Chapter 10 - Idol Making
We have said that there are two repeated accusations against the people in the book of Jeremiah; idolatry and injustice. Chapter 10 focusses on idolatry, giving a poetic account of how the making and worshipping of idols is, in the words of the chapter, “stupid and foolish”. One of the voices of the prophetic tradition in religious history is that of mockery. You will see it often as a first step of resistance or dissent. Here it is God who is taking up a kind of mockery of the idolatrous practices of the people.
To paraphrase;
“Here is how it works. They cut down trees, actual living trees in forest, and then they cut them up and make little figures out of them, and then they decorate the figures, and then they call what they have made “god”, and then they worship the things that they have made.”
The history of humanity is that of a people fashioning objects of worship. We make statues and celebrities and we come up with a system of exchange that places value on work, and then we worship celebrities and idols and money. If you look at it, the opulence and bravado; it is as stupid and foolish now as it was then.
Upon reading a chapter like this I am led in prayer to ask about the gods that I have made for myself. Even religion can be an idol. We don’t have to look far to see that. Education can become an idol, home ownership can become an idol, work can become an idol.
You make a thing, you declare it of tremendous value and then you determine your value (and that of others) by that thing itself. Life is found not in idol worship, but in relationship.
The end of the chapter sounds like a prayer of Jeremiah. He seems to be re-describing the reasons for the terrible situation of the people. He asks God to destroy the nations that “don’t know God” as if that is the matter here. It really is not. The matter here is how the people called by God’s name have brought upon themselves destruction by worshipping things that don’t bring life.
Dear God; Help me to see the places of idolatry in my life. I can tend to set up what seem like more acceptable objects of worship. I have known, since I became aware of your presence, that the only life that I know comes from you. Though I have known that I so easily live as if life comes from elsewhere and at times I live in fear that if I lose this thing or that thing I will not feel alive. Thank you for your goodness, for life abundant. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
