The people of God, have been rescued, have escaped from slavery, have passed over from death to life —all at God’s hand.  They have traveled in the desert, and God has traveled with them.  Moses and Aaron and Miriam, brothers and sister, have been leaders for the people. Now they are at Mount Sinai, and have received God’s word—the Ten Commandments, ways to live in covenant with God and each other.  Moses has been up on the mountain, talking with God. 

 

Exodus 32:1-14                                                 p 69

32When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, the people gathered against Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us a god who shall go before us; as for that man Moses, who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.”²Aaron 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.”³And all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron.⁴He took the gold from them, and cast it in a mold, and made it into a molten calf; and they exclaimed, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”⁵When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival of the Lord.”⁶Early the next day, the people offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to dance.

⁷The Lord spoke to Moses, “Hurry down! For your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely;⁸they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves a molten calf, and have bowed low to it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!⁹The Lord further said to Moses, “I have seen that this is a stiff-necked people.¹⁰Now let me be, that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them, and make of you a great nation.”¹¹But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, let not your anger blaze forth against your people, whom you delivered from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand. ¹²Let not the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that God delivered them, only to kill them off in the mountains, and annihilate them from the face of the earth’. Turn from your blazing anger; renounce your plan to punish your people.¹³Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, how you swore to them by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and I will give to your offspring this whole land of which I spoke, to possess forever.’“¹⁴And the Lord renounced the punishment that he had planned to bring on his people.

This is the word of the Lord….thanks be to God

 

When I hear this story, I have a number of things flashing thru my head, all at the same time—the old Cecil B DeMille movie, the Ten Commandments, with Yul Brynner and “Moses”.  A flash of fear, hearing a story about God’s blazing anger.  A picture of God as the dad, on a road trip, saying to the unruly and disobedient kids in the back “that’s it. I am pulling this caravan over.”  And maybe even Bill Cosby as Heathcliff Huxtable saying to his son, Theo, “Son, I brought you into this world.  I can take you out of it.”

And, strangely, a Brittany Spears song “oops, I did it again”.  Because here we go—again. 

Psalm 106, of which we read only a small part, (and I encourage you to read the verses we left out) details in long and embarrassing and soul wrenching details all of the ways God has rescued the people—and all of the times the people have failed God.  God rescued them—and they whined at the Red Sea.  They were hungry—and God fed them.  They were thirsty, and God provided water—and they complained about the supplies.  God gave them shelter in the wilderness, traveled with them- as a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night—and they grumbled in their tents.

Now, Moses has been up on the mountain, talking with God.  Moses has received the word of God, the two stone tablets, written with the very finger of God, we are told. But apparently he is taking too long, and the people are anxious.  They think something might have happened to Moses, and then where would they be? They are restless.  They decide to do something.

 Now, they have already received instruction from God.  And the very first rule, the very first way of being God’s people which is given to them is this:  I am the lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt; out of the house of slavery.  You shall have no other gods before me.  And the 2^nd is this:  you shall not make for yourself an idol. 

And what do they do?  They make an idol. 

 

Meanwhile, up on the mountain, God and Moses are talking.  And it sounds an awfully lot like some conversation I have been part of, conversations that begin “do you know what YOUR son did today?”  Because neither Moses nor God are willing to claim these people—“These people, that you led out of Egypt” God says to Moses, as if it was all Moses’ idea and effort.

 

“These people—YOUR people, whom you brought out of Egypt with a strong arm and a mighty hand” Moses says back to God. 

 

Much like in the story of Adam and Eve and the snake, there is lots of finger-pointing, and everybody is passing the buck.  In times of high anxiety, there is always finger-pointing and blame—this is true for churches, true for family life, true for life in general.

 

Back at the bottom of the mountain, the people have built for themselves an idol, a calf. A bull was a common representation of a god in that time and place.  Legend has it that the bull jumped out of the fire and presented itself before the people and Aaron.  Aaron acts out of his anxiety, as well—he tries to make a way that doesn’t confront the people and their behavior, that smoothes things over, that just gets them through this moment, until Moses gets back down from the mountain. Aaron tries to make it better- he at least, after the calf is made, says “Now we will worship YHWH”.  

 

There is debate, among biblical scholars, about whether what the people have done in making this idol is making a false god, or worshipping a false representation of the true God.  I think it doesn’t much matter.  John Calvin said “the human mind is a factory of idols”.  It is so easy, especially in our anxiety, to worship things that are either a skewed version of God, or things that we put in place of God, that we are often and easily led astray.  The people at the foot of the mountain want a god who is accessible, who is immediate, who is not hidden, who is there—not far away, not watching from a distance, not up on the mountain.  And if they have to construct that god themselves, then, by golly, they will do just that.

 

But here’s the funny thing.  The idol that the people made is…a calf.  Not a bull.  Not a sign of strength and power, but…a baby.  They only have enough gold, enough rings and necklaces, to make…a miniature statue.  In their idolatry, the people fail.  Because idols ultimately and always fail us…because they are idols, and not the living God.

 

God has been with them this whole time—feeding them protecting them, traveling with them.  God has even given them instructions for a tabernacle, a dwelling place for God, so God can make his home with them. But they don’t do that.

 

Up on the mountain, God is not pleased.  That’s an understatement.  God is mad—so mad that he wants to let his anger burn at the people, he wants to destroy them, he, as in the time of Noah, wants to wipe out his creation and start over.  And he tells Moses that Moses can now be the new beginning, the inheritor of the covenant, and the promises, and the land.

And Moses talks God out of it.  These are your people, Moses reminds him.  You rescued them, you brought them here- besides, what will the neighbors say?  What kind of a God will you be if you wipe them out after all this?

 

And God changes God’s mind.   God turns from his plan, and returns to the people. 

 

God wants to be in relationship—with Moses, and with us.  The Bible says that God talked to Moses as a friend. God listens to him when Moses talks God away from the edge of the cliff, when Moses turns down a really good offer to be the new patriarch of the people.  God is not some “unmoved Mover”, God is NOT some distant benign force in the universe, God is there.  Listening.  Listening to us, still.

 

Moses stands in the breach between God and the people, Moses goes mano a mano- or, rather mano a deo, and intercedes for the people.  Which we have always said was a priests’ role-to intercede for the people. But we who believe in the priesthood of all believers, also stand in the breach, when we pray for others.  I know many of you faithfully pray the prayer list every morning, praying for others, for people you maybe don’t even know. And Christ intercedes for us, and for all creation.

 

We are as stiff necked and stubborn as the people at the foot of Mount Sinai.  We are fully as foolish and anxiety ridden now as they were then.  And we are as quick to make idols. To worship other things, when God does not jump to our commands or act according to our time lines. And yet, God still desires to be in relationship with us.  To feed us, to be light and shelter for us, to intercede for us, to be with us through all of our journeys.  Even when we sin, when we turn away, and to other things, again and again.  Amen.