GOD MIGHT PUSH YOU INTO THE UNFAMILIAR

A Worship Reflection from Pastor Megan Torgerson

[Aaron] took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

During podcast recording last week, as we discussed the reading from Exodus 32, Pastor Steve made an observation that sticks with me. When considering the Israelites making a false god for themselves, one made of gold and shaped like a calf, denying the power of the one God who brought them into freedom, Pastor Steve observed: “We like the gold calf because it doesn’t scare us.”

Back in Exodus 20:18-21, the people get to hear God’s law directly from God. However, it’s terrifying. Not the laws, necessarily, but simply hearing God’s voice is too much. They agree to the life-giving boundaries of the commandments but insist that Moses be the only one who has to speak with God in the future. As it turns out, the God of the Israelites is a bit too mighty, a bit too other, a bit too scary. They’d rather not have to deal with that directly.

In the chapters just before Sunday’s text, we hear God and Moses doing the work that the people entrusted to Moses. God gives the people further direction and structure and does so with Moses alone. However, this takes a lot of time. With Moses absent and God quiet, the people become more terrified than when they’d heard God’s own voice.

The thing about following a God who is not you, who cannot be controlled by you, is that this God might scare you. God might push you out into the wilderness, into unfamiliar places, forced to wait and listen and endure. Sure, this God is also good and loving and has made a promise to sustain people for generations, but how does that help me right now? I want a god that gives me all the comfort and none of the crisis. I’d like to make a golden calf, thank you very much.

And that is just what the Israelites do. They make themselves a god, immediately say that it is what brought them out of slavery, and decide to celebrate in its honor. This god is all the good stuff and none of the hard stuff.

The golden calf might not be scary, but it’s also meaningless. Beware of all the things we choose to make more important than our God, simply because those other things feel more comfortable and less challenging. Those gods are not God. When God’s rules and promises guide our lives, we don’t always get what we want. We won’t always know where we’re going. We must trust that God will guide us, scary though that may be.

Let us pray:
Lead me, God. Guide me, God. Keep me centered in you alone. Amen.