No Idols

The Trinity (c. 1562), Tintoretto

What would you say is the most terrible sin? Murder? Adultery? Theft? Certainly, those are all very bad. Perhaps some of us would say something more general, like: pride, or greed, or anger. Again, all very bad. 

However, none of those are the most terrible sin. If you look through the Scriptures, the most terrible consequences do not come from violence or lust or jealousy, but rather from the sin of idolatry. The sin that God becomes most frustrated with is the worship of other, false gods. That is why the very first commandment that God gives to Moses and the Israelites is, in a sense, the most important one: “I am the Lord your God, and you shall not have other gods besides me.” Before anything else, God wanted Israel not to fall into idolatry.

Unfortunately, it seems that Israel often did just that. The Old Testament is full of examples of times when God’s Chosen People abandoned him and began to worship the false gods of other nations. They did so for various reasons: because they felt God had abandoned him, because they felt they were safe and secure and didn’t need God’s help, because they became too friendly with those who held beliefs contrary to theirs. Each time, they turned their back on a relationship with the living God and worshipped idols made of wood and stone.

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. Each year, after Easter and Pentecost, as we begin Ordinary Time again, this feast reminds us that like the Israelites before us, we are called to worship the one true God. Believe it or not, idolatry is still a major temptation even in our day. While most of us are not tempted these days to worship statues made out of wood and stone, but we are tempted by idols of different kinds.

Some of us are tempted especially by the idol of worldly things: we are dominated by a driving desire for money or possessions, by having a taste for the finer things, by rationalizing away why we cannot contribute to the poor or support our church. Others of us are inclined to the god of pleasure: we want to enjoy all of the wonderful things about life and none of the bad, and whatever makes us happy in the moment is what we set our sights on, even if it is superficial, fleeting, or even deadly. Many of us surely are attracted by the idol of prestige: we love to be popular and can’t bear to be thought poorly of by others, and we will compromise our values or tear down others in order for others to think well of us.

These are just a few of the many idols that are out there. If we look hard enough, each of us will probably find that there is something in our lives that we are making a god out of something that is not God. In that case, what do we do? Like the Israelites, we turn back to the true and living God. Fortunately, for us as Christians, we have the benefit of knowing something the Israelites did not know, something which Jesus revealed to us: that God is a Trinity of Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In ancient times, people had to develop stories about deities to explain natural world and how human beings came to be. But as Christians, we do not need to invent mythologies to tell us about what really is, because God has revealed himself to us. The most fundamental reality of all – something beyond the galaxies and the stars, beneath the atoms and molecules and quarks, before all else that is – there is a communion, a Trinity, of relationship. The eternal Son of the Father, Jesus Christ, has revealed to us the love of his heavenly Father, and through the Holy Spirit, he has won for us redemption from sin and death and given us the promise of eternal. Now, we too can share in the life of the Most Blessed Trinity – through the presence of divine grace, and the power of the sacraments, we too can become part of that communion of divine love that is the Holy Trinity.

In our Gospel today, Jesus tells the disciples that he has been given all power, all authority in heaven and on earth. He sends them forth, commanding them to go and preach and baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus wants all people to come to know the relationship of love and communion that is the Holy Trinity, and even more than know it, to become part of it. He relies upon us to continue that work – to share with those who are worshiping false gods the experience and knowledge of the true and living God. This is not just the work of priests and bishops. It is the duty of every Christian to orient our lives in such a way that others see that what we value most is not possessions, or power, or prestige – not any idol, whether physical or spiritual – but a relationship of love with the true and living God.

Friends, as we celebrate this Trinity Sunday, we should examine our own lives to ensure have not abandoned the worship of the true God for the false idols of pleasure, prestige, or possessions, or any other thing. At times, we can be tempted to turn away from the Lord: because we feel he has abandoned us, because we feel secure and do not need him, because the views of others can influence our own. But those occasions of idolatry can be resisted, if we recognize when they happen and renew our act of faith we have made in the one true God. The Lord has revealed to us his own inner being – the communion of love that is the Trinity, which he invites us to share, and to which he calls us to invite others. May the true and living God – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – help us to always keep our hearts focused upon him, in true worship and praise, so that one day we may behold him face to face.