Devotion for Saturday Before the Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany, Year B (ELCA Daily Lectionary)

Above:  Jesus Healing the Man with the Withered Hand

Image in the Public Domain

Idolatry and Legalism

FEBRUARY 3, 2024

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The Collect:

Everlasting God, you give strength to the weak and power to the faint.

Make us agents of your healing and wholeness,

that your good may be made known to the ends your creation,

through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.  Amen.

–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 24

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The Assigned Readings:

Isaiah 46:1-13

Psalm 147:1-11, 20

Matthew 12:9-14

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Hallelujah!

How good it is to sing praises to our God!

how pleasant it is to honor him with praise!

–Psalm 147:1, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)

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An idol is anything (tangible or otherwise) which takes the place of God in one’s life.  Thus an idol can be a doctrine, an activity, an object, or a figment of one’s imagination.  It need not necessarily be bad; it can be inherently neutral, in fact, for how we think of it makes it an idol.  I am convinced that the Bible is frequently an idol, given how many people put it in the place of God.  The sacred anthology ought, of course, to function as an icon–something through which one sees God.

We read of two different types of idols in the lessons for today.  There are old school false deities and images thereof in Isaiah 46.  Monotheism took a long time to take hold among the Hebrews, hence the many condemnations of idolatry in the Old Testament.  Our Lord and Savior confronted the idol of legalism in Matthew 12:9-14, for he healed on the Sabbath.  Rules said that he should have done that on another day.  To save a life and to provide the most minimal first aid on the Sabbath were “legal,” but healing was not.  Yet, as Jesus demonstrated every day is a good day to perform a good deed.

I suspect that legalists think of themselves as righteous seekers after God.  They are simply following the rules, I think they tell themselves.  Yet they mistake the means for the end.  And, as a result, they often oppose compassionate deeds on a technicality.  As I wrote in the previous post, alleged orthodoxy means far less than sound orthopraxy.  And, if God is love, is not compassion sound orthopraxy?

May we reject all idols, including those which seem to be of God.

DECEMBER 1, 2014 COMMON ERA

THE SECOND DAY OF ADVENT, YEAR B

THE FEAST OF NICHOLAS FERRAR, ANGLICAN DEACON

THE FEAST OF SAINT CHARLES DE FOUCAULD, ROMAN CATHOLIC HERMIT

THE FEAST OF SAINT EDMUND CAMPION, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR

THE FEAST OF SAINT ELIGIUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST

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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2014/12/06/idolatry-and-legalism/

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