2026-10-11 Ex 32 01-14 Mt 22 01-14 Nice Calf What’s Its Name
Nice Calf; What’s Its Name?
I’m told that beef farmers don’t name their livestock. They give them numbers. And that’s good because If you had a big ranch, you’d never learn all the employees’ names. And, not to be prejudiced, but they really do all look alike. To us.
Farmers also don’t give them names so they don’t get attached. Because, you know, “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.” You don’t want your mom saying, “And here’s sweet little Billy-bob! He sure was a chunky one. Bon appetit!”
One of the things you notice about the story of the Golden Calf is that the Calf never gets named. Why do you think that is?
Naming your Golden Calf. We all have them. And we’re pretty attached. It takes a shakeup to get us to recognize them. Maybe even takes an invitation from God.
—
It has been such a week. I’m so grateful to see you here today. Last week reminded me how much I need you. We all need people around us. People who care about us. People we can name. We need our herd.
I live by myself in an apartment a couple of miles from here. Most of last week, it was just me and my dog. Bandit’s great company, but he’s 13, so he sleeps most of the time. I felt very alone. I know it was only a few days, but after just a couple of hours of hurricane darkness, it felt like forever.
You know how it was. No phones, no lights, no motorcar trips. Barely a single luxury. Like Robinson Crusoe, it felt primitive as can be. Even sending texts was like communicating with astronauts. You’d send a message, and wait 20 minutes for a reply.
And I know. Compared to Hurricane Ivan, compared to Katrina, compared to what people in other neighborhoods and cities were going through, Isaias was a brief and minor inconvenience. Yes, I had to suffer through digging cold Chef Boyardee from a can. But at least I had processed food-like substances and bottled water. My family and my church were checking on me. I knew I would be OK.
But even as things returned to normal, later in the week, I knew something wasn’t right. I was forgetting things. Forgetting names. Misplacing my keys that I had in my hand a few minutes before. And then when I got back to work, I was on a hair trigger, ready to get angry over silly things. I was disoriented.
Disoriented.
Anybody else been feeling disoriented?
Hurricanes are disorienting. Storms are disorienting. Having our normal pulled away from us is disorienting. Our Golden Calves may not be God, but they give us direction. And when they’re gone, they take God with them.
–
Moses was up on the mountain, talking to God, for forty days. Meanwhile, his brother Aaron had to be the Interim pastor. The Israelites were disoriented. Moses had disappeared. I wonder if they were starting to forget his name. They were impatient. Angry. Ready to go off on anyone. Literally, losing their religion.
So Aaron made them a Golden Calf. A substitute God. Something just like the gods of their past, the golden bulls of Egypt. The gods of their slavery. Something to make them feel great again. They knew it was wrong. But it gave them a sense of normal. It made the world feel familiar. Comfortable.
Last week, my own disorientation got me to wondering, what are my Golden Calves? What’s your Golden Calf? What substitutes for God do we call up when storms, and change, and loneliness, and stress, and cans of mystery meat turn our three hour tours, turn our three days without power and air conditioning and internet into a state of confusion? What gods do we call to when the world gets blown away?
—
Meanwhile, in the New Testament, Jesus tells a parable about a king with his own beef. Several beefs. The king says:
Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’
And… the party’s a bust. This nameless king serves up his nameless calves, and these nameless guests don’t even name a good excuse. They ghost the invite, send it to voicemail, and go on tending their own favorite sacred cows of life. It says:
But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them.
Golden calves can tell you to do funny things.
—
We live in a world FILLED with golden calves and sacred cows. There are so many. We can barely count them, much less keep up with all the names. And – there are always newer versions. This week’s shiny new upgrade. This week’s savior.
They’re on the news. They’re in the commercials. They’re on sale at Target. Every day we’re promised better. Better candidates. Better protectors. Better distractions. They look golden, until they’re not. It makes us mad. It makes us angry at people and tools and toys who don’t do what we want. When we want. The ones we find disagreeable. When our lanes are blocked. When our fences are broken. It’s just so… disorienting.
But like Aaron, we’re crafty with those beasts. We can melt our own, thank you very much. We can form them. Order them on Amazon. We can dance around them. We can worship them. New and improved stuff, new and improved people. Better looking ones, thinner, smarter ones, who this time won’t leave us stranded.
And – like the people in Jesus’s parable – we can be so consumed by our own Frankensteins, our own diversions, our American idols – so infatuated with them that we ignore the real meat.
Nice calf you’ve got there. What’s its name? That’s the difference between real livestock and the golden ones. Once you see the idols as idols – once you give the idol a name – you can start to let it go. And then you can start to worship the God who Is, not the substitute who isn’t.
—
The parable Jesus told was brutal. The sin of the people in the parable. What was it?
The king sent not one but two invitations. And they ignored them all. They laughed at the invites.
They went back to their jobs and their busyness. Just like before. They killed the messengers. They didn’t answer the call. Why? Because they loved their idols – whatever they were – and really, really disliked change. How many of God’s invitations have you turned down? How many DO you turn down? Turn them down because they require you to change, to re-orient?
How do you think God feels? According to the Bible, it makes God angry. Very, very angry. And you won’t like God when he’s angry. God smash.
God smash and Moses melt. Moses melts down the calf and makes the Israelites drink the molten soup. Swallow that.
But that’s not where the story ends. The cruelty is not the point. In the last verse it says:
“And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.”
“And the Lord changed his mind...”
Did you catch that?
The Lord changed his mind.
The final word in the story is: The Lord changed his mind.
God decided to divert the storm of his anger. And do something new. Something better.
If God’s mind can change, what about yours?
—
Every church has its golden years. Remember the good-old days? Lightshine? Logos? I hear they were great. I don’t want to step on your sacred cows, but I don’t want you to trip over them, either. Because if you try to live today by reheating the past, that liquid gold will burn you on the way down.
Trinity Presbyterian Church (USA) of Pensacola, Florida: God is calling you by name – calling YOU to a rich, new banquet. After this storm, Isaias – which literally means, ironically – God saves – today, now, your God is calling you to a brand new chapter in your life together as a congregation. God is inviting each and every one of you, calling all of us – by name – to a banquet of salvation together, just like in the parable.
As you – Trinity – as you rise on your way to a new feast, do not let your Golden calves block your way. Find a closet for them in the Narthex. Put them on the rack in the Rummage Sale. Do NOT – DO NOT – put them in Wendy’s office. Y’all keep bringing her stuff you know she doesn’t want. Just sayin.
Give thanks for the sacred memories of your church past. Celebrate them. Pour cream of mushroom soup on them, top them with corn flakes, and bake them into a golden casserole worthy of a feast.
But be careful. Idols of old are hard to digest.
—
So, after this past week, pause a minute.
Ask yourself:
What sacred cows keep you stable?
Which ones keep you frozen?
Frozen in time?
Frozen in opinions?
Frozen in habits?
Frozen thinking we can’t live without them?
Truth be told: We all have our Golden Calves and Sacred Cows. If we’re honest with ourselves, we see them. We know their names. We do. And that’s good.
Use their names.
Call them over.
Give them a good pat on the head.
And set them free.
Let the storms you’ve come through reorient you – let them redirect you to what’s sacred now, to what’s sacred today, to the true gifts of God that are always left standing, once all the idols get washed away.
[EOS]
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