Modern Idols (3rd Pentecost / Proper 8C)
- Guillermo Arboleda
- Jun 29
- 7 min read
Updated: Sep 5
A sermon by the Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda, written for and delivered at All Saints' Episcopal Church, Tybee Island, GA, on Sunday, June 29, 2025, which is the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost (RCL Proper 8, Year C).
Primary Bible Readings
Psalm 16
1 Protect me, O God, for I take refuge in you; * I have said to the Lord, "You are my Lord,
my good above all other."
2 All my delight is upon the godly that are in the land, * upon those who are noble among the people.
3 But those who run after other gods * shall have their troubles multiplied.
4 Their libations of blood I will not offer, * nor take the names of their gods upon my lips.
5 O Lord, you are my portion and my cup; * it is you who uphold my lot.
6 My boundaries enclose a pleasant land; * indeed, I have a goodly heritage.
7 I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel; * my heart teaches me, night after night.
8 I have set the Lord always before me; * because he is at my right hand I shall not fall.
9 My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; * my body also shall rest in hope.
10 For you will not abandon me to the grave, * nor let your holy one see the Pit.
11 You will show me the path of life; * in your presence there is fullness of joy, and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.
Luke 9:51-62 (NRSVue)
51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for his arrival, 53 but they did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54 When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” 55 But he turned and rebuked them. 56 Then they went on to another village. 57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 And Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Modern Idols
By the Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda, Program Manager for New Starts, ELCA
2 All my delight is upon the godly that are in the land, *
upon those who are noble among the people.
3 But those who run after other gods *
shall have their troubles multiplied.
The Old Testament prophets frequently preach against worshipping other gods because it was a major problem in ancient Israel. If you pay attention, you will see references to idols and false gods all over the Bible, including in the portion of Psalm 16 I just re-read.
Do these texts about idols still matter? Are they relevant to us? Isn’t it easy not to worship another god? I just come to church and I worship the one true God, right? For what it’s worth, our God is the same God who Jews and Muslims worship, though we Christians believe that God is the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So other churches, Jewish synagogues, and Muslim mosques are all at least focused on the same God, not an idol. It’s not like there are lots of alternate temples or shrines to other deities around us here in Tybee Island, right? Setting aside that many Christians around the world live in more religiously diverse places, you might think that here in America, we don’t have this problem.
But worshipping other gods was a big problem in biblical times for different reasons than you might think. Worshipping other gods hardly ever replaced Israel’s God. The biblical people mostly did not think they were rejecting their God. They were just adding some other gods on the side. They were blending in some Baal worship, some Molech worship, some Venus worship, some Zeus worship – a sprinkle here or there can’t hurt.
Once again, you might be thinking, “Thanks for the history lesson, Fr. Guillermo, but what does that have to do with us?”
Jesus and Paul help to clarify this for us. Because false gods don’t always look like gods. They don’t always seem religious. But they can be. In our context, idols are often a metaphor for anything that splits our loyalties and distracts us from devotion to God and God’s will for the world.
57 As they were going along the road, someone said to [Jesus], “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 And Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Jesus asked people to follow him, and they failed to do so because of their obligations to family and friends – Let me bury my father first, or Let me say goodbye to my family first. Loving your family and your friends is not bad, but it can get in the way of our true calling. And there are plenty of other things out there begging for our ultimate loyalty. Things like sports teams and corporate brands, celebrities and ideologies, political parties and nationalism can all demand loyalty in ways that are more harmful than helpful. You don’t have to renounce your Christian faith for these loyalties to get in the way of loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself. These idols try to deceive us in the same way as people in biblical times: you don’t need to replace your God; you just devote yourself to me on the side.
Idolatry is about our priorities being backwards. When my happiness or my family or my wealth become so important that I’m willing to put other people down, we’ve crossed over the tipping point into sin. When I care more about beating somebody else than I care about the common good, I’ve already lost. When I’m willing to ignore, demean, or abuse others to get a leg up, I’m worshipping the false god of my happiness. I’m bowing before that idol instead of worshiping the God who made and loves the universe infinitely and unconditionally.
False gods draw us toward selfish motivations, toward pursuits of power, wealth, and what St. Paul calls, “desires of the flesh.” In the Common English Bible, Galatians 5:19-21 reads, “The actions that are produced by selfish motives are obvious, since they include sexual immorality, moral corruption, doing whatever feels good, idolatry, drug use and casting spells, hate, fighting, obsession, losing your temper, competitive opposition, conflict, selfishness, group rivalry, jealousy, drunkenness, partying, and other things like that.”
When reading that passage, it’s easy to be distracted by the things that many Christians wag their fingers at, like sex, drugs, and alcohol. We can have a nuanced conversation some other time about those things. But today, I want to draw our attention to the less “scandalous” items on Paul’s list that are just as, if not more, destructive to communities: hate, fights, competitive opposition, conflict, selfishness, jealousy, and rivalry. Idolatry looks like that. It brings out the behaviors in us that harms ourselves, our loved ones, and the earth around us. Idolatry can hurt families, churches, cities, and even countries.
There are social, cultural, economic, and political forces that drive us away from God’s love for all of creation. The idol of conventional beauty standards might lead us to be ashamed of our own beautiful bodies, shame the bodies of people around us, or alter our bodies with fad diets and medical procedures. The idol of consumerism might lead us to crave more stuff that we don’t need and be less generous to people experiencing real poverty. The idol of greed might lead corporations and governments to deprive people of life-saving resources to increase bonuses or balance budgets. The idols of “law and order” and xenophobia might lead us to kidnap, detain, and deport peaceful people from a country they call home and put them in harm’s way. The idol of party loyalty might lead us to support wars we vocally opposed only days earlier or lie about a politician’s physical and mental health. We have to be very careful when the idols’ values become normalized.
Because our north star is the God who loved us enough to become a human being and then set his face toward Jerusalem. Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, willingly marched toward his death in order to free us from the power of death, so that death does not have the last word. Jesus faced people overcome by their idols of religion, empire, and greed, and Jesus laid his life down for the sake of love.
Now, through Christ Jesus, we are called to live by the fruit of the Holy Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 3:22-23, NRSV). Idols will never lead us to the fruit of the Spirit. And when we fail to show the fruit of the Spirit – whether in a family, in a small church like this, or in a town, city, or country – we might be captive to the idols of our selfish motives. Let us pray that God gives us the courage to speak the truth about the selfishness we see in others and the selfishness we see in ourselves. Let us pray that God gives us the grace we need to lean into the fruit of the Spirit in our private and public lives. Amen.
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