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2 Kings 17:35 "The Lord made a covenant with them, and commanded them, 'You shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them'".

 

This is a good short-hand checklist to see if we've got a false gods in our lives! The only God we are to fear, bow to, serve, and sacrifice to is God, and His yoke is easy. If we are doing any of those things to someone or something else, we are worshiping a false god, and we soon find their yoke is not easy at all.

 

Let's go through this checklist item by item, using what I think was an obvious example of a false god in recent memory, COVID (which is also such a good example because the narrative around it was largely false, so looking back we can see the starkness  of our idol worship):

 

1. Fear. When we speak of fearing God, we mean the feeling inspired by a true recognition of His power and what not loving Him means to our eternal life. That feeling can be terrifying, especially if we are not on the right path. But often we don't fear God at all, we don't even think of Him, or when we do we think of a kindly old man who will tolerate any behavior from us and welcome us into heaven when we die. That is not God, as reading even the slightest amount of Scripture tells us. While we're busy not fearing God, what are we fearing? A few years ago, too many people let fear elevate COVID to the status of an idol. This fear was encouraged and fed by outside forces, and nurtured by those feeling it, rather than taking a hard look at whether it was reasonable, and what the fruits of their fear were. It led to great suffering for many, suffering that continues today. Because they were fearing a false god and because that fear was so widespread, the entire world continues to suffer from this false god worship. 

 

2. Bowing. To what or whom are we willing to bow, to place ourselves in a humble position towards? Again, it is often not God. Even for those who go to church regularly, for example, kneeling in prayer can be uncomfortable, and we can choose to sit instead (myself included, at times!) But do we "bow" to something else? Do we deliberately place ourselves in a humble position, one that may be quite uncomfortable, when we encounter another person or thing? Quite often, I would argue. Using COVID as an example again, we locked ourselves in our houses, we wore meaningless masks, and many berated as heretics anyone who didn't "bow" to this false god. 

 

3. Serving. We are to serve God and, in doing so, others, like our families, the poor, and those who needs our help. Our service to others should always be properly ordered toward God. We serve them because we love God and our neighbor. We are showing God's love to the world in our service. Contrast that service to the service we gave to COVID. During COVID, many people "served" others by coercing them to obey unreasonable rules, or take a vaccine of which they were dubious. These people may have thought they were doing good, but they would not consider the possibility that the thing they were performing this service for was false. Therefore, their service did more harm than good, because it was not properly ordered toward God.

 

4. Sacrifice. God does not demand much from us in the way of sacrifice, but He does want us to do it (and if we do more than He asks, it pleases Him immensely and brings grace into the world!). The basic sacrificial requirements for Catholics are honestly pretty easy: we have to fast a few times a year, we have to tithe and give to the poor, we have to attend Mass once a week and on holy days, we have to go to confession once a year. These are not difficult things, yet so many do not do them. But what did we sacrifice for COVID? Families, friends, jobs, the economy, education, goodwill towards our fellow man, and the list goes on and on. Again, the fact that none of these sacrifices really helped anything but people's own sense of virtue is what makes COVID such a good example of a false god. We gave up everything for it, and we got nothing back but misery, as is true with all false gods. 

 

I really wish people could look back on the last several years and learn from the COVID fiasco what it looks like to worship a false god. It seems to me that God was making it as obvious as possible, so that we could learn to see the other false gods in our lives, of which there are many. Instead, it seems people just want to forget that false god and turn to the next one. For a while false gods were popping up like crazy - BLM, transgenderism, the "vaccine", politics, etc. (I support the  current thing!). But I sense that maybe some are starting to feel the emptiness and despair these false gods leave in them. I don't wish those feelings on anyone, but I do hope that if people are feeling them, they start looking for the only God they should be worshiping. He's not hard to find, He's been pursuing them all along, and His yoke is much easier than those of the false gods.