The Golden Calf and Other Idols

Exodus 32:1-14                                  Rev. Todd B. Freeman

Bethany Presbyterian Church, Dallas                          June 13, 2004

As I read this story from Exodus, how many of you, honestly, pictured that great scene from Cecil B. DeMille’s classic epic The Ten Commandments? That movie is so ingrained into my consciousness that it’s hard for me to hear any story about Moses without thinking that it happened just like in that movie. Such is the inherent danger in any biblical movie.

Not unlike that movie, however, the Old Testament author undoubtedly wanted to present this story as high drama. Just think about it. The Israelite people had just been delivered by their God from over 400 years of captivity and slavery in Egypt. God had just given Moses the Ten Commandments. And what do the people do? When they can’t see the presence of God they immediately break the second commandment which states (using proper King James English, of course), “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (As an interesting aside, however, the Israelites had not yet been given the Ten Commandments, since Moses had not come down from the mountain yet with them. But that seems beside the point.)

To this very day the term “a golden calf” is applied to any idol that we worship, or put our trust in, or base our security on other than God.

As modern-day Presbyterians, most of us are probably not that well versed in the whole concept of idolatry. So I did what all preachers do in the 21st century - go to the Internet to do some research. For those of you who have access to a computer, get on a search engine, like google.com, and do a search on the word, “idolatry.”  The results are fascinating.

I found over 326,000 web sites. I looked at only a handful. Some of them were pretty scary. It revealed that there are a lot of folks out there that love to condemn others. (No big surprise.) Many were critical of the Catholic Church for its use of statues and icons in its spiritual and worship practices. There were even some condemning the use of a cross, calling it a human-made image, thus breaking the Second Commandment.

Retired Episcopal Bishop, John Shelby Spong, in his book that many of us have studied, “Why Christianity Must Change Or Die,” rightly reflects that this commandment against graven images has become irrelevant today if taken literally. After all, we don’t worship the cross as some sort of idol, but rather see it is an important symbol to point to and express our understanding of God.

What, then, is idolatry in our day and time? Well, as you might have guessed, there were some web sites that were all too happy to provide a list of modern-day idols. Here are the most popular: money, possessions, pride, ambition, fame, other people, perfection, physical appearance, power, success, academic degrees, sports, career, alcohol, instant gratification, one’s own opinion, even church programs and religion itself. Whew!

Now, we’re all smart enough to know that no one actually worships any of these things as if they embodied, or were, the Divine. However, there’s no doubt that at times we may turn our devotion to, or have an excessive attachment to these or other things instead of to God.

I found a comment I particularly liked on the web site of a United Church of Christ congregation in Ohio. In a sermon posted by the pastor, he writes, “I believe that we all have ‘golden calves.’ They aren’t objects. They are ‘images,’ i.e., the image of being successful, the image of appearing beautiful, the image of being happy. And when we do not aspire to those images we live as though God has abandoned us, just as the Israelites believed God had abandoned them.”

That’s why the Israelites made the golden calf in the first place, because they thought that their invisible God was not present with them.

So perhaps that’s how we might define idolatry for us today: any time we lose faith and trust that God is with us, therefore turning to something else to put our trust in, or to use as a security blanket.

Remember the wonderful cartoon character Linus in the Charlie Brown comic strip? He reflects a very real part about human nature; a security blanket is often the most difficult of all things to let go of.

What, then, are your security blankets and golden calves?  What are the things in your life that you’re afraid to let go of, including certain behaviors and attitudes, even if you know them to be harmful to yourself or others?

This would be a good place to end this sermon, except for one very serious matter that I feel needs to be addressed.

This may sound shocking, perhaps even scandalous to some, but if I were to pick the one thing that is in the greatest danger of become a true idol, in the biblical sense, is the Bible itself.There is strong evidence that an enormous number of people in this country today worship the Bible more than the living God to whom the Bible points.

These folks claim that the Bible is “The Word of God,” by which they mean it was inspired and dictated word-for word by God and is thus infallible and inerrant and free from its cultural setting. One of the difficulties with this view is in the determination of what should be interpreted literally and historically, what is metaphorical language, and what reflects the cultural prejudices of the times of when it was written.

In the past, horrific abuses have been perpetrated because of the literal interpretation of the Word of God. People accused of sorcery were burned at the stake because the Bible says, “Thou shalt not allow a witch to live.” Scientists were threatened with beheading when they taught the earth rotated around the sun, in clear contradiction to the scriptural understanding of the structure of the universe. Slavery has been supported, interracial marriage was forbidden, oppression of women has long been encouraged, and atrocities were and are perpetrated against the Jews because the Bible implies that it’s okay. And our most current and heated debate, of course: allowing openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender persons of faith into ordained leadership positions in the church.

Progressive Christians reject the purely literal understanding of biblical interpretation and authority. Instead, the Bible is seen as the book of the church. Did you realize that it wasn’t even adopted in its final and present form until the Council of Carthage in the year 397 C.E.?

So how should we see the Bible? Here’s my suggestion. We need to use the Bible, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to inform our faith, direct our path (including when it needs correction), and inspire us to seek the presence of and practice the will of God - which is to love God and to love our neighbors.

In this view, the Bible isn’t treated as a book that denotes scientific fact. It isn’t upheld as a documentary account of ancient Judeo-Christian history. And although I would assert that the Bible contains the Word of God, I do so without assenting that everything in the Bible is necessarily inerrant and infallible.

Instead, the Bible is elevated as a sacred collection of books, poems, hymns, gospels, and letters that reveal God’s relationship with humanity and creation, and calls us to a similar relationship with God, each other, and all of God’s creation.

So let us continue to worship the living and ever-present God of the Bible, the God who doesn’t break covenant with us, the God who opts not for condemnation, but for grace.

Amen.