A Precious Moment

[Kimberly Ballas]

PRECIOUSMOMENTS is an oriental spicy perfume of simple classical cardamom and dried fruits; its tobacco flower and patchouli leaf are delivering a sense of divine richness and adultness. It is a mature enough scent to cherish every moment of love.

On more than one occasion I have concluded that I am inhabiting a Salvador Dali painting: clocks dripping off of trees in surreal landscapes, and all that. Perhaps no occasion more deeply pressed this haunting suspicion than on a trip through America's heartland this past summer. I was making my way to New Haven, Connecticut, from California in my heavy-laden Pathfinder.

Having driven across the country numerous times, I have tried to punctuate the tedious trek with stops at various points of local interest. But this time, on my fourth day of the journey, I stumbled on a dizzying discovery.

As I entered Missouri-the "Show-Me State"-I began to notice billboards advertising something called the "Precious Moments Chapel." I thought nothing of it at first, recalling the "Precious Moment" figurines that seem to have replaced books in Christian book stores. But the billboards popped up again and again along the highway, boasting a remarkable mecca for "Precious" pilgrims. Groggy from driving far too many hours in one stretch, I felt strangely drawn to this chapel. So when a friend and I finally arrived at the turn-off, marked by an official state sign, I wound my way to the secluded venue.

"How big can this thing really be?" I asked myself repeatedly, as I began to approach the grounds. Suddenly, my jaw fell to the floorboard as I entered the expansive theme park that was the Precious Moments Chapel. Actually, it was a sprawling campus with tour buses and fountains, ponds and a visitors' center that combined the ambiance of a mall with the hushed reverence of a sanctuary. The ceiling of the visitors' center glittered with a starry expanse of twinkling lights, and shops bustled with pilgrims who busily snapped up everything from greeting cards and night-lights to the sacred objects d'art themselves, all bearing the image of the Precious Moments trademark angels. (As I learned on the tour, these figurines have now passed Hummel and every other maker of ceramic figurines in sales worldwide.)I made my way through the shoppers' paradise to the long colonnade, lined by life-size (life-size? -perhaps I'm taking this all too seriously) concrete statues of the inordinately chummy hosts, and finally arrived at the shrine itself. It was a large chapel, part Spanish-baroque, part Anaheim-funeral parlor, whose doors opened electronically, only after the tour guide had explained the exquisite appointments and their subtle meaning. Behind the heavy wooden doors was truly a world of wonder: the entire interior was enchanted with fresco-like images of the adoring cherubs. They were everywhere: on the walls, the vaulted ceiling, and enshrined in stained plastic windows. As we exited, a trolley greeted us with sweets. A little piece of heaven in Missouri.

Why do I relate this story? Is it simply an occasion to poke fun at the innocent pastimes of Precious Moments collectors? Hardly. This is big business, not just sentimentalism. But while I was visiting this park, I had my own precious moment, an epiphany, as theories about the American religion and popular culture were suddenly captured in one experience. Like the exaggerated features of the Precious Moment angels-calculated to evoke particular emotions of intimacy and sweetness-popular American religion in general has become increasingly captive to false gods.

Of course, only a hard-hearted Calvinist (perhaps a Lutheran, too) could launch such jeremiads against these delicate creatures. What gall: calling these delightful figures "idols"! I'm not calling them this because I believe that people are actually taking these ceramic trinkets home to a shrine, offering morning and evening supplications to them and lighting votive candles. But there are, after all, perfectly Protestant ways of setting up idols.

Like statues of Mary and the saints, these unique statues are not somehow evil themselves. There is nothing in the ceramic, no insidious conspiracy of a pottery elite, to lure us from the worship of God to the adoration of false deities. But I cannot resist the impression that the "cult of Mary and the Saints" has been replaced in some circles with the "cult of Sentimentality." Instead of the "Sacred Heart of Jesus," we have the "Sacred Heart of the Self." And what could be more sentimental, more inviting, more user-friendly and cozy, than these cute and cuddly creatures?

Nor am I suggesting that this business amounts to the "worship of angels," that the apostles warned against in their letters. Nevertheless, I do wonder if this sudden obsession with angels in pagan America is, like the medieval cult, a distraction from the worship of the true God. Just as Mary and the saints were made into objects of folk art to become something other than they really were-sinless, pure, worthy of devotion and mediation-these Precious Moments "angels" are far from the biblical representation. After all, biblical angels were the servants of Yahweh who stood at the gate of Paradise after the Fall, with flashing sword, barring entrance; ministers of judgment at Sodom and Gomorrah. One would be hard-pressed to have Michael the Archangel in mind when gazing on one of these benign figurines. Are these the angels that executed God's plagues on Egypt? Do we have any reason to identify them even with the glad but epoch-making announcements of mysterious births that were to advance redemptive history? Even when one came with joyful tidings, Mary was filled with terror at the appearance of God's angelic messenger.

Perhaps we like these adorable ceramic angels because they represent more than a likable, non-threatening angel; they offer us a sentimentally attractive deity as well, a religion of the heart that "bind[s] the wounds of [God's] people as though they were not serious, saying, 'Peace,' 'Peace,' when there is no peace."

It is in this vein that I wish to focus our attention briefly on the Second Commandment: "You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth" (Ex. 20:4).

The immediate background to this verse is instructive. The days before, God had commanded Moses to have a fence built around Mount Sinai. It was for the safety of the people, after all, for if God's sinful people were to even touch the foot of God's mountain, they would be killed. "Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Go down and warn the people not to press through to see me; otherwise many of them will perish'" (Ex. 19:21). Everyone wants to have an experience with God; we all want to see the spectacle, to take in the sight of his splendor. But God knows best. He is holy, and we are not.

After the giving of the Commandments, we read: "When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, 'You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not have God speak to us, or we will die'" (Ex. 20:18). At Sinai, God's presence in his holiness was not attractive to Israel, but repulsive. Because of their sinfulness, the people felt distant from God and afraid: "Then the people stood at a distance, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was" (v.21).

While God was giving his Commandments at the top of the mountain, his people were already breaking them down below. In chapter 32, we read that the Israelites were growing impatient with Moses' absence, so Aaron accommodated to their "felt needs." Instead of a God whose presence inspired fear, they wanted a "user-friendly" deity who imposed no limits and made them feel good about themselves. Like Adam, when he realized he was naked and ashamed after his disobedience, the Israelites fled from God's terrifying presence, but instead of fig leaves they fashioned a golden calf.

When Moses returns from the top of the mountain, he confronts Aaron. Like Adam, who passed the buck to Eve, who passed the buck to the serpent, Aaron replies, "Do not let the anger of my lord burn hot; you know the people, how they are bent on evil. They said to me, 'Make us gods, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.' So I said to them, 'Whoever has gold, take it off'; so they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!" (vv. 21-24, italics added).

"Out came this calf," indeed. We can almost, in our day, hear Aaron telling Moses, "Look, you were up there with God all this time and the natives were getting restless. They were impatient, fearful of a God who inspired terror. I kept them in tow and simply changed the form of worship, so that they would stay around. Well, they stayed, didn't they? Don't get hung up on style, Moses!"

Later in his life, Aaron would see his sons grow up into fine ministers of God in the sanctuary. But one day, they too offered an unauthorized offering in the Holy of Holies, and died instantly (Lev. 10:1-3). "Aaron remained silent," we read.

It is a tough lesson, and Israel had to learn it again and again. To worship God-even the true God-according to our own imagination rather than according to his own self-revelation, is to discover "the consuming fire" rather than the welcoming Presence.

But there is good news in the midst of all this. God did not want to destroy his people, and that is why he commanded them to stay at a distance and to carefully observe the ceremonial boundaries. It was not enough to worship the correct God; they had to worship the correct God according to his own revelation, not their own wits. And why? Because one day, the true "icon of the invisible God" would appear, the promised Redeemer (Col. 1:15). God himself would visit his people and save them from his just wrath. He would come not in the form of a golden calf (or a ceramic cherub), but "though he was in the form of God," he would come "taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:6-8). To solve the problem of impatience with an icon of their own making, Israel was substituting the glorious hope of the Incarnation and redemption in Christ with a mute piece of precious metal. They had worshipped themselves instead of God, settling for a cheap imitation who would satisfy their "felt needs" and momentary pleasures.

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