Stroll through Scripture for October 6, 2024

Based on Exodus 32:1-14

After the Israelites leave Egypt, they wander.  They stop at the mountain of God along the way.  Moses goes up the mountain and is gone for a long time.  The people get anxious and that’s where the trouble begins. They ask Aaron, the chief priest, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us;” And Aaron obliges the people melting down gold that they took from Egypt and forming an idol that looks like a golden calf.  

There is so much to say about this story.  They knew they were making a false god yet did so anyway.  They wanted a comforting lie and when they were given it, they bought it hook, line, and sinker.  As crazy as all of this sounds, it’s not as uncommon as you might think.  Aaron isn’t just the high priest, he’s the one in charge when Moses leaves.  There’s a whole question about what leadership is.  Aaron seems to think leadership is just about satisfying the wishes of the people he is in charge of – responding without any discernment at all of the consequences of the desire.  

I heard an ad for a candidate for office say that leadership is about being tough, which seems to be the opposite of what Aaron was offering.  I don’t think that’s what leadership is either.  Leadership is more like paying attention to what’s going on and offering an appropriate response that considers what many can’t see. Often, healthy leadership is unpopular with the people.  But the leader has to make unpopular decisions because they are looking at the larger picture of the whole.  Aaron fails the leadership test.  

So why a golden calf?  Why not another animal?  That’s a question that has often bugged me.  There’s a pretty good article about this very question by Jonathan Lipnick (Source: https://blog.israelbiblicalstudies.com/holy-land-studies/the-real-meaning-of-the-golden-calf/). In the post, Lipnick says that Aaron, being a religious figure, made “a conscious attempt to imitate a common practice found in the temples of many of the nations in the Ancient Near East.”  The people had just come from Egypt.  Egypt had Apis, a golden calf idol which often depicted a king seated on the calf as a way of emphasizing the king’s divinity. 

The other part of this story that is fascinating is how it seems that God flies into a fit of irrational rage.  In vs. 7, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely.”  Notice the language.  God says that the people belong to Moses.  After God gets done with this statement, then God changes God’s mind and says: “Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them.”  Does God want Moses to go down or not?  

Moses responds by saying, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people…” (Vs. 11).  Notice that Moses is reminding God that these are God’s people, not Moses’.  

The Golden Calf story raises many questions without offering many answers.  And maybe that’s on purpose.  Life is complex and messy.  People do things that don’t make sense.  People ask for comforting words, knowing they are a lie and then embrace the lie as if it were true.  All of this is so very frustrating.  And a reminder – there is nothing new under the sun.  Humanity has been acting this way for a long time and will continue.  We aren’t going to change that.  We are called to remain faithful to God and God’s ways though.  

Questions for reflection:

• What golden calves do you clamor for from leaders?  Be honest.  What words and images of comfort do you seek from those in charge that you know are empty and lies, but the lie brings comfort?  
• What do you make of God and Moses essentially saying – “these are your people” to one another?
• In spite of what is going on in the story, what Good News do you hear?