Rev. George
Miller
Oct 11, 2020
Exodus
32:1-14
The nation is in disarray.
It’s been over four months.
The people are feeling disjointed,
They’re existing day by day,
Waiting for the promises to
materialize.
And now…their leader is
away,
in an event shrouded in mystery…
We’re talking, of course,
about the Israelites about 3,700 years ago.
God has freed the people
from bondage. Moses led them through the
Red Sea. They are travelling through an
unknown wilderness. 3 full moons have
come and gone.
During that time, they
experienced bitter water made sweet, bread from heaven, water from a rock, and
the defeat of an enemy.
The children of Sarah’s
empty womb have made it to Mt. Sinai and set up camp. Moses has been called by God to go up the
hill so they can talk…
…but Moses has not come
down.
3 months into this
experience, their trusted leader is gone, and they have no idea when he’ll be
back.
One day goes by.
Two days go by.
They wait.
Three days go by.
A week goes by.
They wait.
No sign of Moses.
With no leader, 10 days go
by.
They wait.
It’s the waiting akin to war
time.
It’s the waiting of a
mother,
Hoping to hear her son’s OK.
It’s the waiting of a
spouse,
Missing their beloved.
It’s the waiting of the
family dog,
Not understanding where their
master has gone.
With great anxiety, the
people wait
For Moses to return.
But Moses does not.
2 weeks go by.
3 weeks go by.
39 days go by.
No Moses.
No leader.
No one to represent
the comforting presence of
God.
The nation is in disarray.
It’s now been over four
months.
The people are feeling disjointed,
They’re existing day by day,
Waiting for the promises to
materialize.
And their leader is away,
in an event shrouded in mystery…
So, tired of waiting, they
turn to the brother of Moses.
They come up with a plan-
let’s make something that will calm our nerves and remind us that we are OK.
So Aaron invites them to
take off their gold, and he makes a bull, a symbol of military might and power.
With relief, the nation feels
they have a tangible sign that God still loves them, so they go about singing
and praising the golden statue.
But when God finds out, God
gets upset. God takes it personal. God gets all into God’s feelings, and God is
ready to smash everything to bits.
It takes Moses, and his
words, and his memory of God’s promise to Sarah’s children, to calm God down,
redirect God back to the promise made to Sarah’s family about children,
blessings, and a beautiful nahalah…
This story is so
superb. This story is so rich with nutrients,
like Biloxi’s soil.
This story shows God as wild
and free and emotional; it shows Moses as a levelheaded historian, and it shows
the people as…well, people.
People who have endured
intense trauma, months of uncertainty, and just want their life to go back to how
it was.
Can you blame folk who’ve
been in the wilderness for over 4 months wanting something, anything that gives
them a sense of assurance and peace?
You know what I love most about
this story- how human everyone is, from
Moses to Aaron to the people to God.
Listen to how they speak, and
what they say.
When the people are left
alone for over 5 weeks without their appointed leader, they turn to his brother.
“Oh Aaron, can you make gods
for us? This Moses, this mmaannn who
took us away from Egypt, has up and left us!”
Aaron, who must be itching
for an ounce of his brother’s power, saying “Sure. Just give me all your gold.”
Then there’s God.
God who is so angry, so ready
to burn it all down to the ground, so up to HERE with it all, and refuses to
accept any responsibility.
This is what God says to
Moses-
“Your people, the ones you
brought out of Egypt, are acting like idiots.”
Then God gets a little whiny
“They don’t want to listen to me. They’re
giving a stupid bull all the credit.”
Then, like a child who
crosses their arms, God says “Leave me alone!
I’m gonna stomp on them like colony of ants.”
God is upset. God is mad.
A modern-day psychologist
would say that what God really feels is hurt, and unwanted, and God is just
acting out.
So it takes Moses to be the
adult.
It takes Moses to listen to
God.
It takes Moses to hear God’s
pain.
It takes Moses to be the
cool,
calm, enlightened one.
Moses reminds God that the
people are God’s people.
Moses works as God’s agent
and crises manager, telling God it wouldn’t be a wise PR move to kill all the people.
Moses has God remember Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.
If Moses was celebrating Women’s
Equality, perhaps he’d say “Remember the promise you brought forth from the
wombs of Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel, your promise of family and land.”
God acts like an angry
dictator, Moses speaks up, Moses reminds God of the promise, Moses reminds God
what it means to be God and…
…God changes God’s mind, the
people live, the promise is kept, and eventually their families do enter the
beautiful nahalah.
So, what can we learn from
today’s reading?
First, just how personal God
is. God is not a robot, or an algorithm.
God is relational. God is aware.
God cares. God sees, God hears,
God speaks. God listens.
The people wanted to make a
visible thing they could see, because they didn’t yet fully to realize that God
is about being, loving, and knowing.
No amount of gold, no structure
that can be built can ever love you back the way God does.
Second, we discover that God
has emotions. God feels. God reacts.
In today’s reading we encounter
God as angry, whose rage runs hot, but that also means that God can feel joy,
God can feel pain, God can feel peace, sorrow, regret. God can feel hope.
…God can even feel crabby…
Since we are created in God’s
image, that means we feel all these things too, and guess what- it’s OK.
3rd, we learn that
God really does listen. God really does
hear our voices, and not just the praise and the “oh I love yous” and the “thanks
you.”
But God also hears our complaints,
our rebuttals, our concerns. God hears
our frustration with God.
God hears US, mere mortal
Citizens of Heaven, even when we feel we must remind God what it means to be
God.
Unlike other leaders, unlike
other humans, God hears, God takes it in, and even this- God can change God’s
mind.
God is relational.
God is emotional.
God listens to our voices.
God remembers the promises made
to our ancestors via Rachel, Rebekah, and Sarah.
So even when we feel like a lost
and lonely Israelite, even when we feel like a mother waiting for her child to
come home from war,
even when we feel like our
leader is not leading us to where we want to be,
we can remember this story,
we can remember this time,
and we can turn to God.
Speak our truth.
Speak our mind.
And know that God will hear.
For that, let us say “Amen.”
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