Monday • 4/22/2024 •
Monday of the 4th Week of Easter
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 41; Psalm 52; Exodus 32:1-20; Colossians 3:18–4:18; Matthew 5:1-10
This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum(“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)
A golden calf—an extraordinarily bad idea. It is sobering to contemplate God’s children camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai committing such treachery, given all that’s behind them and all that’s ahead of them. They’ve been rescued with Yahweh’s “mighty hand and outstretched arm.” They’ve received “bread from heaven.” They are receiving the oracles of God, written by his very fingers. And they are being entrusted with a blueprint for how the Lord of heaven and earth intends to establish a dwelling place among humankind centered among them—a former slave people!—as “kingdom of priests and holy nation.”
But it’s not enough for them. I find that reflecting on features of their apostasy hits close to home.
Image: "Golden Bull" by Thomas Hawk is marked with CC BY-NC 2.0.
“Take off the gold rings…” — Exodus 32:2a. On their way out of Egypt, the Israelites had been blessed with gifts by their Egyptian neighbors. “The Israelites … had asked the Egyptians for jewelry of silver and gold, and for clothing, and the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. And so they plundered the Egyptians” (Exodus 12:35-36). This so-called “plunder” would provide the capital out of which the Israelites could build and lavishly adorn the sanctuary they were to construct for the Lord. Instead, they put the bounty to a contrary use, the creation of an idol.
The cautionary note for us is this: golden calves are built by privileged people. The Israelites had been blessed so they could honor the Lord, and in honoring him live into their calling to bless the nations through drawing them to the worship of Yahweh. Herein lies a call for all of us to reflect on the abundance that any of us has. Are we ready to offer it back to the True and Living God in thankful praise of him, and in loving service to our neighbor?
…and cast the image of a calf; … These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” — Exodus 32:4. The term “calf” is likely Moses’s own term of mockery as he wrote up this narrative. In all probability, the idol itself was a likeness of an Egyptian bull-god, a symbol of power and fertility. There is a subtle and sinister syncretism at work when the Israelites identify this pagan god with the biblical God. It is to “Yahweh,” after all, that Aaron proclaims a festival in celebration of the casting of the golden calf: “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord” (Exodus 32:5).
This whole notion sends chills up and down the spine. At the same time, it makes me reflect on the possible “golden calves” we fashion for ourselves: degrees, titles, income, status. I find myself turning to the “Jesus prayer”: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
…and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel. — Exodus 32:6b. The whole sad affair also reminds me of astute observations by philosopher James K. A. Smith in his book, Desiring the Kingdom. About the secular centers of worship in our culture — shopping malls, athletic stadiums, and university campuses — Smith says there are things: “…implicit in their visions of the kingdom—visions of human flourishing—that are antithetical to the biblical vision of shalom” (Desiring the Kingdom, Kindle location, 1442).
We’ve seen seasons — whether of pandemic or war —when so many of these secular places of worship have stood idle and empty or decimated and in rubble, while the economy that buttressed them crumbles. When our society desperately seeks to resurrect them, isn’t that the perfect time for people of faith to recalculate the blessing of and participation in a wide range of “eating and drinking and reveling” that are idolatrous?
He took the calf that they had made, burned it with fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the Israelites drink it. — Exodus 32:20. The things we substitute for—or make virtually equal in importance to—the Lord himself are but created things. Borrowing an image that Jesus Christ himself introduces, though in a somewhat different context: “whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer” (Matthew 15:17). The goods we purchase, the teams we celebrate, the status we enjoy—they are but temporary, created things. They can serve us. They can enhance life. They can even, depending, enable us to further God’s Kingdom. But they are not the Kingdom. The King is the Kingdom.
The most apt closing for today’s devotional meditation I can think of is this prayer from the Book of Common Prayer:
Collect for Proper 12 (the Sunday closest to July 27). O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Be blessed this day.
Reggie Kidd+