Golden Calves

 Exodus 32:1-14

The worshipping of the golden calf in the wilderness. The people get impatient, they want proof something is with them, Moses left and so has God. It has been too long. They want something tangible to signify they aren't lost from God. Like all their wanderings so far, they turn back, turn back to Egypt and slavery, turn back to what they knew, even though it wasn't safe, turn back to what is familiar.

We are wandering our own wilderness now. Shut off from the things which are so familiar. Gathering in a larger community, singing together as a congregation, partaking of full communion with one another, and meeting together for fun. Has it been too long yet? We need to ask ourselves, what is our golden calf?

We all have one, one we don't want to give up because of this pandemic. Because we have been asked to do a lot. Not see our friends, not gather and travel to see relatives and then all the stuff we are asked to let go of in church. It's a lot. It's been since March, what calf have we built?

Maybe it's an image of worshipping together again. Our mind has made the image, we want it even though we can't have it, there are some who have done it in spite of this, and some who have paid with parishioners and leaders dying because they didn't heed the warnings. Worship has changed and we need to lean into the change, but it is so hard to tear this calf apart. It is a fondness for community, communion with God. We long for it. We want it so much. Yet it is not to be. When someone suggest we wait, we don't see any good sense in it. We don't want to step forward, we want to look back.

Maybe it's partaking of communion. It is the center of who we are or is this just the calf we have made it. Yes, it's a part. So is being a servant and washing each others feet. This was the other thing done at the last supper in John. There is no communion, only the foot washing and instructions to love one another as I have loved you. Loving one another right now is not having communion. It symbolizes how we are not in full communion with all who come through our doors. It symbolizes how broken we are from one another in the wider world. Dismantling this calf is hard as well. We look back, we don't want brokenness, isn't being broken a part of what communion is? We break the bread symbolizing our broken lives and how Jesus has healed them. We are broken, but not left alone. 

Let go. The hardest thing for us to do. I know because my calf is singing. I love to sing. I love the way it brings worship together. Yet we can't sing, not in full congregation, not together with one another. So I sing in the car, I sing in my room alone, I dance to the music, I use a kazoo, yes it is hard to dismantle this calf. Singing is as much a part of me as any other part of worship. Yet we must let go. We look back and I can look back far. I think of weekends with my mom playing piano and my dad requesting songs. I think of my great Uncle John and his sons singing at a Dunn gathering or at the family church my great, great grandfather preached at. We need to look ahead as well. Solo singing, singing at home are all fine answers. I have to catch myself at the store. I know why I'm doing this. And I know it has to come, let go. 

Let go because it holds us back. Looking back never gets anyone anywhere. We could stay rooted in place. Moses comes down the mountain, breaks the tablets and has to go back up and away. Looking back didn't gain the Hebrew people any ground. They stayed for 40 years in the desert. I don't think this is going to last that long. It is our desert though. The thing is someone has been here before. We can see the trail they left. We can find a lesson for today. Let go, don't look back, forge onward.

Yes, the landscape then changes. It changes us drastically. At our core we are the same people. We are Episcopalian. We know we are a community, just watch the internet. Morning prayer, midday, evening prayer, or compline, or Sunday worship all in many varieties from all around the globe. They are there reminding us of the wider community. Communion has changed for now, communion can be found in how broken we are as the community from our doors. Communion can be found in the store, in a phone conversation and we commune with missing one another. Singing will come, it is not lost, we can sing in the shower, sing as a soloist, sing online in a zoom sing (which is fun). We are changed and at our core we don't like it. It is what it is now though. 

So, we take hands and dismantle the idols. We get through this trying to find our way in the desert. The thing is we are not left alone. We are not orphans, we have from Jesus' own lips. We just are trying to find the new ways to be. This is a walk, a journey, and we can make it together. We just have to stop looking back.