Melting the Golden Calf
“Let us be grateful to those who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” ~ Marcel Proust
In Exodus 32:15-24, 30-34, we look in on Moses as he descends Mount Sinai with the very tablets of the Ten Commandments. Off in the distance, he hears what he correctly pegs as sounds of revelry (Exod. 32:18), although Joshua mistook the ruckus for a battle going on within the camp.
As Moses draws closer, his premonition is indeed confirmed as he spots the idolatrous golden calf, around which the Israelites were dancing and worshipping. How ironic that Moses, with Ten Commandments in hand, would look upon a people who could not even obey the very first of the ten.
Flabbergasted and deeply disappointed in the Israelites, Moses, after explaining to the people that they had committed a grave sin, approaches God seeking to make atonement for their sinfulness. God in his mercy agrees to forgive those who are truly remorseful, promising however to punish, at the right time, those who are unrepentant.
Here again we see God’s response to man’s waywardness and disobedience. He gives us the ever-so-precious gift of time. Time to repent, time to be transformed and made pure by God’s unyielding grace. Yet we know that time runs out. When it does, mercy turns to judgment.
How quickly the Israelites were enamored and thus drawn to their false gods, this after having just witnessed the remarkable events at the Red Sea, events that led to their freedom from slavery. God had delivered for them that which they desired for 430 years. Why the crisis of faith?
Clearly the people were growing anxious. Moses had been with the Lord on Mount Sinai for 40 days and perhaps they began to wonder if he would ever return. Impatience and doubt began to gnaw away at their new-found faith, a faith not yet fully cultivated. Despite the fact that this was the God who led them out of Egypt, that place of oppressive slavery, they had grown weary of believing in an invisible God.
The golden calf made for them by Aaron with the melted-down gold of the Egyptians was something of a more tangible nature, something they could touch and see. A false god of their own making would allow themselves to drown their impatience and anxiety in revelry. Sound familiar?
Security and protection are feelings we all yearn for. In this way, we are not all that much different from the Israelites or anyone else for that matter. When God feels distant, as he may from time to time, it‘a all too easy to look elsewhere for the security and protection we so crave. We reach out for something we can see, hear, eat, drink, binge-watch, gamble on, spend money on, share our opinion on, sometimes in bombastic fashion.
Yet we know those things will never make us happy. Throughout the entire history of the world, these things have never made anyone happy. Neither you nor I are going to turn that losing streak around. As noted psychiatrist Jordan Peterson observes, “The story of the golden calf reminds us that without rules, we quickly become slaves to our passions. And there is nothing freeing about that.”
There is something far greater than all of this, greater than the golden calf of materialism and self-love, which, to quote the great Thomas Carlyle, “Waxes to be a burning Phalaris bull, which reduces its father and adorer to ashes.” There is friendship, true friendship, with Jesus.
Every year on July 29th our church pauses to celebrate the Memorial of Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, siblings who were friends of Jesus. Sacred Scripture captures a few of their get-togethers (Luke 10:38-42 & John 12:2-8) wherein they dined with Jesus, spent time with him, and simply enjoyed his company.
Our Lord desires to have the exact same relationship with each of us. To converse in prayer and silent meditation. To spend time in Eucharistic Adoration. To get deeply acquainted with and be drawn to He who is our everything. To enjoy Him. There is a priest I know who concludes every mass by saying “Go forth, to love, serve, and enjoy the Lord.”
Yes, we are called to serve our neighbor and our God, but we are called to do so with joy. We are invited to enjoy the God who enjoys us. To embrace and cherish the simple beauty of this world. As Saint Teresa of Avila once said, “The closer one approaches to God, the simpler one becomes."
Let us melt down the golden calves in our lives that, in our misguided concupiscence, we oftentimes worship and re-center our lives squarely on the King of Kings, He who has a monopoly on both joy and peace, that sublime gift that can at times feel so elusive. He who alone can and will guide us safely home to eternal paradise.
For whoever follows Him will have the light of life. (John 8:12).
