Exodus 32:1-14

Philippians 4:1-9

We tend to think of idolatry as an antiquated or old-fashioned sin. Images like the one painted by today’s O.T. lesson come to mind – ancient peoples dancing around golden calves or some other man-made item, which has been declared divine. To modern minds the very idea of it seems ridiculous. Why on earth would anyone pretend to think that something made with our own hands could take the role of God, or could in fact be God?   Maybe it could happen in ancient Israel, but for it to happen today would seem unlikely.

I underlined the word “delayed” in my bible. The passage begins, “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us…” Moses had been gone for 40 days, which in biblical terms means a long time. The people, only recently guided out of slavery and into the uncertainty of the wilderness begin to get scared. This isn’t the first time they get scared. Just two weeks ago we read how the people complained against Moses, cried out for water, and even considered that perhaps they were better off back in Egypt. The fear of their new situation and the fear of the unknown had been very much a part of their newly liberated lives. But, what makes this time different is that this time Moses isn’t around to comfort them. Moses has been gone. It was fine for a little while, but now in unknown territory with an unknown future it is not okay to lose the only known they have. Perhaps he’s dead, perhaps he has abandoned us, perhaps his God isn’t the one to save us after all.

I underlined the word “delay” because that’s the source of their fear. Moses was gone too long and therefore so was God. When God couldn’t be heard or seen they were willing to do whatever it took to make their own god, to establish their own peace and security and ultimately salvation.

Idolatry isn’t so much the sin of dancing around a statue. It’s the sin that that dance and that statue represent. Idolatry is the sin of seeking salvation in places from which salvation does not come.

Eugene Peterson in his book, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, encourages us to find salvation in the very messyness of life, right here in the thick of human history, for that indeed is where Christ plays. But, the primary challenge in finding salvation has to do with the very real and very contemporary problem of idolatry.

He writes, “A major difficulty in embracing history as the field for salvation is the sheer mass of relentless and assertive counter-evidence.   The loudest and most conspicuous players on the field of history are playing quite a different game than Christ is. Most people – and certainly those who get the most attention and their names in the history books – are playing other games by different rules: war games, self games, money games, board games, baseball games, hunting and fishing games, card and roulette games, church games, sex games, games ranging from lethal to trivial. Sin and death games.”

Peterson continues:

“Many if not all of these games are associated with outright claims or implicit assumptions that the games will lift the lives of those who play them out of the ordinary to something more interesting, more exciting, more meaningful: banish boredom; invite excellence; offer company with the elite; establish power. It is not difficult to detect at least a hint of transcendence in all this, to pick up muted god-voices and god-claims advertising their wares, pretending to help, save, entertain, improve, empower. Even if the word is not used, and it seldom is, some variation or other on salvation is suggested – we will be rescued from a condition in which we feel stuck, anything ranging from boredom to misery, and have a better life. But in the long run, the offers don’t amount to much, and certainly not to anything that would qualify as salvation.”[i]

I used to think of the Israelite people reveling around their golden calf as being incomprehensibly slow to learn and short of memory. How could they forget so quickly the mighty display of plagues that eventually softened Pharoe’s heart? How could they forget the sea’s parting and their miraculous walk to freedom? How could they forget the bread from heaven that nourished them in the mornings and the water pouring from the rock to quench their thirst?

But, when I think about my own life (and the lives of mostly everyone I know well) I have to admit that such forgetfulness shouldn’t come as such a surprise. Perhaps we’re better off taking a more compassionate view of the lost and scared people of Israel. For, when God seems too quiet or when life gets too stressful isn’t it true that our most natural reaction is to scramble about in search of other gods? – to find salvation in our own endless striving or in the alluring promises of games that offer either escape from or power over the stressful times.

Perhaps the reason for God’s anger in the story is that God hates to see us do that to ourselves. It is like a mother watching her child repeatedly make self-defeating decisions. God knows that our efforts to find salvation outside of God will ultimately leave us either empty or exhausted or both. And that is not God’s will or God’s calling for our lives.

Commenting on Paul’s letter to the Philippians a friend of mine made an interesting point. He said, “Notice what Paul promises to that tired and hurting church. He doesn’t say that things will get better. He doesn’t say that their circumstances will change. He simply encourages them to be faithful and he promises them that the God of peace will be with them.”

We’re reminded of Christ’s first words, his primary message, to a gathering of scared disciples hiding in a locked room on that first Easter morning. “Peace be with you.” That was Christ’s resurrection gift to his followers. God’s peace is what saved them. It didn’t change their circumstances. It didn’t make them rich or powerful or respected or free from distress. But, it made them live differently within their circumstances. It freed them to be with God and for God. It freed them to trust. It freed them from fear.

God’s peace didn’t save them the way they may have expected. But it was enough to give light to their lives and hope to the millions upon millions throughout history who would come to look upon them for guidance.

My friends, peace be with you. Amen.

[i] Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, page 160.