If we follow that the Exodus, which we’ve been tracing over these last several weeks, is the creation story for God’s people, then it’s only a matter of time before we get to the fall; the point in the story when the ideal of God and humanity dwelling in covenant community with each other comes crashing down, or at least is severely complicated.
Enter the Golden Calf, in some ways, the “disaster that has been waiting to happen.”[1]
I.
We’re nearing the end of the Exodus story. Moses and the people have escaped Pharaoh’s armies. They have traveled through miles of desert wilderness, feeding on quail and manna and water sent by God. They have seen God part waters and guide them in a pillar of fire and smoke. They have watched as Moses has gone up and down Mt. Sinai receiving the law of the covenant, each time returning with a face glowing with the residue of divine presence—all the while themselves bearing witness to the awesome power of God.
But now Moses has been up on the mountain for 40 days, the longest period he has been away from them throughout this journey. And without him there as their direct access point to God, the people become anxious. So they go to Aaron—Moses’ brother, closest confidant, and would-be competitor, in other words, his brother—and say to him, “Come and make gods for us, who shall go before us. As for this Moses character, we don’t know what’s become of him!”
That was quick! They dumped him faster than a starting quarterback in the SEC! And whether overwhelmed or fearful or perhaps ambitious, Aaron obliges. He tells the people to throw into the fire all their gold jewelry that they had taken from their Egyptian masters as they left, and then forms a mold of a calf, or really a young bull—this is to be a symbol of strength and vitality. When the people see this golden bull before them they say, “These are your gods, O Israel, who bought you out of Egypt!” Aaron sees how favorably they’re responding and builds an altar before the bull, telling them, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord”—and this is crucial.
II.
Often when we remember this story, we assume that the people are seeking to worship new or different gods from the one true God who led them out of bondage and has given them the law of the covenant. But that’s not what they think they’re doing. The calf isn’t presented as an “alternative to God.” They aren’t planning a “festival for the Golden Calf.” No, they intend to have a “festival for the Lord.” This golden calf is being passed off as God. And it’s so critical to understand this difference because this is how idolatry works. No one sets out to worship an idol. Our idols come to us disguised as something good and righteous.
And we should say that all of this sounds very ancient. “Idols” or “idolatry” have an air of antiquity about them—they’re golden bulls or little statues or other objects of primitive religious fervor. But the truth is that our idols change with our world. I heard a parent who was a few years ahead of where we were, put it once, “Little kids, little problems; big kids, bigger problems.” It’s true. And as our world has gotten bigger and societies and cultures more complex, so has our capacity for deception—deceiving others, of course, but maybe even more, self-deception. We now have to talk to our kids and remind ourselves about how social media isn’t real life and the dangers of “synthetic relationships” with AI chatbots that pass themselves off as real human people. Idolatry is about deception, at base.
The applications of these terms change, but the underlying human conditions do not. This is something the great 20th century theologian, Paul Tillich, wrote about persuasively. And he said in order to talk about what constitutes idolatry we have to talk about what constitutes faith. We can put our faith in many things, he said. The “object” of our faith is that which is most important to us, underneath everything else—the thing or idea or person or being in which we put our trust, that captivates our imaginations, that guides our heart, and thus directs our actions.[2]
Tillich said that for a person of biblical faith, the object of our faith is to be God. But as a German scholar during the rise of Nazism, Tillich was also well aware of how we can put our faith in so many other things— social movements or political parties, or some warped understanding of national identity or racial or ethnic superiority. Surely we could add more to the list—technology, military power, our own wits and resolve, even the bible itself. In fact, so much about religious practices are at risk of drifting into idolatry; our rituals and rhythms, our particular way of doing things. All that is meant to lead us to God can end up becoming god to us. Tillich said that an “idol” is anything other than God that we put our faith in, or in whom we ground our hope for ourselves or the world.
Idols can present as things, but when we get beyond the substance of the object itself, idols are always ideas. Or even deeper, idols are answers; they are supposed answers to our hard and even unknowable questions, our deepest fears. Underneath all the gold they threw in the fire, it wasn’t the baby bull itself that the people were worshipping, but their need to have their god at hand. To have something to hold onto.
III.
I said earlier that the Golden Calf was a disaster waiting to happen, and this is because the people were in a vulnerable place. They were out in the wilderness, the open, empty desert, where food was scarce and their future in doubt. Their great fear was that they had been abandoned by Moses and by God. Fear can make our memories short and selective. They forgot the parting of the waters before them; all they could see was the miles of sand around them.
In bringing them into the wilderness, God’s challenge or invitation was trust: that they would trust God is there even when they can’t see God. That they would trust there was a land promised to them when they just couldn’t seem to get there. Trust that while there are some things they will not understand, and that this life they’re being called to is often mysterious, God will see them through. But this feeling of God and Moses’ absence was simply too much to bear. So in their anxiety they made something they could hold, something they could touch, something they could point to and say, Look, God is right here.
Think of your deepest need, your greatest fear, your most persistent insecurity, and your idol will not be far away. When Audrey and I were preparing to do a long section hike on the Appalachian Trail some years back, I came across the blog of a seasoned wilderness guide who said when we’re choosing what to take with us in the limited space of the backpack, we always pack our fears. If your fear out in the wild is getting too cold, you’ll pack more layers. If it’s going hungry you’ll pack more food. It’s not a bad thing, she said. But you need to be aware of what’s shaping your choices and determine if it’s rooted in reality. Deception.
I think of some of the greatest challenges facing us right now as a people—the fracturing and sorting; how distrust and ugliness shape so much of our discourse; technologies that promise to radically change human life or potentially end it; a world that is rearranging and rearming; the celebration of brutality and bloodlust as signs of strength—I think of all these different golden calves and wonder what fears are behind them that would lead us to toss so many precious things into the fire to make them?
Years ago I was gifted a wonderful book called “The Art of Pastoring,” by William C. Martin. It’s a beautiful book that reads like a devotional for us minister types, in a deeply contemplative, therapeutic, almost Zen-like approach, always inviting us to drop the facade, take off these robes we insist on wearing, and reflect on who we really are. And there’s one reflection that I dogeared and have come back to many times through the years. He writes, “One of the first things I look at when I begin spiritual direction with a pastor is his or her daily planner. It reveals volumes about that pastor’s spiritual condition, values, fears, and ambitions. It tells me who their bosses are, who their lover is, and how much value they place on their soul. If you’re working more than 50 hours [week after week], you’re not doing it for God no matter how eloquent your rationalizations.
Take a long, prayerful meditative look at your calendar. Who are you trying to impress? God? Give me a break. The congregation? Possibly. Yourself? Bingo!
Now cut some big chunks out of each week for family, rest, meditation, prayer, and flower sniffing. When you’ve done that we’ll talk more about the path to God.”
Of course, he’s writing to pastors, but I suspect his insights could apply across many vocations. We think of idolatry as succumbing to a kind of temptation or distraction. But behind that, this story suggests that idolatry—or putting something else as the focus of our faith and trust—is rooted in our fear. Our insecurities. Often our need for control, for certainty or at least clarity. For answers.
From the start, God invites us to another way. To keep our hearts and our minds open to the mystery of it all. To put our trust not in what we can hold in our own hands—the easy truth, the simple answer, attractive and tempting as they may be—but in the God that so often is beyond our sight and whose ways are beyond our full knowing, but whose presence is as near to us as our next breath, and whose touch is as close as our neighbor hand.
IV.
It is a lesson we are still learning, like all of this Exodus journey we’ve followed. So we give thanks that the story isn’t over. That it didn’t end at the Golden Calf then and it will not end for any of our own golden calves now. God would forgive them—though with not a little persuasion by Moses, who argues on behalf of the people who would have tossed him to the curb. God changes God’s mind, it says—yet another one of our idols crashing down.
And yet, thank goodness God isn’t immoveable and unbending and instead is compassionate. Over and over in these early stories in scripture we’re told of a God who is willing to change, to reassess, to reimagine—but always, always in the direction of grace, of forgiveness, of another chance, and then another, and then another.
And in this way, God shows us what faithfulness must look like in this real world in which we live, with all its mystery, and with people and all their complexity. The only way to live a life free of deception, a life grounded in the truth. It is the same way we speak of so often and do our best to live. The way of love. It’s the way to which we’re called, the way perfected in Christ, but shown here at the start of the story by the God who calls us into the mystery. Whose trust in us far exceeds our trust in God.
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1 Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus, 398