Avoiding the idols
Thumbnail Image by chatst2 from Pixabay
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
May 10, 2026—Easter 6A
Acts 17:22-31 ; 1 Peter 3:13-22 ; John 14:15-21
“Athenians,” Paul said, standing at a shrine to Ares and the political heart of the city, “I see how very religious you are!” He then goes on to tell the story of salvation, connecting it to various elements and concerns within their own philosophies and religious tendencies. And no matter what I might think of Paul on a number of issues, I am ever impressed by his ability to approach people with an attitude of curiosity: the desire to learn and understand, rather than judge and dismiss. He knew that you have to understand what a person’s bad news is, before you can tell them the good news. Knew how to speak to people in a way that drew them in without putting them on the defensive.
So, here, we find him congratulating the Athenians for their altar “to an unknown God.” For in this they have (albeit unknowingly) been worshiping the God who created all things, the God who gives us breath, the God who calls us to righteousness. In this they have seen beyond their gods of gold and their edifices of stone, and glimpsed a reality far larger than their many gods of war, and nature, and hearth and hunt.
They have been turned toward the God of all, whether they knew it or not. Which is, to be honest, a word of hope. Because there are idols all around us, too, whether we recognize them as such, or not. And if we’re honest, we give these things a fair portion of our hearts, our attention, and our allegiance. We turn our faces towards them, and orient our lives around them.
So, it is helpful to hear both the assurance and the warning that Paul offers the Athenians today: that some of these things help point us toward God, and some of them point us away. To borrow the phrase from Peter, there are things we say and do that bear witness to the hope within us, and things that deny or destroy it.
It’s the presence of hope that will help you recognize the God-things. That and the kind of love that Jesus talks about in John: a love that turns towards others, that ties your love for them to your love for yourself and your love for God. A love that shows itself most clearly in service to others.
It seems a fitting topic for Mothers Day, especially with Peter’s focus on the witness we bear when we suffer for doing good. Because the core of motherhood (wherever we might receive or express it in this world) isn’t some pretty thing. It’s a self-giving thing, one that gives not only of heart and soul, but flesh and bone. For many, that begins with the literal sacrifice of body to pregnancy and nursing, but that costly gift of cell and sinew is borne out over years of sleepless nights with newborns, more sleepless nights with sick kids, endless sleepless nights from worry. It is in the instinct to go without so that they can flourish. It is in the endless flexibility and sacrifices needed to take care of all the moving parts of family life.
None of which I say in order to claim that mothers have a monopoly on sacrifice, nor do I wish to romanticize this work that so often invites reverence but not recompense. What I want to point out is that motherhood is one of the best examples we have of what it truly means to love and serve one another as Jesus commands. In fact, though we often look to military service to understand what it means to lay down one’s life for one’s friends, I would argue that the picture is incomplete without including the day-to-day laying it down, body and soul, that comes with motherhood.
Laying down our lives, day by day. Which is a spiritual discipline we can also observe in Judaism, in the covenant with God that was not only the foundation of our faith, but also grew up and adapted alongside us. The continued strength of the Jewish faith lies in their understanding that it is not the big claims, but the small daily things that help us stay in relationship with God, help us align ourselves with God’s ways.
By this, we are reminded that it just might be the small daily acts of service to others that offer the best protection from the many idols that seek to seduce us: idols of wealth, success, and security; idols of pride and superiority, of nationalism and racism. All those false gods that prey on our fears and insecurities, that whisper in our ears that we must dominate others in order to survive, in order to have worth.
Jesus, our savior, tells us over and over that these gods are lying to us. Tells us that our thriving will only come when we are brave enough, strong enough, to set aside domination and dare to serve each other. To lay down our lives, day by day, as mothers so often do. In almost invisible, and almost always undervalued acts of sacrifice and service.
It’s undeniably risky. If you do it, and no one else is doing it, you will have done the right thing, the good thing, but just might end up wrung out and resentful. For this to reflect the kingdom of God on earth, we need to do it as a whole community. Need to break free from a system that assigns value only to that which makes money. Need to see it as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, in which we lay down our lives for each other, each and every day. In ways that produce no capital, other than making God’s will more visible, other than catching us all up in the love of Christ that is in us, through us, and between us.
My friends, empathy is not “a sin,” and self-giving love is not the “feminization of Christianity.” What these things are is the gospel. They are the union with God that Jesus calls us into, and anyone who says otherwise is a heretic who is chasing after other gods (mostly likely those of nationalism and domination).
Self-giving love is not the soft way. It is definitely not the easy way. It us hard as all get out, and will sometimes leave you wrung dry and wondering if you’re pretty much killing yourself with nothing to show for it.
But Jesus never said it would be easy. In fact, he spends chapters and chapters telling us that it will be hard, that we will be a scandal, that we will be laughed at and persecuted for following his ways.
Apparently, he wasn’t joking, and he wasn’t exaggerating. What he was doing was guiding us toward the path of life. Pointing us straight at the heart of God. Leading us into the salvation which can only be found in a community brave enough to love and serve each other in such a way.
The world needs us to believe in that kind of salvation. Needs us to speak that belief and that hope into the world. Needs us, in other words, to bring a whole lot more Jesus to everything we say, and everything we do. May it be so. Amen.