Goldfish

14 September 2025

In the year 2000, adverts had to grab a persons’ attention within 12 seconds. By 2013 that had dropped to 8 seconds. The attention span of a goldfish is said to be 9 seconds. So, longer than humans now. And if you’re Gen Z, and on TikTok, then your attention needs grabbing in 1.3 seconds.

So, some of the younger ones I lost by the time I said: ‘the year 2000’ and most of you went after I said goldfish. And then, last of all, I lost any goldfish amongst you. It seems that with the use of mobile phone technology, the internet and even TV remote controls, our attention span is getting less and less. I said our attention span is getting less and less.

Now, in theory, a healthy adult can concentrate on something for around 20 minutes. That’s why on UK commercial TV stations you’ll get adverts every 15 minutes or so. Partly it pays for the programme but partly it’s to keep you interested and stay with them rather than switching to another channel.

My sermons are normally between 9 and 12 minutes. A BBC survey in 2010 showed that most Anglican sermons are between 12 to 15 minutes long. I grew up in a Baptist church where if a sermon was less than 40 minutes then the Pastor clearly hadn’t done enough preparation and was summoned to a church elders meeting to explain themselves.

Choice

And yet we can choose to stay focussed on the same thing if we’re interested enough. In 2024, many of the top feature films were around 2 hours 20 minutes long. In theory, that should be way too long – yet if it’s good enough, then we’ll carry on watching. Though maybe with most movies being watched at home now, the audience has the ability to put the film on pause whilst they do something else. Perhaps you’d like the ability to put me ‘on hold’ while you go and brew up.

Which is a long way of saying that I think we can forgive the Israelites for their attention span wandering after 40 days and 40 nights. That’s how long since Moses had gone up Mount Sinai and disappeared to have his chat with God. I don’t think we would have lasted anywhere near as long.

More access

Moses embodied for them their relationship with God. And for 40 long days and nights he wasn’t there. Some of us get twitchy if the Vicar is absent for just one Sunday! Some of us breathe a sigh of relief.

Ironically the point of the conversation between God and Moses was to give the children of Israel more access points to God. First, he gave them his commandments, a set of words about how best to live together. Second, he gave them his Tabernacle, a mobile synagogue/church, a place to worship and understand God through ritual. Third, he told them how important it was to have a Sabbath, a day to sleep-in for a bit, a day of rest.

I don’t think Aaron was putting the Golden Calf up there to be worshipped. Or at least not initially. In the absence of Moses, it was meant as a visual aid, something to help focus their minds on the God who had delivered them from Egypt. But it quickly became something that they worshipped in and of itself. You wonder if Aaron had a dreadful sinking feeling when he realised what he’d done. Perhaps, like many things in life, it was well-meant but had an unintended consequence.

Impermanence

But don’t we sometimes do the same? Remember the Notre-Dame fire in Paris a few years ago. For many it was heart-breaking to almost lose such a fine cathedral. The permanence of historic buildings stands in contrast to the impermanence of so much in life now. The damage was shocking, even to those who wouldn’t call themselves especially religious. But we need to be careful not to venerate a building instead of who it is supposed to point to. Or perhaps we think a lot of a particular vicar – and when they move on or retire it’s as if our access to God has somehow moved on too?

But all this is background to our OT reading today and the rather unsettling exchange between God and Moses. Did it make you slightly uncomfortable? It should have. What do we think about the kind of God that we see here?

It’s like a couple arguing because their children have messed up… again. Each trying to outdo the other in disowning the kids! God says to Moses “your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have become corrupt”. In reply, Moses is having none of it and says to God “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt…”

An offer that was refused

And God makes a remarkable ‘offer’ to Moses. He’s that fed up with the human race that he suggests the option of wiping the slate clean, again. Getting rid of the lot of us and starting over, this time with Moses and his family, just like he did before with Noah. In fact, the words here about a corrupt people are almost exactly the same as those in the Noah story.

But instead of Moses ‘doing a Noah’, saying nothing and just getting on with gathering them in two-by-two, he ‘does an Abraham’ and forcefully argues with God. He intercedes. He reminds God of the promise, the covenant, that he’d made with Abraham. You remember, the one where God told him to count the stars and see the bigger picture. Moses reminded God that he had made that promise not because Abraham particularly deserved it. Indeed, he did it without demanding anything much from Abraham at all.

There’s a Jewish fable which tells that Moses found God crying in heaven on seeing the betrayal of the Israelites when they made the Golden Calf. He’d had enough and wanted to start again. Moses tried everything to change God’s mind. It was only when he reminded God of the hospitality of Abraham and Sarah, how they welcomed him and made him feel at home, that God finally relented. God then established the Tabernacle as a reminder to himself of Abraham and Sarah’s tent and to enable him to come down and be a neighbour to the children of Israel.

Forgiveness

But back to our verses, the Israelites didn’t particularly deserve to be saved from Egypt or saved from the punishment that was due for worshipping a Golden Calf. But God relented. A God of forgiveness ready to find a home for that which was lost. A God like that in our Gospel reading where he is compared to a shepherd looking for a lost sheep or a woman rejoicing after finding a lost coin. But whilst the Israelites are not wiped out, if you read on, they do get punished. There are consequences.

Perhaps we need reminding that our words and our actions can cause distress and disappointment and, yes, anger to God. Though Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said that we should often more accurately translate the Hebrew word for ‘anger’ as ‘anguish’. So rather than God’s anger, it’s God’s anguish – an aspect of God’s love for us rather than of the polar-opposite.

And let’s not forget that, as the human face of God, Jesus too showed anger, or was it anguish, when he over-turned the money-tables in the temple. But the same Jesus heals us and forgives us and goes looking for us when we’re lost and challenges us and weeps over us and loves us… and died for us.

A god of love

So, whilst at times in this passage it seems that God is like a petulant but all-powerful teenager stomping off to his bedroom, we need to remember that God is first and foremost a god of love. And always has been. He gave us free-will – and we cause him anguish when we make choices which are harmful to us.

But maybe you’re uncomfortable at the thought that, like Moses, you can change God’s mind? Another way to think about it is God deliberately placing us in situations where we need to search his heart and his word to claim his promises so that they come into effect. That we, you and me, are the mechanism which releases his power into a situation. If so, where has God placed you? Who or what should you be praying for? Who or what should you be searching God’s heart for?

What kind of God?

Either way, we have to ask: what kind of God do we want? And what kind of people do we want to be? Do we want a distant, impassive God, sitting on a fluffy cloud high above it all, seemingly unmoved, untouched and unresponsive to what we’re doing?

Or do we want a God that yearns to be in a relationship with us, that’s moved by our intercession, that cares? A God that isn’t looking for people who just say ‘yes’ or nothing at all – but for people like Moses and Abraham who engage with him and talk straight to him? For people like Jacob who wrestles and Job who argues. For people like the Gentile woman with the sick child who shot back with the comment about crumbs under the table.

I know which kind of God I’d prefer. How about you? What kind of God do you want? We need to think carefully about our answers though because our choice has implications on the kind of people that we should be too. Who we are and what we do. What we pray for and what we argue for. That’s if you can remember what I’ve just been talking about. Amen

9 minutes – so within my normal span but quicker than the national average.

‘Goldfish’ was delivered by Ian Banks at St Margaret’s, Heywood on 14^th September 2025. It was based on Exodus 32:7-14.

Goldfish

Goldfish

Choice

More access

Impermanence

An offer that was refused

Forgiveness

A god of love

What kind of God?

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