What Are We Building?

The Golden Calves We Make at Home

Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”

— Exodus 32

When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm,

the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place…

— Isaiah 25

I can almost sympathize with Aaron. Moses has been gone a long time. The people are restless and demanding something they can see and follow. Aaron gets creative. Give them what they want, perhaps, while somehow keeping it connected to the God they already know. He collects their gold, makes the calf, builds an altar before it—and then announces, remarkably, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.” Maybe Aaron is frightened. Maybe he is trying to meet the people halfway. Maybe he thinks he can have the best of both worlds. Whatever his intentions, though, his religious language cannot change what his actions have produced. There is a golden calf standing in the camp.

Isaiah gives us another startling image. He describes the “ruthless” and compares the “noise of aliens” to oppressive heat. The word aliens catches my attention because immigration and the treatment of foreigners have become such difficult subjects in our own time. Scripture repeatedly commands God's people to care for the stranger and foreigner among them. Yet that doesn't mean every biblical appearance of a foreigner carries precisely the same meaning. Here Isaiah is describing hostile outsiders, and the significant word may be ruthless. God is the refuge of the poor and needy against those who would overwhelm them.

That distinction matters. Welcoming people does not require welcoming everything people believe or do. We can open our homes, communities and hearts to people while still discerning ideas and practices by whether they produce justice, righteousness, mercy and holiness. But Exodus immediately prevents me from turning that observation into an accusation against somebody coming from somewhere else. Israel didn't need foreigners to bring the golden calf into camp. They made it themselves. And Aaron, one of their own religious leaders, helped.

That turns the question around rather dramatically. It is easy to become vigilant about what somebody else might bring through the front door while overlooking what I am building in the living room. Every society has things worth preserving and things requiring repentance. Every outsider can bring ideas that bless or harm, and so can every insider. Sometimes the dangerous compromise even arrives wrapped in familiar religious language. Aaron could call his celebration a “festival to the LORD,” but God's name did not transform the calf into something holy.

We've been asking a similar question throughout these recent readings: What does it produce? The vineyard is expected to produce fruit. God expects justice and righteousness. Now Aaron reminds me that my intentions, labels and explanations aren't enough. What am I actually making from the things entrusted to me? What compromises have I baptized with the right words because they allow me to have the best of both worlds?

Perhaps discernment begins closer to home than I sometimes want it to. Yes, I should care about what enters through the door. But before I become too frightened about what someone else might bring inside, I should take a good look around the room. What are we building in here?

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