Idolatry to an idolator seems oh, so reasonable. I am thinking of the worship of Baal by the Hebrews on the verge of entering Caanan. See Numbers 25 and Hosea 9, 10. To a wandering people about to become sedentary and agrarian, the fertility rites of Caanan seemed "just the thing." Primitive peoples were in awe at the "coming together" of water and soil to produce new crops, and they believed Baal, the rain god who accomplished this, needed their help in his divine work of sowing life in otherwise barren soil. Hence Hebrew men's visits to the cult prostitutes and ritual orgies. And it seemed reasonable to think of god as a bull, the most virile of the animal kingdom. See Moses, by Martin Buber in Chapter on Baal.
But Moses, who witnessed this, was aghast. He knew that Yahweh was beyond sexuality, complete, not partial like human males and females. He knew too that the Baalist cult was drawing the people away from a pure and unadulterated worship of the one God who carried them "on eagle's wings" from slavery in Egypt, in effect a disaster that could lead only to death.
Today we snigger at this "idolatry." But aren't we too living in a Baalist cult, with the temptation to make sex our god, as ostensibly the only provider of solace in an otherwise meaningless world? Our faith teaches us otherwise. So let us turn away from the sexual cues, the learing invitations of the temple prostitutes of secular culture whose lust purveys death, and kneel in humble prayer toward our transcendent God who shows us the salvation and life of his son Jesus' love.
If we don't, Hosea's dire prophesies will continue to come to pass in our land too: the brokenness of families through divorce, abortion, pornography, homosexuality, and technology's unchecked hubris in creating life for death.
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