Proper 23 Year A 101208
Exodus 32:1-14, Matthew 22:1-14
God is Gold?
By Rich Gamble
Often it seems that the lectionary scriptures perfectly fit what is happening in the world. This week’s scriptures certainly do seem to be especially chosen for this week’s news.
First the story:
Our spiritual ancestors, the Hebrew slaves, have followed Moses away from the murderous grip of the Egyptian Empire. They have several moments of panic when they feared what would happen to them in the wilderness, away the predictability of their lives inside the Domination System. Now Moses has left them to climb a mountain and have a heart to heart with the Almighty. Predictably, in his absence they panic.
Moses for them is the voice of God. Without the big Mo they quickly begin to question the direction of their lives. The Domination System in Egypt was all they knew. Out in the wilderness, they were not sure of the rules, were not sure of where food and water and security were going to come from. The manna based economy of God did not allow them to horde up resources to calm their fears. Their lives were based on the trust that tomorrow’s needs would find tomorrow’s answers. Given the choice between a sack full of food and heart full of trust most of us, when we are worried about tomorrow’s breakfast, will opt for the sack.
With Moses off on some monastic retreat, the people were left to their fears and to quell those fears they turned to what they knew, and that was gold.
Gold is a commodity in the Domination System. It is something that holds excess value in an easily transportable way. Otherwise it’s a shiny piece of metal just a different color and a little more bendable than brass or copper. But when people decide that it has great value then it can be an expression of excess value. The Domination System runs on excess value. And something like gold or diamonds or those pretty little pieces of paper we call money represent that value.
You see in the manna economy of the wilderness there was no excess value. When you needed food you went out and gathered manna, if you gathered more than you needed, it would rot; and anyway, no one was going to buy something that anyone could get for free. If you were too young or old or sick and couldn’t gather the manna someone would get it for you. No charge required, no money required.
Ah but in the Domination System it’s all about excess value. I take advantage of others so that I get more value out of my time, or skills than they get. Then I get a profit. The more vulnerable they are and the more powerful I am, the more profit I get out of any exchange. And that profit is more readily usable if it is in something portable, like gold or numbers in a bank account.
The slaves remember the significance of gold. They took the gold off the Egyptians as they fled Egypt. So they have these baubles, gold rings and earrings and naturally when they lose sight of the God of the alternative order, they turn back to that which provided security in the old order. Surplus value in the Domination System is the source of security. These people felt that they needed security and what better place to find it than the gold on their fingers.
So they panicked and Aaron (the kind of religious leader who would rather be popular than faithful) organized them into manufacturing a god of gold. We all want our god(s) to be a source of security and we also want our god(s) to be readily accessible. We want them to love us and hate the people we hate. We want God to give us what we want and on our schedule. The God of Gold can do all of that. Idols don’t ask us to go through the difficult process of transformation. They just rubber stamp our prejudices and desires. A good idol will always be on the side of our nation, our race, our religion, our culture, our economic system. A good idol will bless us with wealth and health and security or at the very least eternal life and never ask us to make a fundamental change. In the Golden Calf, our spiritual ancestors got the security of gold along with the divine malleability of an idol. The Golden Calf was never going to ask them to do what they didn’t want to do. The Golden Calf was never going lead them where they didn’t want to go. The Golden Calf would only go where they carried it. Now that’s a convenient God.
This sounds so much like today. Suddenly the American people are panicked. We have no spiritual leader guiding us away from the tyranny of our own desires. Long ago we as a people traded our faith in the real God of Jesus for a golden cross that we can wear around our necks. But our God of gold seems to be failing us. And so the high priests come and say that we have to turn throw future generations in debt so that we can appease the mystical god of the market. (The modern day equivalent to sacrificing babies) We common mortals don’t understand how heaving money at banks is going to help us but we do it because we don’t know how this thing called an economy works. We are told that the market lost 1.2 Trillion dollars of value in a single day. Lost? Where did it go? When I lose my glasses I have a fair idea where to look. Where do we look for the 1.2 trillion? All of a sudden this idea of excess value doesn’t seem so normal and easy to understand. Basically in a single day 1.2 trillion dollars of value was lost because a group of people lost faith.
Suddenly our economy isn’t about real values like food for hungry people. It’s about faith. Our whole economic system could collapse because people have lost faith in that system. Suddenly the curtain is pulled away and we see the awful truth. The system which pays a CEO 275 times the salary of average worker functions only because we have faith in it. A system which allows billions of people to go hungry, keeps running only because we have faith in it. It has never been about faith in God and the common sense world of business. It has always been about competing faith systems. One built on excess value gained through taking advantage of our neighbors. One based on having only enough and making sure the same is true for everyone else. What we call faith has tangible economic, social and political implications. What they call economics and politics is built on a mystical faith in excess value and domination. It is all about choosing which faith system to live in.
That’s why the people didn’t want to go to the party in Matthew’s parable; they didn’t want to put on the party clothes. God’s party is for everyone but everyone is called on to put on the right clothes, which is a metaphor for changed lives. That transformation is costly for those who have accrued a great deal of excess value or status in the old system. In the realm of God, they are called to part with the excess acquired in the world of false gods. That’s why “successful” people don’t want to come to God’s party. And that is why we are called to cease thinking of successful people as successful.
In God’s economy we all have what we need and we share any excess. Those of us willing to put on those clothes are ready for God’s party.
In terms of the world, we may be seeing a hiccup or a collapse or the beginning of a dreary downward spiral. Whatever it becomes, undoubtedly it will be the vulnerable who will suffer most. Our work to aid the afflicted will increase but our opportunities will increase as well. We have been given an opportunity to see past the curtain of lies and to see the fracturing faith that holds up the Powers. A faith that we once thought were as solid as a bank.
We have an opportunity when there is a crisis of faith in the Golden God. We have the opportunity point out that, as appealing as such gods seem, they only lead us to slavery, dissolution and disaster. The Golden Calf is not a benign bauble, it is a malignant repository of our faith in greed and violence, the age-old ideas that built our civilization. As old certainties disintegrate an opportunity arises for the world to see things differently. A hurting and fearful world may yet turn to the God of love and justice.
Most of all, we have the kind of value that can’t be given away by Congress, or frittered away on Wall Street. Our excess value is given over to God in the form of acts of charity and justice for our neighbors. And because God holds that value it can never dissipate. The recipient doesn’t have prosper or to be thankful for our efforts to have meaning. For the meaning is in held in God.
Ours is not a god of gold. Our God does not measure us by the size of our salary or the value of our investments. Our God does not erode when we lose faith. If we have faith in the God of Moses and Jesus then we need not fear what comes. For the source of real value for our lives will never abandon us.
Amen
