Lessons from the Incident of the Golden Calf

Exodus 32:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ex%2032&version=NIV1984

            What a fascinating account!  Notice first that the people are impatient.  Moses was on the mountain 40 days, and they assume him missing or dead.  In the absence of immediate leadership and against such a “long” delay, the people demand progress.

            I’ve thought about that in terms of church work a lot.  I’m a pretty driven guy.  I like to get things done.  I like to plan opportunities for spiritual growth and measure results.  So, you can imagine that sometimes church work is frustrating:  things don’t grow, they don’t have the impact desired, people leave because ‘not enough is getting done,’ there’s greater conflict instead of greater maturity.  Then, I’m forced to wonder if all of my planning is just erecting a golden calf, a god of my making.  The concept of patiently enduring is so common in the Scriptures; perhaps sometimes it would just be healthier if I set my plans aside and waited.  I don’t know.  I do think that using the brains God gave us in service of His kingdom is pleasing to Him, but I also think that sometimes our plans result from our impatience in getting things done and turn into idols.

            That thought is furthered by another phenomenon in the story.  The Hebrew word for “God” is the exact, same form as the word “gods.”  So, there’s this ambiguity.  Did the people of Israel demand ‘gods’ or and image of ‘God’?  It seems they weren’t entirely clear on that point.  Aspects of the grammar favor the way NIV translates, “Make us gods!”  On the other hand, Aaron declares a feast for Yahweh, the “God” of Israel (v. 5).

            I’d remind you that ancient societies were polytheistic and it’s very likely that the people of Israel were polytheistic, too.  Their God made claims about His superiority to every other so-called god, but they likely would have heard those claims as this way:  “There are lots of gods in the world, and our god is demonstrating his superiority to those gods.”  The point is that in building their calf Israel wasn’t completely rejecting their God; they were doing what all sorts of ancient people did and putting their god together with imagery of the other gods out there.

            We do that, too.  Whenever we assume that the Triune God means prosperity or power, we’ve done the same thing.  We’ve put the gods of the world—power/prosperity—together with our God and called it the same thing.  In terms of my church work analogy, it works the same way:  I can put my desire, my god as it were, to be successful and important together with doing the Lord’s work and without even realizing it—bam! golden calf.  I’ve built an idol and excused it by calling it God. 

            So, in summary, idolatry isn’t always obvious, and sometimes it results from a convenient marriage of our desires, our timing, and our god.  Sometimes, idolatry claims the name of the true God.

            The other thing that jumped off the page for me is that the Lord is completely ticked off about the situation.  He has good reason for it!  Afflicted Pharaoh, led Israel out of slavery, parted the Red Sea, gave them a new national life, revealed His desires for them as clearly as could be hoped—and this is the thanks He gets!  I get a charge out of the Lord’s statement to Moses (v. 10), “Begone!  Leave me so I can stew and work up a really righteous anger!”  But the thing that is even more powerful is Moses’ response.  1) You destroy them, you waste your work in bringing them out; 2) you destroy them, the Egyptians mock you; 3)  you destroy them, you’ll have failed to keep your promises.  Now that’s the way to pray!  Moses prays on the basis of God’s past actions, on the basis of His glory and honor in the world, and on the basis of His promises.  Martin Luther used to talk about prayer as rubbing God’s promises in His ears.  Prayer is the child’s reminder to its parent, “You promised!”  And if there’s one thing we should take to the bank about our God, it’s that He keeps His promises!

            There’s more here, but a warning about the subtleties of idolatry and a short instruction on prayer is pretty good for one day’s reflection.