The Calves and The Sheep

Exodus 32:7-14 and Luke 15:1-10

Antonio Molinari, Adoration of the Golden Calf c. 1700-1702 Public Domain

Today is a big day, 

perhaps even one of the biggest days of the year for us. 

That’s right sisters and brothers, 

today the Browns and the Eagles will kick off the first Sunday of the NFL season

or perhaps you’re leaning more towards the Packers and the Jaguars. 

I know that will be a big one for many of our cheeseheads out there. 

But that can’t be all we have going on today can it?

Of course not!

We have the Giants and the Cowboys at 4 

and of course the day will be topped off at its conclusion with the Patriots and the Cardinals for the prime time game tonight. 

But I must admit, these events don’t excite Pastor Stephen or I at all today. 

You see?

I’m a Steelers fan and they don’t play until the Monday night game. 

And Pastor Stephen?

Well, he was just a kicker so he doesn’t watch football anymore. 

Right?

I must admit sisters and brothers, I do love to watch football and not just the NFL but especially college. 

But with 32 franchises valued at an average of $1.97 billion a pop, 

and a brand that is valued at an estimated $ 62 Billion, the NFL certainly reigns supreme when vying for our attention through advertisement and even fashion. 

The NFL basically owns this day, the day that once belonged to something that we long ago believed to be a bit bigger than a game, 

But I am not so sure that is necessarily the case anymore. 

We can blame a variety of factors for that and we could certainly claim that this is a modern dilemma, 

But when we look at our lessons for today and find the Israelites opening the 33rd NFL franchise; the Israelite Golden Calves, 

maybe we should consider how humanity has always had a propensity towards idolatry when they find themselves lost. 

As John Calvin said, “The human heart is an idol making factory.”

In our first lesson, Moses has been chosen to lead the people out of Egypt. 

József Molnár, Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt c. 1861 Public Domain

A people who are considered beyond help, beyond hope. 

Certainly not a people that would be chosen by any god to communicate the power and authority of that god. 

But that is what sets THE God of Israel apart from all other gods and religions of the day. 

This is THE God who selects from the lost and the lowly, but selecting from such a group is certainly a risk. 

One need not be too imaginative to consider what it is like to be lost, alone, in the darkness, in the wilderness whether isolated in the middle of a deep forest, the ocean, or a desert.

Anyone who finds themselves lost is always attracted to the brightest light or the loudest sound.

Unless we find ourselves in a place that is completely devoid of any sound or any light, 

and in that case it only takes the faintest sound or sight to draw us near. 

This is how most organisms respond to isolation.

We seem to need to be drawn to something when we find ourselves truly lost, 

but those things that we are drawn to are most often the things that lead us the farthest astray. 

In our first lesson, these Hebrews find themselves in the wilderness, but they are not even truly lost. 

In fact, God is watching their every move which is being shared with Moses blow by blow. 

And God speaks with pain and anguish in God’s voice, 

the kind of pain that only a parent or a spouse who has been betrayed in the most indecent way can imagine, because that is how God has been betrayed in this story. 

“Look at them, they’ve replaced ME, 

THE God who has liberated them, 

THE God who has loved them,

And I, the God of Israel has been replaced with a bright shiny loud THING that not only will not lead them out of their darkness and silence, 

But to make it even worse, they have given it credit for MY love.”

Sisters and brothers, it is not God who has abandoned the Hebrew people in the wilderness.

It is God who has been abandoned, forsaken, and betrayed, left with few other options but to look down on this covenant relationship and watch as their unfaithfulness unfolds before the sight of Moses and God. 

And once this chosen people have committed this act of infidelity, it cannot be undone. 

What is worse, what God has seen cannot be unseen. 

~

This lesson connects to our Gospel in a distinct way. 

Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep pertains as much to the Pharisees and scribes as it does to the tax collectors and sinners. 

Because no one ever seeks out a way to be truly lost. 

And many who find themselves lost are not nearly as isolated as they thought. 

Victor M. Vicente Selves, The Lost Sheep c. 2009 Public Domain

But those who think they are immune to being led astray are often set adrift by their own arrogance. 

We are all capable of finding ourselves off the path which God has intended for us, and when we are aware of that, we rarely take our eyes off of that compass. + 

But even under the watchful eye of the God, the Hebrew people believe themselves to be lost in the wilderness. 

Wilderness, yes

But lost?

No, not if they have faith in the Shepherd. 

But what if the Shepherd isn’t quite what we wanted?

What if this God isn’t quite what the Hebrew people, or we, expected?

Not really how we pictured, nor responding in the way we envisioned the Shepherd should?

For the Israelite people, this is very much the case. 

And so, they are led astray. 

And they are attracted to an image, a god, that mirrors other gods of their day and age. 

This isn’t an ancient dilemma, this is the reality of our human condition. 

We are easily attracted to the god that provides us with the easy answers, the obvious solutions, the prosperous reward for our devout faithfulness. 

But when God doesn’t respond to us the way we think a god should, maybe we need to reconsider just what kind of god we are seeking?

Sisters and brothers, I don’t want the god with the easy answers or the quick solutions because this world is full of complicated feelings, opinions, politics, fears, and ideas that need a God that is bigger then a simple Genie in a bottle. 

~

Late one night a father was walking into a hospital, to identify the body of his son, who was struck by a car. 

His son was pronounced dead upon arrival, and after identifying the body a chaplain was called to be at the father’s side. 

The father stood by the gurney shaking in rage, as tears streamed down his face. 

After taking a deep breath, while looking straight ahead and avoiding eye contact, the father angrily demanded to know where the chaplain’s God was when his son was struck by that automobile. 

Softly and slowly the chaplain replied, “I can’t tell you for certain where my God was, but wherever my God was I’m sure he was watching from the same place where He was watching when His own Son died.”

~

That isn’t the God we want and when we are facing times like the times that father was facing we often try to create an image of the god that we want. 

The god that fits neatly in our boxes, inside our lines. 

Maybe that is what happened over these past 15 years. 

After the countless numbers of books we have written about the decline of the institutional church over the years, one factor we continue to brush over is that we as the church never want to answer the hard questions about God. 

I was at boot camp on this day 15 years ago and when I came off that island, I didn’t even recognize my own country anymore. 

I couldn’t walk down a street without someone thanking me for my service, and if I went anywhere in a uniform, you would have thought I won a raffle!

But what was the most foreign to me, was in the months following 9/11, our places of worship were packed to the brim. 

Those few months of packed pews were fairly short lived, however. 

And as the years went by, attendance in most places of worship continuously declined. 

Perhaps people were drawn to the church on that tragic day because they longed for the god that would grant the vengeance we all craved?

Perhaps people were drawn to the church on that tragic day because they longed for the god that would find their friends and loved ones buried beneath that rubble?

Perhaps people were drawn to the church on that tragic day because they longed for the god that would help them forget what they had seen, or numb the pain they felt?

I know that was the golden calf that I was seeking. It was the golden calf I sought when I came home from Iraq four years later, too. 

Maybe not revenge, maybe not even getting back what I had lost, but was it really too much to ask?

To just numb the pain, to just make those memories go away?

U.S. Navy Photography, Released 15 September 2001 Public Domain

~

We are not led into the wilderness by the shepherd to be lost. 

The Hebrew slaves were not led into the wilderness by God’s shepherd, Moses, to be lost. 

We wander into the wilderness because it was the creation that God granted us. 

Made perfect and good, at least until the gift was given to us. 

We live in a broken world full of sin, hate, anger, and pain. 

But it is also a world full of joy, beauty, and love. 

And it is a world that inflicts pain on more than just the people in it. 

It is a world that inflicts pain on God. 

~

Sitting in my first theology class a few years back, my professor asked a fairly straightforward question. 

He asked if we thought God experiences pain. 

Not a single person in the class that day batted an eye when we all admitted to believing that God experiences pain. 

But after reaching a consensus, he informed us that if God experiences pain then God cannot be immanent, that is, God cannot remain unchanged. 

He was right. 

And in our text today, we can see that clearly as Moses pleads the case of the Hebrew people. 

God does change, and in a world where God can be changed by pain, the fundamental question we all ask remains. 

The same question that all those people that filled our pews asked in the days and months that followed September 11th, 

The question I asked, the question we all ask. 

If that is the God we look to as our Rock, our Savior, our Certainty, 

Then just how certain can we be?

The answer is clear in both Luke and Exodus today. 

What sets God apart is God’s love. 

Because unlike the love we know, 

The love we waste on the golden calves we bow down to, 

God presents a love that is beyond the love we know.

Because even the most perfect love we share is ordinary compared to God’s extraordinary love. 

And what makes that love extraordinary?

No matter how much pain we inflict on God, 

No matter how changed God is by the pain that is inflicted, 

It is God’s love that remains unchanged. 

Even to the point of watching us bow down before our own golden calves. 

Even to the point of watching us nail God’s own Son to the cross,

Because he too, was not the golden calf we wanted or expected.

And through it all, as we pour our own mistrust and unbelief on God, 

God remains the unchanging love that promises to find us, 

No matter how lost we may or may not be. 

Amen

Albrecht Altdorfer, Christ on the Cross c. 1480-1538 Public Domain

Sources

Calvin, John. Calvin: Institutes of Christian Religion: Vol 1. 23rd ed. Edited by John T. McNeill. Philadelphia: Westminster/John Knox Press,U.S., 1960.

Hoefler, Richard Carl and Carl Hoefler. And He Told Them a Story: Background on Luke’s Parables. Lima, OH: C.S.S. Pub., 1979.

Ozanian, Mike. “The NFL Is Still an Undervalued Brand.” Forbes (Forbes), September 7, 2014. http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2014/09/07/the-nfl-is-still-a-very-undervalued-brand/#2b2cc4478e9a.