Many years ago, I was deeply challenged by a lecture that one of my graduate school professors gave on the theme of idolatry in the Bible. He began with the reminder that we must get beyond the picture of idols as statues or monuments to which superstitious people prostrate themselves in worship.
An idol in its deepest biblical sense, he continued, refers to anything – a person, an object, a religious or political ideology, wealth, fame, financial security – that demands three things: total allegiance, unwavering sacrifice, and victims. Idols demand blood, dividing us against our neighbor.
While we spend enormous resources securing and elevating ourselves against the “other,” the Bible is relentless in its reminder that, “There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” All are humbled when measured against the generosity of God.
Jesus offered the young man the way of life, the way of greater freedom for love, and the young man “went away sad, for he had many possessions.”
We are all humbled in the light of God’s generosity. Who are “the poor” to whom Jesus would have me go to learn? What attachments may be preventing me from hearing Jesus’s invitation?
—Christopher Pramuk is the University Chair of Ignatian Thought and Imagination and an associate professor of theology at Regis University.