[AI translation] Another very old but very instructive story. Let me briefly summarise what it's about: After his death, a wealthy man left a very considerable fortune to his widow: one thousand one hundred pieces of silver, in today's (1969) Hungarian money about 80,000-100,000 forints. Someone stole... The woman cursed the thief, invoking God's punitive judgment. The woman's son, a man named Mika, heard his mother's curses, was frightened, confessed that he had the money, took it and returned the full amount. The mother, overjoyed, decided to dedicate all the money she had earned to God, but in the end she only used 200 pieces of silver for a "divine purpose". She had it used to make a carved and cast idol and her son Mika had a temple built for him. He had an ephod and a teraphim made, everything that was needed for a church service according to the custom of the time. He had a separate sanctuary built for him, exactly like the original one - which was in the original Shilo at the time. Mika's special shrine was similar in every way to the original, except that, for the time being, while in Silo there were Levitical priests, he ordained one of his sons. This was later resolved. Mika hired a passing Levite to serve as a priest in his special sanctuary. Now it was just like in Silo, the official cult centre.Well, what was wrong with that? After all, he had done a beautiful, religious, divine thing! He was not serving and worshipping a foreign god, not one of the gods of the pagan nations of that time, Baal or Ashtaroth, but Yahweh, just as he had done in Shiloh! Even the priest was a Levite, only not as it is written in the Mosaic Law. Micah's worship was idolatry. Why? Because the whole shrine and the whole cult was an imitation of the original, not the original itself. But there was a legal temple, there were legal shrines, there was a legal priesthood, there was a legal cult centre! Mica should have worshipped God there! But Micah made for himself an individual cult, an individual priesthood, an individual centre, and in his own individual way he served the god he had made for himself. He had his own individual religiosity. And that was idolatry. It was not a crude form of idolatry, it was a very subtle, barely noticeable form. The one, true God made himself an idol. Everything in Mika's house was done in the name and form of true worship. It seemed as if he really worshipped the Lord, as if he really believed in the living God. But in fact, his whole belief in God was just a religion of his own imagination, of his own mind. Yet he had both an ephod and a therapist, which were the graces of the worship of the time. Only it wasn't the real thing, it was a self-made thing. He talked about Yahweh, the God of Israel, but that wasn't the real thing either, it was just a deity of his own making. This was Micah's idolatry, which was just as abominable to the Lord as if he had worshipped the idol god of any heathen nation.
Now, what have we to do with this strange old story? It is that this strange story of the Bible is also a mirror that God holds up to us. If only we could see from it that such Mika-like religiosity still exists today, even in our own ranks! Most "religious people" who believe in God, mention the name of Jesus, go to church, pray, do not believe in the one, true, living God, but in a deity of their own imagination. It has often happened that when I try to look into the heart of a person I am talking to, I am distressed to see that this person does not believe in the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible. You have made a god for yourself, like Mika. He has made an idol of God and the worship of God. His whole religiosity, his belief in God, does not come from God's revelation of himself, but from his own human intellect, his own human mind, his own desires, his own ideas, his own human needs. That is the dangerous thing about it, that the god which man imagines for himself will be like the true God. Mika's shrine was also similar to the original. Similar, sometimes deceptively similar, but not! Not the same God!
The most common human idea of God is that God exists to help. Nothing else belongs to Him but what needs His help, His power. Many times a peasant values his horse more than such a religious man values God. For though a peasant keeps his horse to pull the cart, he also loves it, cares for it, and pleases it. And the religious man simply expects God to pull that cart, as if that were his only job. It's his own idea: God always says things that are good to hear, like, "Don't worry, then, and don't say: What shall we eat? or: What shall we drink? or: What shall we wear?... For your heavenly Father knows well that you have need of all these things." (Mt 6:31-32) Be not anxious therefore, for I will take care of you; therefore cast all your anxiety on me, and I will deliver you. But never so much as to repent of your sins, and be converted. According to his own idea, man needs a god who caresses, comforts, gives this and that, blesses him with all good things. But a God who holds you responsible, who accuses you, who takes away, who judges you: that is no longer in the idea! The religious man reveres and carries within himself such an image of God as is good for him, as suits him, as does no harm. Who does not interfere in his life, who does not judge his sins. Who does not burn with holiness, who forgives and forgives all. Who never holds a grudge... This is when one makes an idol of the living God, as Mika did. It is not another god that he worships, not Allah, Jupiter or Buddha, but an imaginary god who resembles the real one, but is not the real one.
If that god then does not do what the person who believes in him imagines he should do: if he takes away someone you begged to keep, or allows terrible things to happen in this world that you think "if there is a God in heaven, he would not allow", then the whole idea of God you have made for yourself begins to fragment. The religious person starts complaining, "Why is God punishing? Am I so bad that he treats me like this? If I have done something wrong, I have already been punished for it!" Do we feel that this whole idea has very little to do with the gospel? These are ideas about God and relationship with Him that are alien to the world of the Gospel! If someone's faith in God has been shaken in this way, I would now humbly, but very seriously, ask them: did you really believe in the living God, or just in a god you made up? Is it not the case that you only thought you believed in God when you only believed in your own idea of God? God has not failed you, but only your idol made of him! If someone's faith in such a self-made idol god has been shaken, don't be sorry, no harm done!
I once had a conversation with a young man. He said, "Please, I don't believe in God!". "So you are an atheist. That's fine!", I said. "Describe to me the God you don't believe in!" He described me as a respectable accountant who keeps accurate records of all the good and bad that people do on earth. As one who fills in the gaps and gaps, to whom everything that man has not understood can be explained. And faith in him as a kind of pillow to rest one's head on, knowing that God will take care of it. And so on... I said to him, "My friend! We are in total agreement! I don't believe in that god either! That's not the God I know from the Bible! This is a god that people invented for themselves. And when Sartre says that our age is characterised by surviving the god, he is referring to this idol god! And if Nietzsche's famous saying, 'God is dead', is increasingly being uttered today, then I can only say that the god who has always been dead, whether by the greatest philosophers or by the most primitive religious people, has always been a god of their own imagination! Because any image of God that does not correspond to the self-revelation of the living God in Jesus is false, not real, not true! And there is no such thing as an unreal god! There is only a true, real, living Lord God! But that is different from what any man can imagine about Him!"
Then there is something else, which finally reveals with almost infallible certainty whether one worships the one, true, living God, or an idol imitation of him. And that is what his life is like! Look here in the story! You could really say, "Well, what religious people they are, they have a chapel in their own house! They have their own family priest, they make offerings to God! Their home is full of expensive relics! But with a bit of sarcasm you can say, "What a nice family: the son steals from his mother! Of course, because she has grown-up children, she needs the money, the inheritance! He can't wait for his mother to die - what unloving family! The mother curses loudly. Not exactly cursing her son, but in a way that she can hear. Sometimes there is prayer in the house, sometimes cursing. The family is full of suspicion, anger, unrest, greed for money - and religiosity! Such are religious people. He who worships an idol of his own making instead of the living God, such is his religiosity! Yes, a god of our own making must not interfere in our lives, in our family troubles. It's just a touching memory, just a "good god" or "little Jesus", a venerable statue, but not a living, working reality in our faith. So not the real one, just similar to Him! The real God could not be made to pray to Him, and then continue to hate someone else in peace. Neither would it be taking communion here in church and using harsh words at home that hurt to hear.
If I were to ask you now if you believe in God, in Jesus, I imagine you would say yes. But can you reconcile your faith in God with the impulses you tolerate in yourself? How then can you go on with your life as if you did not believe in Him? How then can you complain, bitter, worry, despair, and hurt others as if you had never heard of Jesus? The real God is so awesome, so powerful, so holy and good, that the whole of man's being is awakened when he comes before him! In his presence, the vices and vanities of our lives fall away! Do you know the best way to tell whether we are really standing before the one, true, living God, or just an imaginary God? By the fact that sin can hurt terribly in the presence of the living God! One's own wickedness, unfaithfulness, treachery can weigh so heavily on the soul that one has no one to blame but oneself! Let me tell you from experience: until one has come to the point of breaking repentance, no matter how much one says he believes in God, he does not believe in the true God, but in an idol, like Mika, who has made himself a god, a godless one, a Jesus, which only resembles the true one, but is not!
Only once did someone make a truly reliable image of God, and that was God himself! And the image he made of himself was Jesus! Jesus is the reflection of the glory of the invisible and unimaginable God and the image of His reality! (Heb 1,3) He said: "I and the Father are one" (John 10,30) "He who has seen me has seen the Father." (Jn 14,9) Apart from Jesus, all talk of God is an idea! God's love was made manifest in the suffering and death that Jesus took for us and in our place! The power of God - which we can never see in this strange world - is seen in the powerlessness with which Jesus gave himself up to death on the one hand, and in the power with which Jesus broke death at Easter! The wisdom of God can only be discovered and understood in the folly of the cross! God in general, the one, true, living God, can only be found in the Jesus who is here in this sermon and who will be here next Sunday in the Lord's Supper! Throw away any idea of God that does not fit the figure of Jesus, and turn in faith to the Jesus who died for you so that you will not perish, who rose again for you so that your life will not end in the grave!
I believe that Jesus, invisible but real, is with us now, for he has promised! Don't make a false image of God for yourself, because He wants to restore the broken image of God in you, to form Himself in you, in your life, in your movements, in your words, to make you like Himself, so that your whole life will be like Jesus!
Amen
Date: 23 November 1969.