vickie

SOME TRUST IN CHARIOTS

Charlie Brown is one of my favorite cartoon strips. Charles Schultz really captures some of the trials, tribulations and eternal truths of life. One of his most enduring characters is Linus, the little brother who seems wise beyond his age. Linus has one peculiar trait, which really defines him—his security blanket. His ragged old security blanket is what he needs to feel safe and secure.

Linus carries his blanket everywhere he goes to give him a sense of security. He can't stand to be anywhere without his trusty blanket. Everyone else finds the whole thing frustrating. What did the blanket do for him that they couldn’t do? What was it about the blanket that made him feel so secure? Try as they may they can't get Linus to give up his security blanket. We never fully understand why it is 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.

Thinking about Linus and his security blanket got me to thinking about the story of the Israelites and the Golden Calf in Exodus 32. Moses had been to the mountain to visit with God. At this time, God gave him the Ten Commandments, which Moses wrote down and then carried to the people. Moses read the Lord’s words to the people and they agreed to obey. So Moses went back up the mountain at God’s command, to receive the Covenant written by the hand of God on stone tablets. But Moses spent a longer time on the mountain receiving the covenant from God than the people had expected.

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. Thinking that they had lost Moses and thus their contact with the deity, they demanded that Moses' brother Aaron, the high priest, provide a substitute. Aaron solicited gifts from the people and proceeded to make a golden calf, a pagan religious object of ancient times. 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.

God instructed Moses to return to his people. Coming down the mountain, he saw the pagan revelry of the people. Partly out of anger, he smashed the two tablets containing the record and testimony of the covenant. It also effectively signaled that the covenant had been broken because the people had compromised their loyalty by worshiping another god.

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. 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.

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.

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. Sometimes we feel uncertain, used and even abandoned.

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’m no different. There are times when I feel that God has abandoned me. And I make my own golden calves. 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. 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; investing in and actually believing that we will win the lottery; participating in activities where we can measure our performance and achieve some level of greatness; 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 all will eventually disappoint us and shatter into a million pieces. 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.

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 these imitations is to cease trusting our God who loves us; cease believing our God who is with us always; cease worshipping our God who deserves our gratitude and praise.

SOME TRUST IN CHARIOTS

Some trust in chariots

And wielding the battle sword

Some trust only in money

And expect a just reward.

Some trust in horses,

In Horoscopes and men

Some trust in love and experience

Believing they’ll have no end.

Some trust in chariots

Some in big machines

Some of us save diamonds

Some of us save dreams.

Some trust only in themselves

They trust that they can stand alone.

Some trust in witches and wizards

Believing in potions, spells and colognes.

Some trust in large armies

Many men to defend their gates

Some trust the luck of the draw

Content to accept any fate.

Some trust in chariots

But as for me and my house

We’ll trust in the name of the one whose Love never fails,

Whose name will always prevail.

We’ll trust in the name of the Lord our God, Holy Is His Name.

Rod McKuen (based on Psalm 20 verses 7 and 8)