By The Very Rev. Dr. Sergius Halvorsen, Assistant Professor of Homiletics and Rhetoric
This sermon by Archpriest Sergius Halvorsen was delivered on the Feast of the Holy, Glorious Prophet Elijah, July 20, 2025, following the reading of the Holy Gospel at Divine Liturgy (Luke 4:22–30).
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
When Moses went up Mount Sinai, God gave the people ten commandments. And the first of these commandments is “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.”
The very first commandment that God gives commands the people to have no other gods except for the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who brought them out of slavery in Egypt. In other words, God was saying, “Do not create idols, and do not practice idolatry.”
These days when the ancient pagan religions have almost faded to nothing, it is tempting to think that God’s command forbidding idolatry only refers to the proper forms of worship. I’m not bowing down before a golden calf, and I’m not offering incense in a pagan temple, so I don’t have to worry about this commandment, right?
But maybe the temptation to idolatry is more insidious than that.
Today we hear about people worshipping in the Synagogue in Nazareth on the Sabbath day. They were hearing the word of God in Scripture, praying the Sabbath day prayers, assembled with members in good standing of the Synagogue. They weren’t worried about the temptation of idolatry. God’s first commandment was probably the last thing on their minds.
But that’s the problem. Because the underlying temptation of idolatry is not the golden calf or the pagan temple. Those come much later, once the idolatrous temptation has fully wound its way around the soul. The underlying temptation of idolatry is transactional spirituality. It is the temptation to look at life as one big business proposition: How do I get what I want for the best deal possible?
It is a kind of vending machine spirituality: if you do just the right thing in just the right way, then you’ll get exactly what you want. Say you’re hungry and you come to a vending machine that dispenses food. You figure out what you want, put in the right amount of money, push the right buttons, and you get what you want. This idolatrous vending machine spirituality looks at God and other people as a way to get what I want, exactly how I want it.
This is one of the reasons that pagan religions usually have multiple deities. Each one has a different area of influence: the pagan god of war, the pagan god of love, the pagan god of commerce and communication. Depending on what you want, you go to the temple of that particular pagan god, and then perform the specific ritual for that request, and then hope you get what you want. Just like a cosmic vending machine.
But this idolatrous spirituality can also affect those who worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Think of the people in the Synagogue on that Sabbath day in Nazareth, they had all the externals right: the Scripture, the prayers, the building. But in spirit they were looking to do business. On that Sabbath day Jesus had returned to Nazareth, His home town, and He was in the Synagogue. The people listen to Jesus teach and they ask, “Wait, is this not Joseph's son? If you’re really a prophet, then work some miracle here, so that we can see for ourselves.” Our Lord sees into their hearts, He knows what they’re looking for. They’re looking for proof: “We knew you as a child and a young man. Do you have special power? Can you get us what we want, just the way we want it?” They’re looking for some kind of transaction.
But Jesus is not a pagan idol, and He refuses to be used in that kind of way, He refuses to perform any miracle for them. And the people become enraged, they chase Him out of town in anger, and even try to hurl Him off of a cliff.
Because, when a transaction fails, people get angry. Like if you put money into a vending machine, and you think you push the right combination of buttons, but you get nothing. That is SO frustrating, it can make you so angry.
The people in Nazareth looked at Jesus with a spirit of idolatry, asking “What can you do for us? Can you get us what we want, just the way we want it? Can you get us a good deal?” And when Jesus did not give them what they wanted, they reacted with anger and rage. This is why idolatry is so dangerous, because even pious people who have all the externals right can look at God and their neighbors as mere opportunities for profit.
And of course, the temptation to idolatry is just as strong today as it has ever been. Here I am, an Orthodox Christian priest, wearing all the right vestments, saying all the right prayers, in this beautiful building adorned with stunning traditional icons. But how easy is it for me to think that if I do everything just right, then God will give me what I want, just the way I want it. And of course, if I pray and pray and pray for something, and don’t get it, the idolatrous temptation in my heart leads me to ask, “What didn’t I do right? Why isn’t this working?” As if God were some kind of cosmic vending machine who will do whatever I want as long as I push just the right buttons.
This is not faith, this is not a relationship, this is a transaction, it is idolatry.
This pagan, idolatrous approach also tempts me to look at other people in terms of what they can get me, in terms of how useful they are to my goals and objectives. Hey, this person is wealthy, I should be extra nice to him in case I want to ask a big favor. Or, this person over here is extremely popular, I better go out of my way to cultivate this relationship. When people see that we’re friends, my reputation will surely improve, and that will help my business prospects. But what about the people that aren’t wealthy, or influential, or powerful? Well, that person is just scraping by financially, I don’t want to get too close to him, he might ask me to borrow money. And, those people are such losers, if I hang out with them, I’ll get a bad reputation. It’s terrifying how easy it is to relate to other people in this pagan, idolatrous transactional way.
But the more that I look at God and other people in this way, the more I start to look at myself in the same way. What have I done, what have I accomplished, what have I achieved or mastered or conquered? What am I actually worth, what is my value in the big transaction of life? And that last question is the worst, because as soon as I ask what I am worth, the Evil One says, “Nothing. You’re worthless. Your entire life is one long string of failures.” Of course, this is a lie, but the more I view God and my neighbor transactionally, the more susceptible I am to that lie.
So the temptation to idolatry and a transactional view of life can lead to a very dark place of shame, regret, and despair. And this is why God’s first command is, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.” Because God’s ultimate objective was not just to liberate the people from hard labor under Pharoah. God’s ultimate objective is to free us from the tyranny of the transactional, to liberate us from the subjugation of shame, and to release us from the repression of regret. This is why the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, sends His Only Begotten Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, into this world: To deliver us from the dark destruction, and the crushing burden of idolatry.
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is not a pagan idol, he is not a false god, He is the Son of the Living God. And the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has never dealt with His people transactionally. During his earthly ministry, Christ did not cozy up to the people who were wealthy and powerful and influential, the leaders and influencers who could support His ministry and promote His interests. Jesus did not limit himself to only the righteous, and the pious and the holy who walked the straight and narrow path of virtue. Instead, our Lord comes into this world, not to call the righteous, but to call sinners to repentance. He ministers to the poor and the sick and the outcast. He travels across the sea of Galilee to a gentile city, to cast demons out of men who lived among the tombs and had no hope of salvation. He allows the woman with many sins to anoint His feet with her tears of repentance. He calls fishermen to be his disciples yet they were confused about His ministry, and they struggled every step along the way, even to the point of publicly denying Him. And when people are nailing Jesus to the cross, He prays that God would forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. This is not the ministry of transactional idolatry, this is the saving work of the Living God.
As St. Paul teaches us, “While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man—though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6–8).
This is not a transaction, this is love. God did not send His Only Begotten Son into this world to make a transaction, Christ came into this world to love and to heal and to save.
When Jesus was confronted in the Synagogue in Nazareth, He reminded the people of the ministry of the Prophet Elijah, whom we celebrate today. In Elijah’s day, God’s people had fallen deeply into idolatry. And God sent Elijah to call the people to repentance, to put aside their idolatrous ways and to have no other gods than the one true God who had brought their fathers out of bondage in Egypt. But Jesus also reminds us about miracles that God worked through Elijah. There was a widow in Zarephath, and God sent Elijah to this woman saying, “This woman will give you food and drink.” But when Elijah meets the woman, she is in a very bad situation. She tells Elijah that she’s gathering a few sticks of firewood so that she can use her last tiny bit of flour and oil to bake one last tiny loaf of bread for her and her son before they die. But Elijah asks her to bake him some bread, and he tells her that God will not allow her to perish. And through her faithful act of generosity to Elijah, God miraculously provides sustenance for the woman and her son. Then, shortly after this, the widow’s only son became deathly ill. But Elijah prays for the boy and he is restored to health.
Jesus reminds us that there were many widows at this time, but God sent Elijah to this one widow of Zarephath, a city outside of Israel. This woman was not an insider, she was not well-connected, she was not powerful, she had nothing. Now remember, at this point in his ministry Elijah could have really used some support from powerful people. From a transactional perspective, it would have made a lot more sense for Elijah to work a miracle for a wealthy widow whose relatives were powerful leaders in the community. But, no. When Elijah is most vulnerable, and at his weakest, God sends him out of his own country, to a widow who has nothing.
And this is how God sends us. When we are weak, when we are completely broken, when it feels like we have nothing left to give, this is when God sends us to the lonely, the abandoned, the hopeless. Because, in that moment when we have nothing of ourselves to offer, then it is God who provides the grace, the love, and the life. Just like He provided for Elijah and the widow and her son.
For God’s strength is made perfect in weakness. This is how God manifests his power and his glory. This is how God shatters the lie of idolatry, by showering love and mercy upon the outsider, the sinner, the people who live in the shadows. And this great mystery of the Living God that was seen in Elijah the prophet is perfectly fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who takes on the form of a servant, and ministers to the weak and the broken in love and mercy.
This is God’s Messiah, this is the Lord whom we worship.
Today we come before the Living God and offer true worship saying, “Lord, I come before You today, broken, empty, and sinful, not seeking any transaction, just asking for Your love and mercy. Merciful Lord, just as You provided for the widow of Zarepath, give us that small portion of life-giving bread, even Your very Body and Blood that we might minister and serve those in the shadows who are alone, hurting, abandoned.”
For this is true worship, this is true joy, this is everlasting life in Christ.
Amen.
Icon: The Ascension of the Prophet Elijah and Scenes from His Life, Theodore Poulakis (1622–1692).
