"You shall not make a carved image for yourself nor the likeness of anything in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them" (Exodus 20.4-5).

When we worship something we attribute supreme worth to it, so that we offer our very lives for it. In our scale of values it assumes the dominant, indeed final, place and to it all our efforts and endeavours are directed. Such an object, be it inanimate or living, rapidly assumes the quality of a god, and we sacrifice ourselves to attain the power, security or invulnerability that its possession promises. But, in the end, it limits us to its own finitude so that we become imprisoned in its form and cannot attain that freedom to be a son of God which is our natural destiny. The primitive urge towards worship of cultic objects is related to our human insecurity. The mystery of creation fills the ignorant person with a special reverence for certain places and natural phenomena that appear to be in contact with supernatural forces. These, if placated, will bestow good fortune on the votary, but if neglected may cast a shadow of failure on all he attempts, eventually destroying him and his family. Superstition is an irrational fear of the unknown or unexplained elements of life which are blindly but doggedly placated by the obsessional sacrifice of a person's time and substance. It was in this spirit that our forebears bowed down before objects of wood, stone or metal as images of the Deity. They were idols, and idolatry, though much subtler in our present incomparably more sophisticated world, remains the great deceiver in our quest after wholeness.

"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matthew 6.20). Anything less than God himself fails to fulfil the human potential, for in him alone do we find the peace of perfect fellowship with all creation.

The things of this world that effectively usurp the role of the Deity in the lives of many people include such obvious idols as wealth and mundane possessions. The more we have, the more secure do we feel until the moment of truth dawns when all is removed from us and we have only the naked soul to call our own. In the story of the rich man who had so much that he decided to collect all his wealth in storehouses and then to relax and have a good time for the remainder of his life (Luke I2.I7-2I), Jesus warns us that at any moment that same man may be called on to surrender all he has amassed, and then he will appear naked of all worth before God; our very life is in God's power, and all we have accumulated here is an illusion if it serves merely to enhance our identity. Possessions afford us no security if we are not secure within ourselves; once we know God within we can share all we possess with those outside. Then only do money and material goods attain value as part of God's providence to human beings while they are living in this world.

Another idol we worship is human intimacy, which then removes us from a broader commitment to mankind generally. A parent, child or spouse can be the central focus of a person's identity, the point around which his whole life revolves. When this relationship is severed, whether by death or controversy, the core of meaning fades from that person's life. He ceases to function as an independent being, so that he may quit life's race on a suicidal note. The value of deep human relationships is that they teach us basic lessons in loyalty, forbearance and sacrifice; the family is the unit of civilized life. But there comes a time when even the closest-knit group must fall asunder like the petals of an ageing flower. Death sets its seal on all possessions, and unless we have learned to bestow our caring on a wider community, we will remain bereft. Of this we shall have more to say when we consider our parental relationship in terms of God's commandment to us. Human relationships flourish best in the spirit of service; they wilt when possessiveness takes root. Their end is a growing empathy with all life.

Another insidious idol that frequently dominates our life is the opinion of other people; what they think about us - or, to be more accurate, what we believe they think about us - sometimes becomes the overriding focus of our concern. To a certain extent this aberration finds its source in the powerful figures that directed our lives when we were small, our parents and teachers. Conditioning is the basis of coming to learn the manners and customs of the society into which we were born and with which we are to live and assert ourselves. By the approval we earn or the hostility we evoke, we learn to temper our actions and attitudes to the current social climate. This tendency to trim one's sails to the prevailing wind allows one to adapt oneself to those around one, and live in a socially acceptable way. But there is also a spark of God in all of us that will not rest until we have actualized our own gifts and established our unique identity in the society around us. The balance between self-actualization on the one hand and obedience to the common good on the other is a fine one, and depending on our synthesis of these potentially conflicting tendencies lies our ultimate contribution to life. In fact real self-actualization is in the common interest, for then we give of our best to the community.

The Freudian super-ego includes a constellation of master figures from our youth that continue to exert a psychic stranglehold on our development as an individual in our own right. This complex can attach itself later on in life to any special person whom we admire or whose support we covet. In the end our behaviour can be modified, even deflected, by this powerful, unconscious focus in our midst. Quite often the insecurity within lies concealed behind the outer image we contrive. What effect we make on other people becomes the foundation of our shaky identity. In this way our reputation becomes our god, and anything that may happen to impugn it our greatest dread. Likewise, those younger and more gifted than ourselves become our greatest threat, and we begin to demean them subtly so that they may be discredited by others. The reputation we have acquired is our way of relating to the super-ego figure within as well as our peers in the world outside.

It is probable that our reputation is our dearest idol: to accuse a person of meanness or humourlessness is to offer him an insult that he will not lightly tolerate. In the sufferings of Job it was, in all probability, the evaporation of his previous reputation for philanthropy and wisdom that hurt him most deeply. We can adapt ourselves to outer loss more easily than to inner humiliation; this, too, was Christ's final pain, reviled by the populace as he hung crucified between two criminals. By his suffering all suffering is ennobled and all personal darkness illuminated by the love he shared with those in pain. Only when the idols of popular esteem and personal reputation have been expunged - in fact they are reverse sides of the same coin - can we know ourselves naked in the presence of the true God who accepts us for what we are, and not merely for what we tried to achieve in the strange world we inhabit. Achievement that lasts lifts up the world closer to God; all else is illusion.

In his Tales of the Hasidim - Later Masters, Martin Buber recounts the teaching of Rabbi Bunam of Pzhysha, who was once asked what was meant by the expression "sacrificing to idols": surely no one would really bring a sacrifice to an idol? The rabbi replied by giving an example of a devout, righteous man, sitting at table with others. He would like to eat a little more but refrains because of what people might think of him: this is sacrificing to idols. In this example it is the mental attitude that determines the idolatry of the action: had the good man refrained lest he lead the common folk into gluttony, his renunciation would have been commendable. St Paul makes a somewhat related point in relation to food consecrated to heathen deities in 1 Corinthians 8, when he says that if food be the downfall of one's brother, one should no longer eat meat. While the enlightened man is aware of the non-existence of false gods, the ignorant attributes power to a consecration of food in their name, and the weak conscience is polluted by the eating.

From all this we can see that idolatry is often close to true sanctity in outer form, but that its inner motive is corrupt; it exalts the creature above the Creator. It also exalts the ego above the true self that lies enshrined in the soul and whose cardinal function is to judge values. The ego looks for immediate recognition whereas the true self is satisfied only with the vision of God, in whose image it was created. If we set our sights to anything less than - or other than - that supreme attainment, we fail to realize our full potential, and thereby betray our high calling to be sons of God in the likeness of the Son, Jesus Christ. This is the essence of sin, to fail to reach the mark set for us in our own person. When God is the centre of our lives, that mark is never far from our gaze, and even if through human weakness we are deflected intermittently from it, the light of God will soon draw us back again. And God's nature is always to forgive the person who is penitent.

But our image of God can itself become an insidious idol. This is where religion can be a dangerous snare no less than a divine blessing. At its best a religious tradition, with its established forms of worship, its sacraments and its communal concern, is a way of leading the aspiring person past egoistical preoccupation to a commitment to all life in God. Indeed, the closer we are to God, the more nearly do all the great religious traditions of the world come together; their saints and mystics speak a common language as sectarian religion yields to the divine vision. In the New Jerusalem there is no temple, for the sovereign Lord God and the Lamb are its temple (Revelation 21.22): religion has expanded into a universal spirituality, in which the Holy Spirit infuses all creation with new life. But religion, if it becomes arrogant and triumphalistic, can usurp the place of God in the lives of the multitude. It becomes a supernatural type of insurance against worldly ills, and all misfortunes are attributed to subversion against its authority. A theocracy is often the most terrible form of despotism: all who threaten the interests of the sectarian functionaries can be summarily condemned and executed as enemies of God. Religious intolerance assumes the cruellest perversions, because the fanatic's very life depends on his certainty of possessing the entire truth. A true religion leads the follower to an encounter with God, whose presence infuses him with the fruits of the Holy Spirit, especially love, joy and peace. A false religion leads to an encounter with the demonic which masquerades as the Deity, but which ends in imbalance, fanaticism and total disintegration of the personality. Furthermore, all the great religious traditions of the world have their unbalanced fringe, where illusion and deception cloud the vision of God.

Our very attempt to describe God in human terms brings with it a subtle idolatry. The God of the early Old Testament, for instance, is a vengeful deity, described in the second commandment, which we are now considering, as jealous. He punishes the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate him, but keeps faith with thousands, with those who love him and keep his commandments (Exodus 20.5-6). That those who contravene the law of God ultimately suffer is a fact of life, but the image of a dictatorial, cruel potentate is not one that can lead us either to freedom or to the abundant life. Our reaction to such a being can hardly avoid the extremes of obsessional fear, lest we displease him, and obsequious obedience, in order to placate him. His followers may be kept on a straight path of morality, but only at the expense of their inner integrity, and there is little possibility of spiritual growth. Such an idol of God, an anthropomorphic being of power and jealousy, has harried the lives of many devout religionists, often precipitating obsessional neurotic breakdowns and generally casting an ominous shadow of gloom and foreboding. They go about in constant fear that they have inadvertently offended this image, perhaps by committing the terrible sin against the Holy Spirit.

As the spiritual consciousness of the Jews matured, so God was perceived in more positive terms - as a father having compassion on his children. Indeed, the radiant Psalm 103 is one paean of praise to the God of love - compassionate and gracious, long-suffering and forever constant - later to be revealed in the life of Jesus, who is appropriately seen as the human face of God. But even this approach to God as personal warmth can be inadequate. There is a mystery to life that transcends all our concepts, and the more we have experienced, the less do we speak of God, except in terms of awe. Yet it is an awe attached to a personal presence, whom we know more imtimately than our closest friend. Love seeks the fulfilment of the person to his highest, and therefore predestined, potential. It is chaste and discriminating as well as warm and welcoming. God is indeed jealous, not for his reputation but for us. As a loving parent is jealous for the reputation of his children, so is God the Father jealous for the integrity of his creatures. In this respect wrath is wounded love: all that prevents us fulfilling our high calling as sons of God contravenes the divine law of love. We will continue to suffer until we turn again and fulfil the purpose of our lives, a purpose known to God in eternity and to us in the depth of the soul. In other words, the love of God is not a sentimental effusion; it is a ceaseless outpouring of himself for the life of his creatures. In this divine self-giving there is a humorous unpredictability, reminding us that the Holy Spirit blows where he likes and is not directed by the human will. God refuses to give Moses a finite name for himself: he is what he is, and as we become what we are to become, so we will know him ever more intimately. He is within us, above us, and, in Christ, alongside us also in life's precarious journey. We know him best when we cease to think about him, but get on with living and serving others. In self-forgetful service to the world we are especially close to God. It is then that his influence is most evident to us, for the Holy Spirit is guiding us in our individual work of healing and redemption.

Since the knowledge of God is not directly available to the reasoning faculty and transcends all created things, it is easy to fall into the error of disparaging the creation and despising rational thought. Our quest for God is, on the other hand, through the created world and the faculties of the personality with which we have been endowed. If a person cannot perceive the divine presence in the world around him, he is unlikely to sense it in any other dimension. While the creation must never be confused with the Creator, it is nevertheless true that God leaves traces of his activity in every phenomenon we experience. As Psalm 19 reminds us, the heavens tell out the glory of God, the vault of heaven reveals his handiwork. In the words of Psalm 24, the earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world and those who dwell therein. Psalm 104 is a triumphant rhapsody on the natural world of God's creation, a theme enlarged on in God's great manifestation of himself to Job. The creation in all its forms leads us to worship the Creator, in whose presence the world itself is transformed in splendour. All created life has a sacramental significance - it is an outer and visible sign of an inner and spiritual grace. It is to be lifted up from the bondage of mortality and decay to enter into the eternal glory of God by human consecration. Man is God's priest in our little world, and when he acts according to the law of love and service, he hastens the day of universal redemption and resurrection.

Therefore, when we consider our ancestors who bowed down before carved images, we can see that it was in their action in reducing the Deity to a finite form that their error lay. Once, however, we know God in the height of contemplation and the depth of shared suffering with those around us, we can appreciate and rejoice in the wonderful things of this world. The mystics have always felt intuitively that a cosmic empathy pervades and unites all things. The stoic Marcus Aurelius said, "All things are intertwined; there is practically nothing alien from other things, since all things have been set in order and make up the one cosmos. For there is one cosmos and one God through all, and one substance and one law and one common reason and one truth". St Paul in addressing the Athenians used this approach when he spoke of God as not being far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and in him we exist (Acts 17.28). As W. R. Inge writes in Mysticism in Religion, "The conviction that there is a unity underlying all diversity is an article of faith with all mystics; it is an ultimate truth which in our imperfect state must be apprehended by faith, not by sight. Panpsychism becomes dangerous and even absurd if we hold that the Deity is equally manifested in all phenomena." It is here that our scale of values is of cardinal importance. Bread and wine, articles of our common diet, easily degenerate into means of gluttony and debauchery; however, when consecrated, they become the very Body and Blood of Christ, by whom all things were made. He gives of himself perpetually for the redemption of the world from the bondage of sin to enter into the glory of the risen life.

All matter is potentially holy because God made it, used it in the Incarnation of Christ, and renews it constantly by his Holy Spirit. We humans have the power to use it for our own purposes, but unless we are inspired by God, we will defile it and destroy its beauty. Once we have repented of our selfish disregard for nature and dedicate ourselves anew and without reserve to the service of God and our fellow creatures, matter receives the blessing of God transmitted by the human touch. Then we cease to do evil and start to do good. The same principle holds true for religious worship. The very beauty of music and the nobility of architecture can interpose human skill and power between the humble worshipper and God, when the professional participants are full of their own magnificence and forgetful of the One from whom all glory arises. Some church services assume the character of sacred concerts, just as others seem to exist primarily to display the gifts of the preacher. They entertain and even edify, but they do not bring the congregation close to God, whom the sensitive will feel to be nearer to them in the solitude of their own abode or in the tranquil beauty of nature. On the other hand, if the lives of those who participate in the act of worship are dedicated whole-heartedly to God, the decor and music are sacrifices of the human spirit to him, and all who are met together in prayer are lifted up consciously to heaven, where divine radiance and human transparency come together. This is an even greater tribute to God's providence than solitary worship, because it embraces corporate solidarity.

Let us therefore thank God for the manifold gifts he has bestowed on us: the radiance of a healthy body, the exaltation of an aspiring mind, the warmth of an emotional life fulfilled in the fellowship of those whom we love, and the illumination of a soul infused by the Holy Spirit. Man inhabits the earth, but his ultimate abode is in the eternal realm in union with God. He is to bring the world with him, transfigured and resurrected, as the mortal body of Jesus was raised up in spiritual splendour after the crucifixion. In this context we can thank God for our possessions and wealth, remembering that we are merely stewards and not owners. We can exult in our intellectual and artistic gifts, rejoicing in the happiness and freedom they afford others on whom we bestow them without reserve. Our reputation itself becomes a bulwark of integrity to others with whom we can share our own knowledge, while those we love cease to be mere emotional supports but become the way of a greater dedication of ourselves to many different types of people whom previously we would have disregarded. As Jesus says in the parable of the talents, "The man who has will always be given more, till he has enough and to spare; and the man who has not will forfeit even what he has" (Matthew 25.29).

The material world is our place of experience and growth, of experimentation and sacrifice. We use its substance in the many varied activities of our life, at first with the thoughtless abandon of youth and later with the more sober responsibility of increasing age. In our turn we are to glorify all that we touch, so that compliant matter may be blessed by our usage. The sacraments of the Church remind us of the holiness inherent in such common articles of everyday usage as bread, wine, water and oil. When we live the life of awareness of the divine presence in each moment, we begin to impart holiness to whatever we handle and to whomsoever we meet. A blessing flows out from us to the world, and the day of general resurrection draws closer.

Thus, although nothing that is visible or tangible can be worshipped as an image of God, when we are close to God, we can see the holiness of all that he has fashioned. We can thank him for it and, in his presence, play our part in its transfiguration.