You’re sitting at your desk in school and the teacher is going on about some subject, which is struggling to keep your attention. (I know that never happens but let’s pretend, OK?) So, you begin to daydream. As you dream you:
A. picture yourself on a desert island. Any pleasure you want is met immediately. Whether it’s food, comfort or other pleasures, all hungers are filled and thirsts quenched.
B. picture yourself walking down the hall at school and everyone smiles as you walk by. To everyone you are what it means to be "cool." You have no trouble getting dates, you’re class president and if you don’t like something, then no one does.
C. picture yourself driving to the mall in your paid for brand new car. You get to the mall and anything you want, you buy, because you can have anything you want.
D. picture yourself not picturing yourself. No big deal. You see one person trying to win the attention of someone’s affection. You see another person rushing off to buy something new to go with the something new they bought yesterday. You see someone taking credit for something someone else did, wanting to get the credit he or she doesn’t deserve. So you look over to the person sitting across from you, alone and seemingly sad, and you ask, "Are you OK?"
Analysis
A-C. So Jesus, like you in dream A, was also in a desert, but not an island, and he was also tempted by three things: power, fulfillment of all desires, and popularity. (Matt 4:1-11) The devil used all kinds of rationalizations to convince Jesus to give in. It was the devil’s marketing plan. You see, he ran these visions like commercials before Jesus to convince Him that He needed to have everything, be in power and fulfill His every desire. Despite the devil’s marketing plan. Jesus resisted and said, "You shall do homage to the Lord your God: Him alone you shall adore." So in dreams A-C, what do we treasure, what do we adore? "Wherever your treasure lies, there your heart will be." (Luke 12:34)
What’s your dream? What do you have your heart set on. Like the devil in Luke or Matthew 4, there is a great deal of marketing to get you to set your hearts’ desires on the same three things. When we buy into it, we begin to believe that we can only be happy with having new things, being accepted by all people and being number one. We begin to believe that life is only meaningful when we’re fulfilling our own desires. These become our idols, the things we adore. We can give in to these idols or we can choose dream D.
"I assure you, as often as you did it for one of my least ones, you did it for me." (Matt 25:40) You see the last dream, the person sitting next to you who seems sad, that is Jesus calling you to follow Him. It isn’t necessarily "cool." You may not grab a lot of people’s attention. You don’t get anything materially for it, and no personal desire is being filled. But you are caring for another person. And what you’re giving them can’t be bought, taken or controlled. The First Commandment is "I, the Lord, am your God.... You shall not have other gods before me." (Exod 20:2-3) It goes on in the next verse to talk about graven (carved) idols. Anything we make more important then God is an idol. God made it simple. He summed up what He wants of us in loving Him and loving others. We complicate it with things, but things have nothing to do with it -- if we keep our heart focused on God, if we don’t let the world around us distract us with thinking other things will make us happy. If we "seek first God’s kingdom," then God will take care of us and we will be happy. (Matt ch. 5 and 6)
Yes, seeking pleasure, popularity or power is a form of idolatry. It’s our way of placing ahead of God other things that we are convinced are more important. We know what’s important by where we put our time, our efforts and our attention. The more our time, efforts and attention are focused on loving God and loving others, the more our dreams will be focused on being human beings who care for others and less then on things that cannot truly make us happy. Peace!
Love in Jesus,
Pat Rinker
Director of Youth Ministry, Diocese of Lansing
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