Leaving the Idolatry of Money (Day 8: Second Sunday in Advent)

You shall not plant any tree as an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord your God that you shall make. And you shall not set up a pillar, which the Lord your God hates.

Deuteronomy 16:21-22

Before looking at St Paul’s guidance on eating food sacrificed to idols, we should remember that idolatry takes many forms but we tend to think only about the more extreme, like the Israelites worshipping a golden calf while Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments from God or the priests of Baal cutting themselves in a frenzy trying to get him to ignite a sacrifice supernaturally!

It is not necessary to bow before a lifeless image to be part of a cult. Idolatry tends to be communal but it does not necessarily require people to gather together. A material focal point is useful but not necessary because idolatry is more about ideology than artwork: it is a way of thinking.

It seems to me that most of the Israelites who practised idolatry in the Old Testament history did not give up being Jews: they still had their children circumcised and wanted to be married and buried in the Jewish way. They did not abandon their faith in Jehovah, only compromised it.

An idol does not have to stand on the same level as God to distract and compromise devotion to him. It can stand beneath him, just so long as it attracts some of the importance that rightly belongs to God alone. Nobody need think of Asherah as superior to Jehovah, the one true God, or even as God’s equal, only that Asherah had something to offer. This is why some Israelites planted Asherah trees next to altars dedicated to Jehovah.

Farmers might erect Asherah pillars in their fields. It did not necessarily signify serious devotion to Asherah, only the hope that she could bring a good harvest. (Many people today read their horoscopes without any real commitment to astrology.) The farmers may never have attended a shrine dedicated to Asherah but it was enough that they believed and the pillars signalled their hope to anyone who saw them.

Christians today do not think that money is more important than God but many of them seem to think it is important enough to distract and compromise their devotion to him. Some Christians and churches that think they are called by God to a special ministry or task, step out in faith and with the expectation that God will provide the money needed to do it. But many more seem to wait for the money before they step out at all, as if the financial provision is a necessary validation of God’s call.

This signals that those Christians and churches think no differently about money than anyone else. Christians living in a consumer society need to think as carefully about the ways they get and use money as, for example, Indian Christians offered sweets dedicated in Hindu temples or Chinese Christians asked to participate in meals where their ancestors are venerated.

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