The 24th Sunday of the Year
Ex 32:7-11 & 13-14; 1 Tim 1:12-17; Lk 15:1-32 (Year C)
"The Lord spoke to Moses, ‘Go down now because your people have made themselves a calf of molten metal and have worshipped it and offered it sacrifice.’"
The narrative of the golden calf cannot be dismissed as the aberration of a primitive people. It was remembered down the generations precisely because it challenged a frailty shared by all.
Worship, while expressed in liturgical celebration, embraces a great deal more. It expresses our deepest longings and, as such, underpins all that we do or say. Love and worship cannot be divided, because the object of our love becomes the focus of our worship. The children of Israel worshipped the work of their own hands. Sinful human nature all too readily fashions idols of its own making: achievement, stubborn pride and popularity are but a few. We might not name them as idols, but we can invest them with the power to dominate our lives, to become an unconscious love that supplants the worship that belongs to God alone.
