that this was my sermon passage this morning. Paul founded the church in Thessalonica during his second missionary journey. Thessalonica was the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia. It was located on an inlet which served as a stopping point along a major trade route. It was a bustling city with a large and diverse population. Many different gods were worshipped in that city but the most popular cult was the worship of Roma, which was the deification of Roman culture and the Roman Empire and its values.

Paul tells us the people of the Thessalonian church are known to have turned from worshipping idols to serve the living and true God. In many ways the people of this church stand at the cross roads of Exodus 32-33 and the passage we read in Matthew 22 this morning. Their turning, away from idols, is a mirror reflection of that of the people waiting for Moses at the foot of the Mountain. In their waiting, the people of the Exodus had turned away from the living and true God to worship the idol they had created, going so far as naming the calf they had made “Yahweh-god.” Whereas the people who now make up the Church in Thessalonica turned away from the idols they had worshiped, the gods made with human hands and worshiped as true and real, to worship the living and true God who is revealed to them in Jesus Christ, who rescues them, delivers them and brings redemption to them. Where one set of people turned toward false idols, this other is now turning away.

But not only are these people, people who turned away from idols, but they turned away from the worship of Roma, the worship of the political state. They turned away from putting their trust in a political figure who was not only their hope but their god, who literally was seen as the bringer of peace and security. They learned the lesson which silenced both the Pharisees and the Herodian’s. You cannot put your trust in political and societal structures. They will fail you. When you put your trust in these things, you are holding up a graven image seeing it as the holder of hope, peace and salvation. All the time missing the one who is the very image of God incarnate who is right before you.

It is so easy to look at the people of God in Exodus and say, I would never make an idol for myself. It is so easy to know that we would never take up a collection of goods and bring them together to shape the form of anything and then tell ourselves this image we have made is the face of God (which learned in our passage this morning cannot be seen with human eyes). When we label them and discuss them it is easy to tell ourselves we would never be the Pharisees or the Herodians, trying to trap Jesus with our words, believing we are wiser than our savior.

Yet, any one of us might find that we are putting our hope in a person, who might not embody all we would want as a follower of Christ to be, but we are willing to hold our nose and say, “Close enough,” “Christian enough,” “Better than the alternative.” We might put our faith in a system in a structural body, believing that if this ideology comes out on top things will be set right. And when we do so we are worshipping Roma, we are putting out hope and trust in Herod, in Caesar. We are looking to the wrong thing, believing it will bear the image of the one who can bring us hope and peace.

Jesus is the image of God and it is in Jesus we find hope, and it is to Jesus to whom we are to commit and give all which bears the image of God, which “spoiler” is US! The story of creation tells us we are made in the image of God, making us that which bears Gods’ image, that which belongs to God and should be given over to God.

Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s sure, but more importantly give to God what is God. Give all that you are, all that you could be and all that you ever will be over to God. AND that is what Paul is telling us the people in Thessalonica have done. Paul came to them, they received the word, they turned from all their idols, from the idols made with their own hands, and they turned away from the idols of their country and empire, turned away from the idol of putting their faith in politics and political entities and turned away from looking to governing officials to bring them peace and security. And turned to worship, find faith in and trust in God, through Jesus Christ.

And in doing so their faith immediately was worked out lived out in all they did and all who they were. They labored to be people of love and steadfastly put their hope in Jesus Christ looking to him to bring salvation, hope and peace instead of nation, empire, political structures, or governing officials. There was no salvation to be found there and they knew it.

And as they lived out this transformational life, this holy life, this complete turning away from all they once sought, and in which they once found hope, they became examples to all those around them of what the life of  believer truly looks like. Their faith became real and vibrant. The witness of their words, their actions and their faith went out from them like a tidal wave, flooding into all the regions around them. Where they began by imitating Paul as he imitated Christ, they became those to which others looked as examples of holy transformed people, and others imitated them, seeing in them what it looked like to believe, to trust, to hope in Jesus Christ.

This morning we can be the people of the regions around Macedonia. We can hear the testimony of the people of Thessalonica. We can see them as a holy people, fully transformed in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and we too can see how the image of Christ is being lived out in their lives as they reflect the image of God. We can see how they have turned from all images of Caesar, away from putting hope in political figures, away from looking to societal structures, or government to bring peace or justice or any of other values of God and instead look to Jesus Christ, hoping in him alone. We too can know that it is only through Christ that any of this can be or will be found. 

Transformational life, holy living, is kingdom life. We cannot put our hope in the idol of Empire that is our country, our world, our society. Our hope, our trust, is in the kingdom of God. The justice we seek is God’s justice, one in which there is no Greek, no Jew, no male or female, no us and no them. God’s justice is a justice where all people can live in peace, in the peace of Jesus Christ. One in which all people live in the same safety and security, in which we can all walk in the light of day or the dark of night without unwarranted fear. And this justice does not come by gaining political power, or by putting our hope in the right governing figure. It does not come by trusting the systems and the structure of the world around us to change themselves and become right and just. It comes when the people of God turn away from the idols of politics and political structure, turn away from the idols we make with our own hands, or create with our own power, or attempting to gain that power, or broker it from those who hold it. It comes when we unite together and simply say, “No.” I will not worship the god of Caesar, or Herodias, the god of any political power, person or party and instead worship the one true God of the universe.

When we turn away from the idols of our land, of our country, of nationalism and political power and hope the God who brings salvation to the captives, who sets the prisoners free; when we turn from any idol we might set up in the place of God or worship, calling it God or “of God” and instead worship the God who LITERALLY heard the cries of an oppressed people and did not turn away from them, but freed them from their oppression, made them a people when they were not a people, who brought them redemption, and salvation.

We cannot worship any substitution of the one living and true God and hope that justice will come. There is no alignment we can make, no pact we can create with anyone who is not God and think that in doing so, we can become people of justice, or find the hope, the peace or the security for which we long. The only answer is the answer the people of Thessalonica found and that is turning away from all our idols to the true and living God and putting our hope in Jesus Christ alone! 

And then, when we as the CHURCH, as the people of God, do that, our testimony will ring out and be sounded forth from us into all the world around us. Our faith will be vibrant and alive and others will see the image of God in us, and the love of Christ lived out in all we are. We will truly be the Holy people God is calling all of us to be.