Sermon for October 15, 2023 - The Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost

Exodus 32:1-14; Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23; Philippians 4:1-9; Matthew 22:1-14

Our journey with Moses and the Israelites through the wilderness continues this week with another well-known story that was again interestingly captured in Cecil B. DeMille’s epic The Ten Commandments.

If we had heard the typical lectionary readings for last Sunday and not Harvest Thanksgiving readings, then we would have heard last week about how the Israelites heard the voice of God and were frightened. They asked Moses to be the go between for them. Because of this, Moses spends a great amount of time with God on Mt. Sinai. While he is away for an extended period the people decide he has been gone for too long and assume (or fear) that he would not return.  In their desperation to feel secure, they demand that Moses’ brother Aaron make them a god to worship. Aaron takes their gold jewelry and makes a statue for them to worship.

Ah, the golden calf. We’ve been anticipating hearing this scripture for a few months now as we have worked our way through Genesis and Exodus. Ok, well maybe only I have been anticipating hearing this scripture.

In Lauren’s former diocesan work as canon for transition ministry in the Diocese of Idaho, she talked a lot about golden calves. She used this image in transition ministry because it’s easy to fall into the same place as the Israelites when a church is without a leader. Each parish ends up with their own golden calf or two along the way that takes up a lot of energy or becomes a center of conflict. Usually it’s something mundane, like choosing to replace the carpet. Other times it’s something larger and point towards something deeper. These issues become a golden calf when they pull the parish’s focus from the work of discernment and transition to whatever the issue is at hand and prevents them from moving forward in the transition process.

Making an idol out of something else isn’t just for the Israelites or parishes in transition. Each of us have the propensity to make golden calves for ourselves. This is because the golden calf represents anything - all things - that we place on a pedestal. Those things that distract us from the task at hand. Those things that seem so important that everything else has to fall to the wayside. Those things that lead us astray from our journey with God.

This becomes even more true when we feel alone, unsure, or like everything is out of control. It is made even harder when it seems like the world is falling apart around us. The escalation of violence and destruction. Displaced and stateless peoples. Women and children hiding in any kind of shelters in Ukraine and Gaza. So much destruction. So much death. What can we do against such reckless hate? We are wondering just who is in control? Who is going to be the adult in the room?

This is what it is like in the wilderness. For each of us and for the Israelites. The wilderness is a time of formation filled with tempting, testing, failing, complaining and, as a result, being formed into a new people. For the Israelites, the temptation of idolatry, to revert back into the old ways of being, by abandoning God for the gods of Egypt, longing for the way things were is an important part of their formation. These temptations and wilderness experiences parallel Jesus’ own time in self-exile in the wilderness. If Jesus can be formed by his own wilderness experience, then so too can we be formed by our own wilderness.

So, the question becomes what is my golden calf? What is it that consumes you, distracts you, and creates a separation between you and God? Is it igniting a passion in you that gives you life or is it bordering on obsession slowly leading to death?

I know that for me, one of my golden calves is my own ego and my desire to the best priest I can be, but not based on God’s expectations of me, rather based on my own unrealistic expectations to be all things to all people. And that is dangerous, because how can I possibly meet these expectations? Nobody is placing these expectations on me; they are purely my own. I can only fail and when we fail, we pummel ourselves, beat ourselves up, and descend further and further down the spiral into the depths. I know that the more I pursue that path, the further it takes me away from God’s hope and love for me. I have to check myself, before I quite literally wreck myself.

One thing that continues to remind me to look away from my golden calf, to focus my gaze on God, is this place – All Saints. Each week when we come together physically and virtually for those who join us via YouTube, I am reminded that I am not alone. And that gives me strength and comfort to carry on. As a parish family, we are journeying together to be better versions of ourselves, more connected with each other, more faithful to God.

These past few weeks we have been on a pathway of discernment; a period of self-reflection. During this time, I have asked you to reflect on why All Saints is your home, and how it is that you serve God in and through this place. What is about this place that plucks the chords of your hearts? Is it the people who gather here, the community? The music? The worship? Maybe it is how you felt welcomed, empowered and sent out into the world. Maybe you found your family, your people here at All Saints. Out of gratitude, appreciation, and love for God as we experience God through each other, we serve and care for each other just as a family. And I know in my family growing up we each needed to help out, do chores and tasks, that helped the family and take care of our house and each other. So it is here, that when we shed our golden calves, let go of our attachments and our disordered relationships, and set our gaze on God, we become empowered to selflessly offer our time and our talents as we share our gifts with each other and with the world. And I will tell you this now, this makes all the difference because we never know just how what you do will impact others, in both big and small ways.

As Paul writes to the Philippians: “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”

I am so grateful for all the many unseen ways in which you practice Jesus’s call to love and serve. Thank you for all that you are and all that each of you give to continue the mission of God through this parish family. I am convinced nothing can separate us from the love of God, not even the golden calves we make for ourselves. And so, I leave you with this question to ponder for the week as we discern God’s call on our hearts: “What golden calf might I let go of, so that I can take on something new in my walk with Christ in the coming year?”