Unknown Gods

I later found out that my vocation of the ministry was a big disappointment to my father.  Why would I choose to do this when I could enter a field where I would make a lot more money?  I was just an idealistic failure.

After Dad had finally graduated from Bethany College with a degree in chemical engineering, he went to work in a steel mill near Pittsburgh.  Within months he was out of a job.  With the advent of the Great Depression, the mill closed and Dad headed West.  “Go west, young man, and grow up with the country,” was the advice of Horace Greely in 1865.  He loaded up his Ford Model A and headed out to San Francisco. 

There he met my mother.  Shortly after they had married a life-changing opportunity arose.

He woke up one morning with a terrible toothache.  He was astonished at how much the dentist charged to care for it.  Within three days he enrolled himself in the U.C. School of Dentistry.  And never looked back.  Made a ton of money.  He had thought that science and technology was the door to the money pot at the end of the rainbow.  If chemical engineering wouldn’t do it, with this depression people would still have toothaches. 

I was expected to follow him in those footsteps and take over his dental practice.  Sorry, Dad.  Not my cup of tea.

Money was the unknown god he worshipped.  If you didn’t have it, he had no time for you.  If it wasn’t your highest priority, there must be something wrong with you.  Lacking that drive, I was told that I would never amount to anything.  A big disappointment.

The lesson Dad learned from the Great Depression was that you can never have enough.  Wealth was the god he worshipped.  Unknown because it was never acknowledged.  He did not realize the hold it had on his soul.  It determined everything.  He also had other demons.

Paul, in the Book of Acts, reports encountering in Athens the many statues to various deities.  Their numerous visages cause him to remark, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.”

Then he comes upon a statue “to an unknown god.” 

“What you therefore worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.  The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.”

He created humans with a God-shaped hole, a spiritual void, that they would “search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him – though he is not far from each one of us.”

St. Augustine warns that that void within, when we attempt to fill it with what is less than God, leaves us with an empty sense of self.  Whatever we substitute is never enough, never quite satisfies.  “Can’t Get No Satisfaction” is the name of that quest.  No golden idols.  Nothing conjured out of our worldly cravings — Only the Real McCoy will do.

Paul Tillich in his little book, Dynamics of Faith, puts it slightly differently.  He asserts that it is the nature of humans to have faith in something — some god, if you will, that becomes all-consuming.  Faith grounded in some ultimate concern.[1]  Power, money, fame, that trophy wife or trophy husband, the perfect children, a perfectly manicured lawn.  Something.

We all have various concerns just as the result of being a human animal – food, shelter.  But also, being spiritual beings, we also desire “cognitive, aesthetic, social and political” aspects to our existence.

When one of these becomes “ultimate,” it distorts all of life.  “It demands surrender of [the one] who accepts this claim…And the promise of total fulfillment…”

 I know a man whose unacknowledged god is power, fame money, public acceptance, control.  A god with as many faces as the Visvarupa, a representation of Vishnu, the Hindu god. 

Whether this deficit of soul was brought about by an undemonstrative, emotionally distant, punishing father, I have no certain idea.  But this man suffered a spiritual void, an empty sense of self, and so he has attempted to fill it with that which is less than God.  Far less.

He sought public acceptance in New York, building one edifice after another.  Worshipping the god mammon to the point of cheating his workers out of their wages.  He never found real entry into New York society.  That unacknowledged god left him as he was, an empty suit.

He owned many casinos in New Jersey but in his continual striving, he couldn’t attend to business and they all went bankrupt.  The glitz and glitter just didn’t get him satisfaction.  Vainly striving after another unacknowledged god.  “Vanity of vanities – all is vanity.

To assert his sense of self in the face of ridicule at a White House Correspondents dinner, the barbs of then President Obama cut like a chainsaw.  On a lark, he decided to run for president himself.

Meanwhile he plastered his name on various properties in huge gold letters. And when elected not once but twice, the fame and prestige of that office did not fill the God-shaped hole in his being.

He needed more monuments to himself.  Did you hear about the gold coin featuring his visage?  What about a billion-dollar ballroom where the east wing of the White House used to stand?  He wants us to give up our Medicare and Medicaid to pay for that.

Or a triumphal arch?  Probably with his name on it, also in big gold letters.

No excess would suffice.  No amount of gold could fill that spiritual hole.  The grip of these unacknowledged gods on his soul is leading to its destruction – and the destruction of the nation he claims to serve.  But as his ultimate allegiance was to this many-faced god, he had no thought for the people who voted him into office.  Just not that much into them.

There is an antidote to this existential emptiness.  It is the Spirit of Truth, the Power that dwells in the heartbeat of creation, the One who fills the soul brimful to overflowing with joy.  We have known this Reality in one Christ Jesus – the Man for Others. 

By inviting his presence into our hearts and minds we have found lives worth living.  Every day a freely-given delight as we take up the needs of others, investing our days in a cause greater than our limited desires.

Every now and then, to get an uplift from the mire of depressing daily news I dip into Chicken Soup for the Soul, one of a series of self-help books.

That unknown god which Paul makes known is the Power of Love that moves the cosmos, that dwells in the heart of even the lowly.  Yes, In their impoverished circumstances.  Or in their professional success.

This Love the community of John identifies as very God, Godself.  “God is Love and those who abide in Love abide in God and God in them.”

Here’s a true story from “Chicken Soup” that reeks with such divine Love.  Told by Eric Butterworth.

A college professor had his sociology class go into the Baltimore slums to get case histories of 200 young boys. They were asked to write an evaluation of each boy’s future. In every case the students wrote, “He hasn’t got a chance.”

Twenty-five years later another sociology professor came across the earlier study. He had his students follow up on the project to see what had happened to these boys. With the exception of 20 boys who had moved away or died, the students learned that 176 of the remaining 180 had achieved more than ordinary success as lawyers, doctors and businessmen.

The professor was astounded and decided to pursue the matter further. Fortunately, all the men were in the area and he was able to ask each one, “How do you account for your success?” In each case the reply came with feeling, ‘There was a teacher.”

The teacher was still alive, so he sought her out and asked the old but still alert lady what magic formula she had used to pull these boys out of the slums into successful achievement. The teacher’s eyes sparkled and her lips broke into a gentle smile. “It’s really very simple,” she said. “I loved those boys.”

Nothing out of the ordinary for teachers.  But most extraordinary in practice.  In that self-giving Love is the Lord of the Universe.  The One who has breathed life into all flesh, yet holds us tenderly in arms of Love and Delight.

Every Sunday in worship gathered, around this table, or harvesting nutritious veggies in St. Francis Garden of Hope, we make One who may be unknown known.   In the distribution of this nutritious goodness at St. John’s, people know of our faith.  They can smell and taste it.

When Ileen, my caregiver, and I left the church Tuesday with bags of vegetables, the entire car smelled of cilantro.  A total delight. The smell of the same Divine Reality surely lives in the spirit of the united work of our two San Bernardino congregations.  The One dwelling in the heart of all creation.  Master of the universe. Right here in my car!  Cilantro!  Thanks be to God.

Tillich is right.  We all have faith in something.  It’s the nature of us human beings. The world no longer sees the historical Jesus who lived out this Love – But in faith we know the Promise.  The Promise is that, “because I live, you also will live.”  Life beyond abundant.

That is a Promise you can take to the bank.  We’ve seen it in action right here — for the good of neighbor and to the Glory of God.  Amen.

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[1] Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith,  (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1957).

Build it and they will come.  A monarch butterfly visiting our milkweed — Hope for the butterflies and for the some-500 folks we nourish each and every week with healthy vegetables and fruit.  We’re now providing for three food banks and a preschool out of our garden.

May 10, 2026
6 Easter

  “Unknown Gods”

The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Acts 17:22-31; Psalm 66:7-18
1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21