"Called to More: a Tale of Two Feasts" (October 11, 2026 Sermon)
/Called to More: a Tale of Two Feasts
Exodus 32:1-14
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 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.” So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took these from them, formed them in a mold, and cast an image of a calf, and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.” They rose early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being, and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to revel.
The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ” The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation.”
But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
Matthew 22:1-14
Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ 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. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad, so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”
What the heck is our pastor going to say about this parable? I’m just as eager to find out as you all are. This is a weird parable, and I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time on it because it is just downright weird. I had a member, actually several members, of the Word this week give me permission to concede defeat with you all and admit that this is a weird parable.
In fact, some biblical commentators think this one parable is actually five different parables that, for reasons that elude us, Matthew decided to mash together. It kind of reminds me of the worst sermons I’ve given, when one sermon actually has about seventeen in it. Those are not anyone’s favorite sermons, and this kind of reads like that. I know that doesn’t explain it much, other than to say that this is a bit of a hodgepodge of different stories that the author of Matthew’s gospel has put together.
And there is also a lot of violence, right? What began as a wedding invitation ended with people being killed and a whole city burned to the ground. We think this story was written not long after the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, around the year 70 AD, so the violence would have been very fresh in the minds of those reading or hearing Matthew’s gospel for the first time. That may explain some of the more bizarre elements of this story. Suffice it to say that this is, yet again, a story about God preparing a beautiful banquet where all are invited, and then bad things happen when we all collectively say, “No, we’re not interested.”
The Other Feast
So that’s one feast. But I really want to spend time on the other feast, or festival, if you will, that Jim read for us from Exodus 32. Y’all, this is one of my favorite stories in all of Exodus because I think it is one of the most hilarious in the entire Old Testament.
All right? So picture this. The Israelites are at the bottom of the mountain, and Moses has been up at the top communing with God for a hot minute. And the Israelites get bored. Bad things happen when we get bored, right? So they think, “You know what? We’ve been abandoned. There aren’t enough provisions, there’s not enough safety, there’s just not enough. We have been abandoned by God and Moses. We don’t know when they’re going to come back. So you know what? Let’s make an idol for ourselves.” Let’s temporarily forget that God was pretty clear about not doing things like that.
And so they go up to Aaron and say, “Hey, Aaron, we’ve got this great idea. We want you to make us a golden calf, a god we can control, one we can make.” And so that’s what they do. They all take off their earrings, pile them together, and make this golden calf. What could go wrong, right?
Well, Moses and God are up on the mountain, and everything goes fine until they start cooking for this cookout they’re having. The smell of the brisket makes its way up the mountain. At which point God, who has a really good sense of smell, goes, “Uh-oh. What’s going on down there?”
God sees what is going on, and God throws God’s fury at Moses. God says, “Look what your people have done, whom you brought out of Egypt.” You hear what God is doing there? Moses turns around and goes, “My people, who I brought out of Egypt? No, no, no. These are your people, whom you brought out of Egypt.”
Parents among us know this song and dance, right? Sometimes, when our two daughters are stubborn, as is often the case, Tricia will suddenly start calling them “my children.” I don’t know why she does this. I have no idea. But that’s exactly what happens here. God tries to pin the blame on Moses, and Moses, to his credit, says, “Uh-uh-uh, you started this whole song and dance,” and throws it right back at God.
And then God is so fed up that God says, “You know what? To heck with it. I’m done. I’m going to smite these people off the face of the earth.” God is on a rampage, and Moses steps in at the brink and says, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Breathe in your mercies. Breathe out your mercies to others.”
I love this part because Moses is playing both mediator and PR consultant. He says, “You know what, God? If you do this, it’s not going to be a good look for you. You went through all this trouble to save this people, and then they mess up once, and you smite them off the face of the earth? It’s not going to look good for you.” And then, to God’s credit, what does God do? God changes God’s mind and says, “You know what? You’re right. I’m going to give them another chance.”
Unlearning Scarcity
And I love that about this story. Yes, we all poke fun at the Israelites for their tendency to disobey God. They also tend to be stubborn — which, don’t we all? And yet what I love about God changing God’s mind is that I think God knew it takes time to unlearn scarcity thinking.
Think about it. For years and years and years, the Israelites had been enslaved. They had been enslaved in a ruthless, brutal economy that told them they were worth only what they produced for the rich and the wealthy. And so, in this scarcity mindset, they — like us in times of scarcity — tend to cling even more tightly to idols when we feel we need a god we can control. And so I want to give the Israelites some grace, because God gave them grace. It takes time to come back from a ruthless, violent world and unlearn that behavior.
The Feast We Are Called To
And I think that’s the feast we are called to here. We come to this place every week from a violent, violent world, and we recognize that we are part of a feast in which we are called to let go of those idols. To let go of the idol of violence and not accept the invitation to watch the livestream of a public execution by the federal government. We are called to let go of that idol. We are called to let go of the idol of turning immigrants into scapegoats. We are called to let go of those idols and come back here together as a group to work together — and I’m including myself with you all — to unlearn that behavior and be neighbors with one another.
And when we say neighborliness here at Guilford Park Presbyterian Church, we’re not talking about simply not being jerks, right? That’s a really low bar, and I think God wants us to do better than that. Instead, we are called to come to this feast and bring all our resources together, as the Israelites did, to their credit, in today’s story — but not to build and support idols of our own making. Instead, we bring them to trust the God who invites everybody to the feast.
So, friends, together, let us keep unlearning that behavior, lean in, let go of a little control, and trust that there will be enough. Because there’s already enough.
In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s beloved children, say:Amen.