Psalm 106:16-23; Exodus 32:1-14, and Luke 6:20-38

The reading from the Psalm recounts the events in Exodus 32. There, Moses is gone for a bit and the people demand that Aaron do something. He bids them to take their gold earrings and give them to him, from which he forms a golden calf to worship. It seems odd to us today, so primitive in the 21st century, but it reminds us of what Luther says in the Large Catechism about what a “god” is: “A god is that to which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need. To have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe him with our whole heart.” We may not worship a golden calf but we worship cars, professional athletes, movie stars, and other familiar objects of idolization. In the Luke account we hear his version of the Beatitudes recorded in Mt. 5:2ff. We also hear Jesus’ imperatives to love our enemies and not to judge. The love in this case is agape love, the love of God toward his creation, dying-for-others love (Jn 15:13ff). It is not just be kind and accepting. Not to judge does not mean we should ignore wrongdoing but means that we should not hold others to standards that we ourselves do not keep.