"The Limitations of Imitations" - Exodus 32:1-14 - October 10, 1999

Recently I visited with a young mother who is getting acquainted with her new born son. Whenever she is out of the room he cries. He senses that she is not present and that he has been left alone. That is normal. A new born needs to feel safe and secure.

The experience reminded me of my son when he was a small child. He carried around a blanket to give him a sense of security. He couldn’t stand to be anywhere without his trusty blanket. I found the whole thing frustrating. What did the blanket do for him that I couldn’t do? What was it about the blanket that made him feel so secure? Although it took several years to rid him of his security blanket, I finally succeeded.

Thankfully my son overcame his need for his security blanket. I never fully understood why it was so important to him. As long as he could see it or touch it he felt secure. Take it away and he was afraid and insecure.

The Israelites were experiencing their own sense of insecurity. But, these weren’t children, they were adults. Moses, their leader, was away in the mountains. To compensate for his absence they created the golden calf. Rather than trust in an invisible God they put their trust in something they could see and touch.

They created an "image" to replace the missing presence of God. Moses was their devoted leader, their communication link to the almighty. Aaron was his substitute but the people wanted Aaron to give them something tangible. Feeling the pressure he helped them to create the golden calf. Unfortunately they transferred their trust in the invisible God to the visible golden calf.

In the process God became jealous and vowed to destroy them. They had created a visible but inferior object of their love and devotion. God was angry since God no longer received their trust.

It’s easy to blame Aaron for creating the golden calf. He was in charge, the one whom Moses had appointed as leader while he was away. But Aaron sensed the insecurity of the people and simply helped them create an alternative to their invisible God. The people were afraid and the image made them feel safe and secure. Not only did it become their blanket of security, it became the focus of their devotion.

I’m no different. There are times when I feel that God has abandoned me. Just recently I was having a discussion with some colleagues. We were all experiencing the frustration of feeling "alone" in our pastoral positions. It gets very heavy at times, attending to everyone else’s burdens. We all love the Church but it sometimes feels like we are the only ones who really care. We found ourselves lamenting over the fact that there is no one to pastor us.

As I reflect back on that conversation I wonder if perhaps we are feeling like the Israelites; that God is invisible and there is no one to lead us. Like everyone else we measure ourselves with success. We judge ourselves based on what others are doing. Perhaps we have built our own "golden calves", making success and/or performance the focus of our devotion.

I believe that we all have "golden calves." They aren’t objects. They are "images", i.e., the image of being successful, the image of appearing beautiful, the image of being happy. And when we do not aspire to those images we live as though God has abandoned us, just as the Israelites believed God had abandoned them.

The golden calves in our lives, however are only imitations. God is a jealous God and God may not be happy with us when we devote our lives to them. They build our ego. They make us look good and they even give us a "high." They are only an imitation, not the real McCoy. They are not the life sustaining source of our being, nor will they provide life-long fulfillment. They are created in our image, not in the image of God.

There is nothing worse than believing you have purchased an original copy of a painting or genuine antique only to discover it is a cheap copy. What you thought was immensely valuable turned out to be practically worthless.

We are conditioned to put our trust in temporal things and concepts; (1) investing in and actually believing that we will win the lottery, (2) Participating in activities where we can measure our performance and achieve some level of greatness, (3) Indulging in practices that stimulate us or make us euphoric. These become the golden calves of our lives that steal our trust away from God.

These are nothing more than cheap imitations to which we give our trust. They will not satisfy us in the long run and at some point we too may face an angry and a jealous God.

The Israelites can be thankful that Moses intervened on their behalf. He reminded God that these were God’s people and so God’s mind was changed, at least for the moment. They will still have to face judgment at a later time.

When we feel abandoned by God or we cannot see God we lose trust. It is then when we begin to put our trust in other things. Unfortunately, in time they become our gods, receiving our devotion instead of the one true God.

There is a limit to our imitations. They will not bring us fulfillment. They can only give us the appearance that life is marvelous or that we have achieved some magical level of happiness. To devote ourselves to them is to cease trusting in God who loves us, cease believing in a God who is with us always, cease worshipping God who deserves our gratitude and praise.

If you read on in this story you will note that Moses turns their golden calf to worthless powder and then makes them drink it. What had been the object of their devotion, the image that received their trust had been reduced to a 25 cent package of Kool-Aid.

Dr. Keith Wagner, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Sidney, Ohio