Exodus 32.1-14 The golden calf
It is time for some Old Testament preaching? Are you ready?
I have always appreciated the various remarks I have been given from congregation members and my district superintendent who have told me that I am either a prophetic preacher or an Old Testament style preacher. I’ve never had the opportunity for them to explain to me what they meant by this, but I have always taken it as a compliment because that’s how I take everything. I find I live a happier life assuming that people are not actively seeking to offend me.
In honor of our Old Testament reading today, I have deliberately selected the oldest hymn in our hymnal, “Of the Father’s Love Begotten,” written by Aurelius Prudentius Clemens in the 4th century.[1] It was written as a religious/political argument against Arianism and others who did not want to adopt a “Trinitarian” view of the one true God. I don’t know about you, but if I never hear or sing that hymn again, I think I’ll be okay.
We sang it today because my role as a prophetic preacher is to remind you that God wants change. I guarantee Jesus didn’t sing that hymn. I guarantee the disciples didn’t. No Christian sang that hymn until late into the 4th century. We don’t know what hymns Jesus or the disciples, or early Christians sang but what we do know is that music continues to inspire worship even to this day. Music, however, must change with the times. As much as I would have appreciated it, chanting is no longer a required seminary course.
Refusal to change indicates we are worshipping something other than God. Refusal to change results in reverting to old patterns of behavior, which can be destructive to worship and offensive to God. “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.[2]”
Some childish ways, however, should not be forgotten: “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.[3]”
We must love our God the way a child loves, wholly, completely, respectfully, fearfully, unquestionably. The first commandment.
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. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.[4]”
Idols are things which divert our love from God or that could be easily mistaken as earthly objects of worship. For instance, I can hold this teddy bear while I pray for comfort but if I set him on a shelf, kneel before it, and ask it for things it becomes an idol. If there are things in this church where you feel like God’s no longer present if they aren’t here paintings, musical instruments, furniture, then the objects have become idols. Needing something earthly to be present in order to worship God makes it an idol.
The people feeling like God is no longer with them because Moses hasn’t come down from the mountain? Moses had suddenly become a member of BTS or Brittany Spears or a member of the Beatles pending your age group. Without his presence, worship wasn’t going to take place like The Doors without Jim Morrison. They tried for a bit but ultimately fell apart.
So, with Jim, I mean, Moses, what do the people do? First, they try the backup vocalist, Aaron.
Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me.” Anyone else surprised to learn that both men and women both wore earrings in the 13th century BCE? If only boys in the 80’s had read their Bibles.
Aaron takes the earrings and holds it high. The people then shouted “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” Aaron builds an altar and a rave ensues. A festival is held, sacrifices are made, people dancing and carrying on everywhere. I can’t help but wonder if we’re doing something wrong in worship. I can’t remember the last time a spontaneous dance party erupted from my preaching. You guys could change that today.
Aaron was a devote believer of God, which makes me wonder, was this the outcome he intended or did something go awry? I say this not just because of the foundation of Aaron’s faith in God and Moses’ leadership but because what did Aaron make the idol out of? Golden earrings. Aaron took the people’s vanity and made an idol out of it.
Think about that for a moment. Aaron took the people’s vanity to construct the idol. In today’s terms, that might be the equivalent of melting down all our credit and debit cards or tearing down our buildings, complete with all their utility bills. Removing something that diverts our attention from God, removing the idols from our lives. Remember, earlier I mentioned, I like to assume people are not intentionally being offensive, but sometimes the outcome of our actions isn’t what we anticipated. Aaron was trying to regain control over the rebellion. When we act rashly out of fear, we often do foolish things.
When we are afraid, we seek solace in earthly things. We seek the comfort of a teddy bear. We attack the weak. We hide in the shadows and small spaces. We retreat inside ourselves and away from our God.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
God wants change. God wants action. God wants us to voluntarily remove the idols from our lives, focusing on the divine, not tangibly earthly things. God wants us to rejoice in Them, seek comfort in Them, seek solace in Them, find our peace in Them. And yet we, God’s people, find our peace in worship so often not in our God but in the tangible and familiar we see around ourselves. The things, the people, the place matter more to us than the God we worship.
We use those things as an excuse to spew hate and anger at one another rather than as something to bind us as people to our God. We treat them like golden cows, things made from our vanity and selfishness. A bunch of horrible things are about to happen among the Israelites for their transgressions; you can read about them on your own. There are consequences to what we do on this earth. This does not negate God’s love or promise to us, but is a reminder of where our faith needs to be: not in idols but in God. A reminder that what is most important can never be lost, broken, or destroyed.
Our faith is not our church. It is not our music. It is not our pews, crosses, paintings, preacher, or even our printed Bibles; they are earthly things. If any one of them is lost to time or circumstances, we do not lose our God. But if we are treating these things as idols, we lose our direction, our purpose.
The golden cows in our lives are the vanities we don’t pay much attention to but have power over us that we may not even notice until they are threatened or condensed. Aaron, in an attempt to keep the church from dying, did something drastic. Even though his motives were pure, he acted out of fear, not faith. The people, in their resistance to change, reverted to their old ways instead of embracing their new direction and trusting their God to take them there.
Fear makes us stiff-necked. It creates chains that tie us to the earth. Faith in our God requires nothing of this earth. Faith breaks the chains of fear, liberating us from our own vanities, granting us freedom. Faith is the childish way we never let go of. Faith in the God who requires nothing of this earth to worship Them. Amen
[1] https://hymnary.org/text/of_the_fathers_love_begotten
[2] 1 Corinthians 13:11
[3] Mark 10:15
[4] Exodus 20:4-6
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