Sermon – Pentecost 20A, 15 Oct. 2023

Exodus 32:1-14; Matthew 22:1-14

Howard Wallace

Today we have two stories which might seem at first sight a way apart: the parable of the wedding banquet and the story of the golden calf. While they are quite different, each challenges us in the way we respond to God in our lives and to God’s invitation to life in his reign.

First the story of the golden calf. Moses has led the people out of Egypt and has now gone up on Mount Sinai. He has been there for 40 days and the people below have grown impatient. Their experience of God’s provision of food and water in the wilderness has not been enough to generate trust in Moses or God. Moses’ absence means God is absent. So the people turn to Aaron, Moses’ brother and priest. They complain ‘We do not know what has happened to Moses’ and ask Aaron ‘Make gods for us who will lead us.’ Aaron gathers the people’s gold and fashions the image of a calf.

On the surface this is a simple story about a fickle people and an overly quick, compliant Aaron. The story may also appear a little odd to us. Why did Aaron fashion a calf and why did the people worship it so quickly? It turns out the story is more complex that at first sight.

Some scholars think the calf or bull could be an image of the Canaanite god Baal who figures much later in Israel’s story. Is this story, cast back into the beginnings of Israel, a warning against conversion to foreign gods which was a major issue in later times. Maybe. Some scholars note that the bull was a symbol of fertility. Maybe it was thought this was a way to secure food and survival in the harsh desert conditions. Some note that the bull is a symbol of power. Was this a way to seek security in a difficult situation. Maybe. Another suggestion is that the image of the bull is a very ancient image of Israel’s own God. We should note that in Genesis God is at one point given the title of ‘the Bull of Jacob’. Maybe what the people seek is the re-invigoration of an old expression of their faith, something that is more comfortable than the new direction in which Moses is taking them.

So maybe the story of the golden calf is not a simple story about the disobedience of a fickle people and their priest. Maybe it is a more serious tale of the people’s need for security, control and familiarity in their lives and how that is achieved. All this in the face of a world with its insecurities, uncertainties and disappointments. All this in the face of a relation with God which is not always straight forward or certain.

Are those Israelites any different to us who look for security, control and peace within our lives? Are we not willing to spend our hard-earned gold on creating the means for well-being, power and security in our lives? We might call it a superannuation fund or some other name. It used to be that a home, the mortgage of which was paid off, provided such but maybe not now. As a nation we respond to rapid changes in and the uncertainties of the world by building images of power for ourselves. We spend staggering amounts of money on defence while often cutting back on social programmes, international aid programmes and other things which help the least able to cope in society.

It is not wrong to seek security, control and peace in our lives and the lives of all. Where would we be without our superannuation and pension schemes. And as long as there are terrorist acts or nations hurl rockets at each other, we do need to think how to respond.

The question the golden calf story raises for us is whether our own efforts to achieve security etc. are all we have? What Israel demanded of Aaron was not a strange new god to follow. They looked for security, a future, and meaningful hope in their difficult situation. What they sought in principle was not bad, not unreasonable and not without support from their tradition; after all the bull or calf was an early image of their own God. But what the people sought was something tangible, something they could ‘touch’, something that appeared ‘real’. And there is a danger in placing all one’s hopes in such to the exclusion of what is at the heart of the experience of exodus – namely a trust in a God of compassion and care; a promise of a relationship that would continue; and placing one’s faith/trust in one who cares and is concerned in times of need.

The Gospel reading gives us Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet. It may seem dissimilar to the story of the golden calf but they at least have in common a focus on the ways we reject the relationship with God or reject following the ways of God in the world. Some invited guests are too busy in the end to come. Others respond to the king with violence against his messengers. One of the main points of the parable has to do with the enormous generosity of God (= the king) in inviting all and sundry to replace those who had refused to attend.

Both stories remind us of ways we individually or as a society spurn the invitation to God’s feast of life. Both speak about God’s anger at the rejection, an anger that is more pain at the refusal to share in the life offered – full and rich. Both stories remind us that at the heart of a life so richly given by God there is a relationship, a commitment, a trust, a love and compassion that is not the result of our securing, not dependent on what we fashion with our gold, not focussed on what is of interest to us at the time. Both stories remind us that we feed on the richness of God’s bounty to us, even on God’s generosity in the midst of God’s brokenness at our rejection of his ways.

It is an awareness of that generosity, bounty and graciousness which overcomes any brokenness caused by our fickleness, that needs to inform our response in life in a rapidly changing world; a world where commercially interested media, ignorant public opinion, gossip, prejudice and fear mongering seek to shape our response to insecurity, a loss of power and control and our desire for hope. We’ve seen it most recently in the referendum and we see it in just about every election campaign.

Our faith, our God and God’s ways evident in Christ, with, at their heart a relationship of trust and promise, is what ought to shape our lives in such turbulent times. God’s way of peace, love and compassion is what gives rise to real hope. Not anything we might fashion for ourselves from our gold.