Idolatry of Self

By Norman Stolpe on 2/25/2013 5:05 PM

As I listened to Rick's lecture and conversation with Linda, I thought of these passages and wanted to post them, not knowing if they might or might not come up in our discussion on Thursday.

Deuteronomy 8:17
Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.”

1 Corinthians 4:7
What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?

Without trying to make a specifically political statement, I remember that not too long ago Elizabeth Warren got into some political hot water for saying basically what Deuteronomy and 1 Corinthians said. While she may have been promoting her particular political agenda (I know nothing about how she relates to God), an underlying principle here offends our human propensity to do it ourselves.

Ephesians 4.28
Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.

Classic welfare reform has as its goal for people to become self-sufficient so they are not a drain on society. This word goes beyond that to set a goal of people becoming contributors to those in need in society. The test is not "Can you take care of yourself?" but "Can you contribute to others in need?" And this goes way beyond economics. 20 years ago when my wife and I lived in the L'Arche Daybreak community in Ontario, we became quite acutely aware of how much those "mentally handicapped" core members contributed to not only the assistant members but to the people of the larger community around them.

In one congregation I served a man with significant mental health issues regularly came to worship with magic marker stigmata. Many in the congregation were uncomfortable with him. On one occasion when he was not present and people were talking about their negative reactions to his stigmata, I suggested that they think that those marks are signs of how fully he wants to identify with Jesus, and asked if any of us were so passionate about identifying with Jesus that people would perhaps think we had mental health issues? For a long time, I had a number of people tell me how helpful that insight was, how it helped them receive this man with greater comfort, and how he challenged them to grow as disciples of Jesus.

Ours is a generation of self-help, self-fulfillment, self-esteem, self-improvement, self-reliance and on and on. If put in the context of depending on ourselves and giving ourselves what rightly should be received and given to God, the danger here becomes an idolarty of self.

None of this negates hard work or mental health but puts it in context. In the wilderness, the Israelites still had to work by gathering manna and preparing it to eat. In the bounty of the Promised Land, they very quickly had to plant, cultivate and harvest. Farmers are among the hardest working people in the world, yet for all their work, they can't make plants or animals grow. They only enhanse conditions that foster growth, and they are dependent on gifts such as rain and sun.

To suspend harvest on Sabbath when a hail storm was impending was a powerful act of faith that recognized the harvest was really in God's hands all along.

In his commentary on the Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen observed (as have many others) that we are all something of the younger and older brothers. He said that the true prodigal (wrecklessly, prodigiously generous) is the father. While we certainly see the gracious God in the father, Henri also said that Jesus' story calls us to become the father, to dare to believe we can be the agents of God's radical grace.