The Egyptians worshiped bulls, so it is no wonder that the image of the bull occurred to the people as a symbol to be used to help them worship. The problem is, as we remember from last week, that the Israelites have just been told to worship only Yahweh and to have no graven images in their worship. It’s almost as if God hasn’t even finished carving the last little line into the stone tablets, an ancient version of “the ink isn’t even dry,” and here go the Israelites violating one of the biggies. Most scholars nowadays believe this story was added into Exodus at a much later date, when Israel’s leaders made reforms to move Israel away from polytheism-- which actually Israel fell into all the time as they lived in Canaan if you read the historical books in the Old Testament carefully enough. Knowing that does not change the point of the story.
Bible stories always say something about humanity, and something about God. So notice—the outstanding thing about humans is our ability to lose out nerve when asked to do what is right, and to try to find some way of comforting ourselves with a pale imitation of the life God offers us. And that’s true—we lack the faith to trust God’s promises to us, and so we grab something worthless instead.
Then, when it comes to what we learn about God here, if we look at the entire picture, is surprising. The outstanding thing about God in this story is NOT God’s wrath. It is God’s willingness to be persuaded to NOT react to betrayal with violence. And that’s a hard message for some of us too—after all, the right to respond violently out of feelings of fear is one of the idols of American life—one. Some people want God to mirror the same impulses toward anger and vengeance that lurk within us as well.
But in modern industrialized countries, we know that that golden calf can stand for something else. The golden calf is that thing that you worship that gets in the way of true relationship.
In Judaism and in Christianity, one of the brakes placed upon rampant acquisitiveness which is worshipped in our society is the concept of the resting from all labor one day a week—on the “Sabbath,” or “Shabbat” in Hebrew. Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi in Great Britain, points out that dedicating one full day to God is the antidote to our constant need for MORE. Rabbi Sacks explains it this way:
Especially in this time of anxiety, taking sabbath time is especially vital. It reminds us of the blessings we already have, and reminds us of God’s steadfast love that satisfies.
I am reminded of the scene in the first Harry Potter book when Harry discovers the Mirror of Erised, which show you what you most desire. Harry, orphaned as a baby, sees his long-dead parents, and he visits the mirror and is mesmerized. Finally, wise Professor Dumbledore, finds him staring longingly at the mirror, and warns him away. Dumbledore warns that people have wasted away in front of the mirror longing for what they cannot have. “It does not do to dwell on dreams, Harry,” Dumbledore chides gently, “and forget to live.” Dumbledore states that the happiest man in the world would see only himself, just as he is, in the mirror. Harry asks Dumbledore what he sees, and he says, “I see myself holding a pair of thick woolen socks.” (2)
Imagine being that satisified with what you have. And who can’t use a nice pair of woolen socks, especially as winter comes in?
But both Rabbi Sacks and Dumbledore advocate a kind particular kind of state of mind—one where we don’t scramble, and fight, and grumble, or allow grievance and discontent to take us over. Jesus has been telling us for weeks that such is the beauty of the kingdom of God—beauty and faith we can embrace right now, if we just put aside the American idols of violence, grievance, and division that allows us to be manipulated into fear, suspicion and anger. And we can’t try to cover that up by making God a god of violence, grievance, and division.
We modern people are professionals at resisting “doing the right thing.” Our modern mythology has been twisted and misshapen over the years. And sometimes, like right now, too many of our leaders have gained power by simply combining opportunism made powerful by lack of knowledge with appealing to grievance. They divide us by undermining our faith in each other, and in our ability to care for each other.
Indeed, it is grievance that drives the story we saw in Exodus above. Like little children, the Israelites are ready to cast Moses aside and follow ANYONE, turning their backs on obedience to God when they decide Moses is an hour late from coming back from forty days talking to God Almighty. They lose faith, and instead try to make a god they can control. A god who reacts to insult and grievance with destruction.
Grievance also drives the king’s actions in our parable today. In the ancient world, status was also flaunted ostentatiously. A king who throws a banquet that no one shows up for looks weak and unpopular. And so we get this story, that Matthew’s audience wanted to hear because they had grievances against the ruling Jewish authorities who were persecuting them.
And yet, some of us WANT a God who smites sinners and leaves people—not us, mind you, but OTHER people-- to roast in hell for all eternity. I wonder, though— is this a case of making God in our own image?
This parable has been misused historically when it has been about who is thrown out into the outer darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. We gloss over the images of abundance and welcome that are embedded in this story. I also think this parable has been especially misused by some self-professed Christians who like to imagine God to be vindictive and violent to justify their own vindictiveness and violence, which is usually tied to a toxic, hierarchical model of Christian leadership. This has become, in particular, a deeply dangerous idea where we use God as a model for our own prejudices.
Just like with the Exodus story, we get it wrong when we emphasize the smiting over the grace. We overlook the fact that the king invites EVERYONE in, and asks only that they put on the clothing of abundance. I wonder if a more fruitful interpretive lens to hold up to this passage is the mercy that God demonstrates after great provocation in our reading from Exodus.
The three parables that we have heard the last three weeks about Jesus’s authority make it clear that those in power had rejected Jesus’s invitation. And due to this rejection of God’s abundant grace and mercy, the invitation is going to be extended to people that powerful people usually wouldn’t associate with and denigrated. Here’s the good news—although not good news for those who want to lord it over others: God sends Jesus not just to the powerful, but to the humble and the outcast-- the prostitutes, the petty thieves stealing to survive, the tax collectors, the uneducated, the disabled, the people who the world ignored and exploited. And they come rejoicing. They come wearing the garments of gratitude, repentance, and celebration. They come with their faces scrubbed clean by grace and mercy and hope.
The parable goes further: come as you are, but put on the new clothing of gratitude and redemption. Once you’ve come in to the feast, you are expected to put on the garments of love—the same characteristics that Paul lists as necessary to living the faithful life: whatever is true, honorable, just, and pure—and this is about internal purity in the sense of allowing love, not condemnation or grievance, to shine out of us. Come as you are, but dedicate yourself to your neighbor’s well-being as much as you strive for your own.
The Church may bill itself as the representation of God’s banquet—the kingdom of heaven in Matthew’s terminology on earth. After all, this community is where the healing can take place. Jesus’s healing of people’s physical ailments throughout scripture was all about restoring people to relationship with each other. And that is necessary work today as much as it was in Jesus’s time. A huge barrier to that work is the hardness of heart that grumbles against grace, that WANTS there to be losers so that we can measure ourselves against them, and think ourselves winners.
Most often, we see that in thinking that salvation is about where you go after you die, and imagining that a whole lot of people are not going to make it. But the kingdom of heaven doesn’t measure success by who is excluded. It measures success when we all realize that God’s love is like oxygen—and no one can deprive another of it just by trying to breathe more. That’s our wounded society talking—not God.
We as the Church can start to embody the kingdom of heaven rather than mirroring the wounds of our society-- IF we become very intentional about how we respond to each other and treat each other as we learn this new language of love and life that Jesus’s gospel calls us to. IF we try to change the ways we relate to each other so that we put on those wedding garments. And turn away from those Golden Calves that entice us into idolatry. Jesus shows us a better way. If we can put aside our idols, and instead take hold of each other as reminders of God’s presence among us right now. The banquet is before us—and the garments of gratitude and compassion are what we are called to put on to enter.
Amen.
Sabbath is the antidote to the Golden Calf because it is the day we stop thinking of things and focus instead on the value of things. On Shabbat we can’t sell or buy. We can’t work or pay others to work for us. It’s the day dedicated to the celebration of the things that have value but no price…. Shabbat is our refuge from what has become… a consumer culture. Consumerism has become the new religion. Its cathedrals are shopping centers, its most heinous sin is not having this year’s model, and it promises “retail therapy,” salvation by shopping, and remission of sins by credit card. Shabbat is precisely the opposite: the one day and seven on which we live the truth of Ben Zoma’s aphorism, ‘Who is rich? One who rejoices in what he has.'” (1)
Especially in this time of anxiety, taking sabbath time is especially vital. It reminds us of the blessings we already have, and reminds us of God’s steadfast love that satisfies.
I am reminded of the scene in the first Harry Potter book when Harry discovers the Mirror of Erised, which show you what you most desire. Harry, orphaned as a baby, sees his long-dead parents, and he visits the mirror and is mesmerized. Finally, wise Professor Dumbledore, finds him staring longingly at the mirror, and warns him away. Dumbledore warns that people have wasted away in front of the mirror longing for what they cannot have. “It does not do to dwell on dreams, Harry,” Dumbledore chides gently, “and forget to live.” Dumbledore states that the happiest man in the world would see only himself, just as he is, in the mirror. Harry asks Dumbledore what he sees, and he says, “I see myself holding a pair of thick woolen socks.” (2)
Imagine being that satisified with what you have. And who can’t use a nice pair of woolen socks, especially as winter comes in?
But both Rabbi Sacks and Dumbledore advocate a kind particular kind of state of mind—one where we don’t scramble, and fight, and grumble, or allow grievance and discontent to take us over. Jesus has been telling us for weeks that such is the beauty of the kingdom of God—beauty and faith we can embrace right now, if we just put aside the American idols of violence, grievance, and division that allows us to be manipulated into fear, suspicion and anger. And we can’t try to cover that up by making God a god of violence, grievance, and division.
We modern people are professionals at resisting “doing the right thing.” Our modern mythology has been twisted and misshapen over the years. And sometimes, like right now, too many of our leaders have gained power by simply combining opportunism made powerful by lack of knowledge with appealing to grievance. They divide us by undermining our faith in each other, and in our ability to care for each other.
Indeed, it is grievance that drives the story we saw in Exodus above. Like little children, the Israelites are ready to cast Moses aside and follow ANYONE, turning their backs on obedience to God when they decide Moses is an hour late from coming back from forty days talking to God Almighty. They lose faith, and instead try to make a god they can control. A god who reacts to insult and grievance with destruction.
Grievance also drives the king’s actions in our parable today. In the ancient world, status was also flaunted ostentatiously. A king who throws a banquet that no one shows up for looks weak and unpopular. And so we get this story, that Matthew’s audience wanted to hear because they had grievances against the ruling Jewish authorities who were persecuting them.
And yet, some of us WANT a God who smites sinners and leaves people—not us, mind you, but OTHER people-- to roast in hell for all eternity. I wonder, though— is this a case of making God in our own image?
This parable has been misused historically when it has been about who is thrown out into the outer darkness, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. We gloss over the images of abundance and welcome that are embedded in this story. I also think this parable has been especially misused by some self-professed Christians who like to imagine God to be vindictive and violent to justify their own vindictiveness and violence, which is usually tied to a toxic, hierarchical model of Christian leadership. This has become, in particular, a deeply dangerous idea where we use God as a model for our own prejudices.
The three parables that we have heard the last three weeks about Jesus’s authority make it clear that those in power had rejected Jesus’s invitation. And due to this rejection of God’s abundant grace and mercy, the invitation is going to be extended to people that powerful people usually wouldn’t associate with and denigrated. Here’s the good news—although not good news for those who want to lord it over others: God sends Jesus not just to the powerful, but to the humble and the outcast-- the prostitutes, the petty thieves stealing to survive, the tax collectors, the uneducated, the disabled, the people who the world ignored and exploited. And they come rejoicing. They come wearing the garments of gratitude, repentance, and celebration. They come with their faces scrubbed clean by grace and mercy and hope.
The parable goes further: come as you are, but put on the new clothing of gratitude and redemption. Once you’ve come in to the feast, you are expected to put on the garments of love—the same characteristics that Paul lists as necessary to living the faithful life: whatever is true, honorable, just, and pure—and this is about internal purity in the sense of allowing love, not condemnation or grievance, to shine out of us. Come as you are, but dedicate yourself to your neighbor’s well-being as much as you strive for your own.
The Church may bill itself as the representation of God’s banquet—the kingdom of heaven in Matthew’s terminology on earth. After all, this community is where the healing can take place. Jesus’s healing of people’s physical ailments throughout scripture was all about restoring people to relationship with each other. And that is necessary work today as much as it was in Jesus’s time. A huge barrier to that work is the hardness of heart that grumbles against grace, that WANTS there to be losers so that we can measure ourselves against them, and think ourselves winners.
Most often, we see that in thinking that salvation is about where you go after you die, and imagining that a whole lot of people are not going to make it. But the kingdom of heaven doesn’t measure success by who is excluded. It measures success when we all realize that God’s love is like oxygen—and no one can deprive another of it just by trying to breathe more. That’s our wounded society talking—not God.
We as the Church can start to embody the kingdom of heaven rather than mirroring the wounds of our society-- IF we become very intentional about how we respond to each other and treat each other as we learn this new language of love and life that Jesus’s gospel calls us to. IF we try to change the ways we relate to each other so that we put on those wedding garments. And turn away from those Golden Calves that entice us into idolatry. Jesus shows us a better way. If we can put aside our idols, and instead take hold of each other as reminders of God’s presence among us right now. The banquet is before us—and the garments of gratitude and compassion are what we are called to put on to enter.
Amen.
This sermon was preached at the 10:30 am worship service during Coronatide on October 11, 2020 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.
Readings:
Sources/Notes:
1) Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, Exodus: the Book of Redemption (Covenant and Conversation Book 2), pp. 121, 261-262.
2) J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone, p. 161.
No comments:
Post a Comment