Fr Matthew Reese

“All who make idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit; their witnesses neither see nor know. And so they will be put to shame. Who would fashion a god or cast an image that can do no good?” —Isaiah 44:9-10

Dear Friends,

When we think of “molten idols,” I am sure many of us think of the various injunctions in Deuteronomy or Isaiah, exhorting the people of Israel and Judah to turn away from false gods, made of human hands. I particularly think of Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah, based on the Book of Kings, where the crowd calls on the false god Baal, and the great Hebrew prophet mocks, “call him louder!”

These might seem like figures of long-lost times. But we all have our false idols and molten images. Perhaps the most obvious, the most universal, and the most ancient, is the drive for money and profit. But there are much subtler, much less tangible idols.

Social or professional clout? Vanity? A need for external validation? The idol of our perfected public personae, mediated through social media? 

God knows I have heard all these siren calls at one point or another. Perhaps you have, too.

But Baal and Mammon cannot love us back.

God can. God does.

Let us be witnesses to a greater love, a greater calling—the one true God who offers himself to us on the cross. Not a golden bull, not a molten idol, but the Word made Flesh.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Matthew