The Golden Calf

The Golden Calf

 

Exodus 32:1-14

October 12, 2014

Mark S. Bollwinkel

 

 A man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho is robbed and beaten, left for dead beside the road.  A priest saw the victim and passed by walking on the other side of the road, not wanting to be bothered.   Then a pious lay man came by and he too, just kept on walking.   Then along came a Samaritan.  Now in those days, Samaritans to the Jews were like oil and water; they didn’t have anything to do with each other.  The pious considered Samaritans so profane that if they even brushed up against them in the marketplace they would have to rush to the temple to be ritually cleansed.  Yet this, in the words of Bishop William Willimon, “good-for-nothing, anything-but-poor-and-pious, lousy Samaritan” (Who Will Be Saved?, Abingdon, 2008, p. 10) is the one who will save the victim of crime.  The Samaritan will drag him out of the ditch, bind his wounds, take him to a bed and breakfast and pay for the whole thing until he is healed.

You know the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10).

If you were to put yourself in the story which character would you be?  Honestly.  Few of us think so little of ourselves that we compare to the hypocritical priest and lay man.   Most would hope we would be like the Samaritan, doing a good deed with extravagant mercy.  How many have ever pictured ourselves as the crime victim?  Especially one who, being true to the times, might look up at his rescuer and think to himself, although stripped, beaten and bleeding, “I’m OK….It’s just a flesh wound.  Don’t bother yourself….I’d rather die in this ditch than to be saved by the likes of you [a Samaritan]!” (Willimon)

Bishop Willimon has used this interpretation of this parable a number of times and his congregations don’t like it.

 

“They like stories about themselves more than they like to hear stories about God.  They are resourceful, educated, gifted people who don’t like to be cast in the role of the beaten poor man in the ditch. They would rather be the ‘anything-but-poor Samaritan’ who does something nice for the less fortunate among us.  In other words, they don’t like to admit that just possibly they may [be the ones who] need to be saved.” (Willimon, p. 11)

 

            The Christian doctrine of salvation is multi-layered and broadly mis-understood.   Progressive churches don’t speak too much about it because the word is so often associated with judgments about whom and who isn’t getting into heaven.   Many of us have been confronted by family members or friends with the phrase “are you saved?” hurled at us as if a gauntlet; as if the wrong answer will condemn one to hell. 

            But if we learn anything from our tradition it is that salvation is God’s primary work among and in our lives.   And it’s not so much about what happens after we die as how we are going to live in this life.  

 

“We preachers speak before people who … convinced ….[we are ] able to solve most of our real problems by ourselves, fairly well off and well fixed, working out regularly and watching our diet, we come to church only for helpful suggestions for saving ourselves.”  (Willimon, p. 27)

 

            Consider our lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures this morning.

Aren’t we also a lot like these folk?

            All it takes is for Moses to stay on the top of Mt. Sinai a little bit longer than expected and the children of Israel get busy making a new god.   They have escaped slavery in Egypt by confronting Pharaoh.  They’ve seen the waters part and defeat his great army.  When thirsty YHWH God gives them water out of a rock.  When hungry YHWH God brings manna bread and fresh quail meat out of the sky.  All it takes is for their leader Moses to go off on sabbatical for a few days and they’ve got to have another god.

            What a stiff necked people!

            In the height of irony, it’s Aaron, Moses’ brother and spokes person, who organizes the fashioning of a calf out of the gold jewelry that they’ve brought along with them for the journey.  And it’s Aaron that organizes the ritual potluck and orgy that goes along with worshiping a fertility god the next day.

            As a result YHWH God decides to wipe them out but Moses talks God out of such wrath.  

            This story describes a capricious people who will forget their heritage and run to just about any manner of spirituality as long as they get their immediate needs met.   This story describes the failure of leaders to stand up for the truth, who insure their privilege by going along with the crowd. This story describes a God who listens to the cry of the oppressed and seeks to save.  Who seems willing to change plans and dispense undeserved mercy again and again and again.  This story describes a prophet who talks God out of disaster and into grace in hopes that someday this same community of people will live up to their promise of blessing the whole world. 

            They ought to make a movie out of such drama!

            Now don’t think for a moment that this is all ancient history.    

We want God on our terms, fitting neatly into our concepts, made out of the stuff of our dreams and in our control.  Most of us really think we have the answers.  Or that if we don’t right now with just enough effort, just enough resources, if only we find the right conditions, we can save ourselves.

We are still busy carving idols.  We are still busy pooling our gold together to fashion the images of what we want to worship:

 

-Acquisition; Don’t we believe that if we earn and own enough we’ll be safe?   I am a firm believer in John Wesley’s exhortation to “Earn All You Can, Save All You Can, and Give All You Can!”   There is nothing inherently wrong with wealth.  Rather it is what one does with it that really matters.   We are all called to be stewards of all of God’s blessings.  Asking for an explanation for the meaning of “bundled mortgages” I heard all sorts of definitions, and number of which described how in the process they become “securities”.   I know nothing about home financing but I am certain there is nothing “secure” about trading predatory loans.

 

-Stability;  Five years ago at the reception for our Bishop Warner Brown, a group of 20 small, very cute and well intentioned children from a United Methodist program in San Francisco, dressed in Indian headdresses, police uniforms and hard hats danced to the song “YMCA” by the Village People. Now I thought I was as open minded as the next person but I can honestly say that I never thought I’d live to see the day that anyone would sing the “YMCA” song in a Methodist worship service, let along in front of a Bishop.  But then things change.  We will live frustrated lives indeed if we insist on keeping everything the same all of the time.  In fact one of the few things that we can count on in life is that it will change. 

 

-Accomplishment; we live in a busy, multi-tasking culture at work, play and in our families.  All too many push themselves to exhaustion afraid that they might miss something if they don’t take advantage of each and every opportunity.   We pay a real price for multi-tasking. According to a brain physiology study at the University of Michigan multi-tasking actually decreases productivity and performance (NPR, 10/09/08).  Studying volunteers with multiple windows opened on their computer screens doing 3-4 activities at once, researcher’s recorded “brown outs” in the bio-chemical connections in the brain resulting in stress.     Multi-tasking may be our most common form of the illusion that we can save ourselves, redeem our lives, as if, in the end, we are alone and if something good is going to happen it is all up to us.

 

“To move slowly and deliberately through the world, listening and attending to one thing at a time, strikes us a radically subversive, even un-American.  We cringe from the idea of relinquishing in any moment, all but one of the infinite possibilities offered us by our culture.   Plagued by a highly diffused attention, we give ourselves to everything lightly.  This is our poverty.  In saying ‘yes’ to everything, we attend to nothing.  One can only love what one stops to observe.” (Belden C. Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes)

 

“Salvation is not a project to be done by us but a gift to be received by us.”  (Willimon, p. 28)   Salvation is the radical acceptance that we are loved by the Creator of the universe, that in the end we are not alone.  Getting the most out of this precious gift of life is not all up to us but can be discovered in community with God and each other.   Salvation is the way of love so much more than the litmus test of who does or doesn’t get into heaven.

 

Not too long ago, I came across a group of preachers in Palo Alto.  They were in a public square on University Avenue right in the middle of downtown.  They were using a loud portable sound system to get their point across to anyone who would listen.  Their remarks were especially directed at a small group of Hari Krishna who were beating drums and dancing across the other side of the park.   These six males took turns condemning the Hari Krishna over their PA system. Biblical verses were flying.  Religious threats were hurled. Any body who didn’t agree with their religious point of view was going to hell.    Our Christian brothers appeared as angry bullies.  Clearly Jesus’ commandment ‘to love one another’ (John 15) didn’t apply to their definition of unbelievers.

The street corner preachers carried large signs listing those they believe are condemned to God’s wrath in the Bible.  By their interpretation the list was long.   It didn’t appear that anyone listening was willing to become a Christian as a result of their message or their method.  The crowds listening were laughing amongst themselves, shaking their heads and walking away.  The Hari Krishna did their thing.   It appeared that the preachers were quite proud of themselves, high-fiving each other after each turn.

I could not stop thinking about Anne Lamont’s great quote, “You know you have created God in your own image, when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do!” (Traveling Mercies, Kindle, 2000) 

           

We can certainly carve idols out of our religion when it is based on fear and anger.  We certainly worship the idols of acquisition, stability and accomplishment as if in them we will find our rescue and strength.  If we pay attention we will notice the cracks and limitations in those false gods. 

 

Again and again Jesus teaches us to remember and celebrate the One God who rather than giving up on the likes of us, changes God’s mind and seeks to save us, to love us and equip us to be a blessing again and again and again.   More than the litmus test of who does or doesn’t get into heaven, isn’t salvation a way of life, a way of love?

 

The Good Samaritan certainly thought so.

 

Amen.