c. 1995 Religion News Service
(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)
UNDATED _ As a minister, I often encounter people who feel it necessary to impress me with their piety. They seem to feel that if they make a good impression on me, they will somehow please God.
Some go to great lengths to describe their church activities _ deacon, trustee, senior choir member, and so on. Others believe the mere mention of their affiliation with a prominent church or a renowned pastor will inspire awe and adulation.
The discussion always seems to focus more on the fact of the individual’s service than on the God he or she purports to serve. Maybe this is because, for all of their apparent devotion, such folks are more concerned with the human than the divine. Rather than worship God, they worship themselves.
For an early archetype of this behavior, look to the story of Herod the Great, who sat on the throne of Palestine at the time of Jesus’ birth.
Herod was a study in contrasts: He was a brilliant but paranoid leader; a puppet of the Roman empire who nonetheless planned the reconstruction of the Jewish temple; a puppet-king who cut deals with his superiors in Rome yet ruled Palestine with an iron fist.
A duplicitous, vainglorious individual, he even killed several members of his immediate family to retain his throne. Such was the man the Magi encountered on their journey to find the Christ Child. Having traveled hundreds of miles to find the”King of the Jews,”they had no idea that their pilgrimage was a threat to Herod.
Listening carefully, he pumped them for information. Then, under the pretext of devotion, he encouraged them to find the infant Messiah as he plotted the child’s demise.
Herod’s malice and self-centeredness, though extreme, have parallels today, when many conflicts arise from the worship of personal motives.
Witness the upheaval that often exists when ministers and lay leaders fight over conflicting agendas. I’ve known many situations in which congregations were abused from the pulpit and pastors were locked out of their churches. Church splits were the inevitable result.
As with Herod, pious justifications are often used to cover base motives. In some cases, for example, a pastor uses the church building fund as a handy source of spending money. In others, working late at the church becomes a convenient cover for a tryst with another church member.
Perhaps the most tragic result of self-worship is its effect on the unknowing. As in Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, it is the blameless who are hurt. Through repeated abuse and disillusionment, the innocent often grow bitter and lose their faith.”Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture,”the Lord declares through the prophet Jeremiah.”Shepherds,”in this context, are those in authority who abuse their power. The”sheep”_ often scattered by the behavior of abusive shepherds _ are those whom the powerful are charged with leading. The”woe”is divine judgment for having destroyed God’s children.
For those whose piety is a cover for selfish motives, the message is clear: The price of self-worship is high.
MJP END ATCHISON
