“My God is Bigger than Your God”!?!????
I Kings 18:20-39
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
June 2, 2013
“My God is bigger than your God!” Bigger or stronger, better or truer or whatever other superlative you like. It’s the worst of religious chauvinism, a sentiment that has led to discrimination, war, and even genocide.
Given the realities of religious violence in our world, we find this biblical contest between the prophets of Baal and the prophet of the God of Israel troubling. It seems to give credence to the “My God’s bigger” way of thinking. It’s one of those passages thoughtful, open-minded people of faith like to pretend isn’t there. But here it is, the suggested lectionary reading for today.
Beyond its deleterious effect on interfaith dialogue, the passage is disturbing for its depiction of how God works in the world. The idea of a god who twists the laws of nature to set afire a water-soaked bull seems only a short leap away from the idea of a god who smites certain people and favors others with wealth. As we pray for tornado victims and try to build a more just society we find that idea of how God works repulsive.
So what do we do with this passage? The first thing is to be clear about what we don’t believe. It may be that the authors of 1st Kings were trying to say their God was bigger and more powerful than the gods of the people around them. But we don’t need to extrapolate from this passage and conclude that Christianity is better than Hinduism or Buddhism or Islam. Instead, we can reflect on the ways our different faith traditions lead us toward the Holy, using different paths that may emphasize different aspects of the Truth. We can acknowledge our own choice to walk the path of Christianity without denigrating another path. We can pause where the paths intersect and celebrate how the riches of other faith traditions can help us see our own with fresh eyes.
Similarly, it may be that the authors of 1st Kings believed God played favorites, circumventing nature to make the right team win. But we don’t have to. We can acknowledge their belief as how they tried to make sense of life, even as we reject the idea that fire or tornados or floods are signs of God’s favor or God’s wrath.
Being clear about what we don’t accept from this passage is only the first step. Like it or not, this reading is part of our sacred scripture–the holy story of our faith. And so we are called to ask ourselves what holy truths it offers for our lives today. The starting point for this task is to put the scripture into a wider cultural and historical context.
At first reading, the books of 1st and 2nd Kings appear to be history, tracing the succession of kings–from Solomon all the way through to the exile in Babylon–a span of about 400 years. A more careful reading reveals a strong theological message, which points back to the first two commandments revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai: You shall have no other gods before me; You shall not make for yourself an idol.
Elijah didn’t care that the Canaanite people worshiped Baal. He cared deeply–he was enraged–that his own king, Ahab, was encouraging the Israelite people to ignore the first two commandments their God gave them.
That insight helps me reclaim this story for today. It’s not about whether my neighbors worship Baal or are Jewish or Muslim or Hindu. It’s not about whether we appreciate Buddhist meditation or find beauty in the poetry of the Koran. It’s about the human temptation–then and now–to create idols and to worship them instead of God.
What is an idol? The American Heritage Dictionary lists four definitions: an image used as an object of worship; a false god; a person who is adored, often blindly or excessively; something visible but without substance. When an image—a statue or a picture or even a song or a poem—is used in worship to point toward God, that is not idolatry. It becomes idolatry the moment we forget the image is pointing beyond itself and start worshiping it as though it were God. It is idolatry when we take something limited—something we have created—and make it the object of our ultimate devotion, the recipient of our ultimate loyalty.
In ancient Israel the temptation to idolatry was strong. Images and statues of other people’s gods were all around. In the desert, when the Israelites got tired of waiting for Moses to come down from Mt. Sinai, they made a golden calf, remembering the statues they had seen their neighbors worshipping. The appeal of the calf was clear: instead of waiting around for a God they could not understand who refused even to be given a name, they wanted a god they could see and touch, a god they could grab hold of—literally and figuratively. Over and over again, the prophets of Israel called the people back from idolatry to the worship of God who was beyond their capacity to grasp–God who is beyond our capacity to grasp.
The temptation to idolatry is every bit as great in our world today, though it may take different forms. There is plenty of idolatry in church circles. In the Protestant tradition, we don’t have statues or icons, but we still manage to create idols. Some churches are inclined to turn the Bible into an idol. Others might idolize tradition, or a particular style of worship, or a mission statement, or a beloved pastor, or even the color of the paint in the sanctuary.
Clergy have been known to make idols of church attendance numbers, as though our worth comes from how many people attend church instead of from God. Or we can turn “keeping everyone happy” into an object of our ultimate devotion. Some of our idolatry is egregious and even absurd; some of it is subtle and hard to identify.
Beyond the world of church there are whole other realms of temptation—cultural, familial, personal. Every society faces the danger of turning money into an idol, allowing it to become the ultimate definition of our worth and the final arbiter of success. In our society, we are particularly prone to worship the false god of the perfect body. Then there’s the idolatry of fame, the worship of the false gods of success and security. Sometimes we turn happiness into an idol, worshiping it as though it were the most important thing in life.
Most of the things we tend to idolize start out as good things. Seeking happiness, success, and security; taking care of our bodies; having enough money to support ourselves—are laudable goals. The problem is when we turn them into gods, making them our ultimate goal, the main purpose of our lives.
I invite you to reflect on idols in your life. We all have them; it is only human to be tempted by false gods. Which ones draw you in and suck you dry? Which ones fool you into thinking they will give your life meaning?
If we read this story about Elijah’s contest through the lens of the Second Commandment, the prohibition against idolatry, then it does speak to our lives and our world. Together with the 450 prophets of Baal, we dance and shout and contort our bodies and our minds at the altars of the false gods we create. We read self-help books guaranteed to make us happy. We buy more and more insurance, hoping it will make us feel secure. We drive the coolest new car. We post our videos on youtube, hoping we’ll go viral. No matter how hard we try, though, the fire does not light. Our idols cannot fill the void in our lives. They cannot give our lives meaning.
As we reclaim this biblical story, we hear Elijah calling us away from the altars of the false gods, back to the worship of the One we cannot pin down and control, the One beyond all our notions of security or success or happiness. We hear Elijah promising us that this God is powerful beyond our imagining. Elijah’s method of proving that promise is an unusual one: he pours buckets and buckets of water over the altar and watches while God lights it up.
Fire from heaven—it’s a vivid metaphor for the power of God. It’s a deceptive one, though, because it can lead us to misunderstand the nature of God’s power. This particular passage is only one story out of hundreds in the Bible. As we look at the whole Bible–the stories of creation and exodus, the prophets and the psalmists, the teachings of Jesus and the letters of the early church–we discover the true nature of God. God’s power is not manifest in fire, or in tornado or flood or dramatic zapping action. God’s power is manifest in love.
So instead of God igniting an altar, God ignites a fire in our hearts, calling us to be instruments of peace. God’s power is made known in the gentle warmth of a volunteer serving a guest at Pearl Street cafe. God’s power is expressed in the stranger from afar who comes to help clean up after a tornado, in the musicians raising money for survivors of the Marathon Day bombing, in the passing of Christ’s peace in church.
And so the message is not “My God is bigger than your God.” Instead, we proclaim, “Our God–the God of Love–is bigger than all the false gods we worship put together.” God’s love is powerful enough to fill our emptiness, to heal our brokenness, to give our lives meaning and hope, peace, and joy.
Let us worship this God. Amen.