Golden Calves and Climate Change

The LORD said to Moses,
“Go down at once to your people,
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt,
for they have become depraved.
They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them,
making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it,
sacrificing to it and crying out, "This is your God, O Israel,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”   Exodus 32: 7-8

Happy Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time!

I’m tempted to write about Jesus’ reply to the Pharisees who criticized him for eating with tax collectors and sinners.  He responds with three scandalous parables of God as three crazies: a dirty, ignorant shepherd who abandons 99 sheep to the jackals to go find the lost one, a woman who searches for a lost coin and then trumpets to her neighbors that she has some savings, and a foolish father who gives away half his estate to an irresponsible teenager who lacks self-control and judgment.  I wonder if his audience was impressed by the wonder of an infinitely forgiving God or so enraged by his metaphors that they missed the point.

The reading from Exodus is about a not-so-forgiving God but I’d like to focus on the nature of Israel’s sin. God has brought them out of Egypt, parted the Red Sea for them, given them manna and quail, and now Moses has left them alone to go up Sinai to receive The Law. He’s been gone for days, and the people are restless.  They have given up hope of Moses returning and go to Aaron and demand he make them a God that they will take before them as they continue the journey.  Aaron takes their gold, melts it down and forms the Golden Calf. Moses comes down with the two tablets, finds them worshipping the Calf, and loses it.  He has the calf smashed to powder and the powder put in the drinking water.  Then he calls the Levites to him and has them go through the camp and “kill your brothers, your friends, your neighbors.”

Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’ letter on the environment, starts with the state of the environment and then works back to the underlying cause of that condition: our self-centered materialism. Bigger houses, fancier cars, more ways to entertain ourselves have become our golden calves. This pursuit of more requires a lot of wood, a lot of energy, a lot of mining.  All of these things require the destruction of habitat, and the consumption of carbon-based energy leads to climate change.  Our politicians, very practical people, look for solutions in non-carbon sources of energy, even though they require more mines and destroy more habitat.  The Pope, not a very practical fellow, looks for changes of basic values: consume less, take care of others more.  It’s a topic worthy of our consideration and prayer.