"Not Cool"

Luke 9:28-36

²⁸Now Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. ²⁹And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. ³⁰Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. ³¹They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. ³²Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. ³³Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said. ³⁴While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. ³⁵Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” ³⁶When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

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

 

Today is one of those arcane, little known celebration Sundays in the Presbyterian World.  According to the calendar, today is Camp and Conference Ministries Sunday.  It is a day for us to remember, and give thanks for, the camps and conference centers that help shape faith and life.  We especially lift up our own Camp, Camp Whitman, and we, in fact, will be singing a camp song as our last hymn this morning.

Camps are places where you go to live with other people, some known to you, some strangers—but at the end of 2 weeks in a very small cabin, you know each other really well.  It is a time for s’mores, and talent night, and standing in line to wash your hands or take your turn on the banana boat.  It is a time and place to deepen your faith, or perhaps grow some if yours is just a fledling faith, it is a time and place to practice living in a community built on the love of Christ. 

It is a time and place for mountaintop experiences—times when you feel the love of God so strongly, the presence of God so tangibly, that you don’t have words to communicate what or who you saw, much less think that anyone back home will believe you anyway.

And it is a time and place and experience that pretty much ruin you for the rest of the world.  A friend of ours used to say that her daughter came back from camp so holy nobody could stand to be around her for the first two weeks or so- before it rubbed off, before the glory and the light faded, before things got back to normal.

Which is what seems to have happened to the disciples.  They have been up on a mountaintop, they have seen the glory, they have seen Moses and Elijah and Jesus- AND THEY WANT TO STAY UP THERE- but then the light dims, and the glory fades, and they are left standing there, blinking their eyes.  And they go down the mountain. And they told no-one nothing. Yeah, I bet they did

How could they?  What could they possibly say?  There was light, and a cloud, and a voice….

 

“Listen to him”  the voice said. This is my son, my chosen- listen to him!  If the voice out there  in the Jordan river, that day that Jesus was baptized, said to Jesus as he came up out of the water: “You are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased”, this voice is directed at the disciples- “this is my son. Listen to him”.

But I’m pretty sure they don’t.  And really, how could they?  What with all the lights and the cloud and being half asleep and stark raving terrified, it would be hard to listen to anything or anybody.

So, they all go down the mountain.  And Jesus goes with them

Luke 9:37-45

³⁷On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. ³⁸Just then a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. ³⁹Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. ⁴⁰I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” ⁴¹Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” ⁴²While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.

⁴³And all were astounded at the greatness of God. While everyone was amazed at all that he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, ⁴⁴“Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.” ⁴⁵But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was concealed from them, so that they could not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying.

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

 

Apparently Jesus is a little short on sleep as well as the disciples, because he sounds cranky- a man brings his son to Jesus to be healed- sound familiar?  We’ve already heard the story of the healing of the centurion, and the restoring to life of the widow’s dead son- this man begs Jesus for help…and Jesus gives what seems to us a rude and short tempered answer- and it’s not really clear if Jesus is annoyed with the man, or with the disciples who tried to heal the boy and didn’t quite do it, or if Jesus is just sick and tired of death and illness and despair, and has had enough. But Jesus rebukes the demon, heals the boy, and gives him back to his father.

End of story, right?  They all go home, Jesus has a snickers bar, and he is returned to his normal, peace loving, mercy giving self. 

But no. Jesus has more words for the disciples.

He says to them:  “Let these words sink into your ears”.  But the original language is a little rougher than that- literally, “stick this in your ears”- the equivalent of “stick that in your pipe and smoke it”- or something ruder still.

Jesus tells them that the Son of Man is going to be betrayed, handed over into human hands. Not cool Jesus.  Not cool.  He has already told them this: that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.  Apparently the disciples didn’t like that, and so just conveniently pretended not to hear it.

I don’t know how many of you have seen the video by a sweet, chubby faced kid named “kidpresident” who is in a video for people who need a peptalk.  And this kid, dressed in a suit and tie, reads part of the poem “The Road Less Traveled”.

He takes out a crumpled piece of paper, and in his best, 7 year old serious voice, reads a poem we learned in school- “Two roads diverged in the woods and I took the road less traveled”

But the kidpresident goes off script and begins yelling “and it hurts, man. Really bad.  Rocks!  Thorns!  Glass!   Not cool, Robert Frost”. 

Not cool.  Not cool Jesus, to start talking about death—your death.  Not cool to start talking about taking up the cross and denying myself in the same breath you talk about following you. 

Not cool.  Up on the mountaintop?  That was cool.  Talk about death and suffering-definitely  not cool.

But what kidpresident is yelling about is precisely that Robert Frost has not told the whole truth. And it is what the disciples are so stunned about- that the way of Jesus, the way of the cross, the road less traveled is hard, with glass and thorns and pain.

Which is why the disciples needed to hear that voice on the mountain—the one that said “Listen to him”.

It is interesting to note that Jesus, up on the mountain top, spends time in prayer.   As Presbyterians, we do a lot of praying.  But I also have to say that, as Presbyterians, we use a lot of words and do a lot of talking.  We are not so good at listening. Spending time in silence, waiting for God to speak.  After the request list, after praying for people we know and love, after praying for peace in the world, to just……listen.

 

“Prayer is a way of attuning ourselves to God and to our shared life” (http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=667).  And prayer is a practice- a spiritual practice, but a practice nonetheless.  Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to become exceptional at something- a tennis swing, or playing the piano. Even if you are naturally gifted—it still takes that many hours of practice. 

Perhaps part of what this story in Luke is telling us, that as we pray we grow not just more comfortable but also more competent and confident at thinking about all of our lives in relation to God and our Christian faith. (David Lose, ibid). Anne LaMott just wrote a book about prayer titled “Help. Thanks. Wow”, which are, to her, all the prayers that there are.  But I would also say that simply listening for God is prayer, too- perhaps the one we need the most practice in.

And so we are going to do that, today.  In a little bit, we will have our prayers of the people.  And there will be spoken words, but also times of silence.  Some of that may make us feel uncomfortable—that’s okay.  Practice is often like that.

And we will practice again, this coming Wednesday, at the Ash Wednesday service.  There will be words and music, but there will also be silence.  I hope you will join us at Lodi.

And I hope—no, I pray—because as your pastor, I pray for you—I pray that during the holy time of Lent, you will practice silence.  And Listen for God.

 

 

 

 

Things are NOT what they appear

Luke 7:1-10                                                                    

7After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum.²A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death.³When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave.⁴When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy of having you do this for him,⁵for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.”⁶And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to Jesus, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof;⁷therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.⁸For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.”⁹When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”¹⁰When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

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

 

A few weeks ago we heard the first sermon that Jesus preached, according to the gospel of Luke.  Remember?  Jesus went back to his hometown, and preached a sermon in his home church.  And, like so many young preachers, he started off well…but then things took a turn.  For the worse.  So much so, that the crowd, presumably who knew him, who had watched him grow up, got so mad that they wanted to throw him off a cliff.

Because Jesus told them that God blesses strangers, “the other”, the enemy.  That God does not limit God’s grace only to us and to our kind.

That was Jesus’ inaugural speech, his declaration of what his reign would be like.

And now, Jesus is acting out his inaugural promises. 

Jesus has again gone back to his home region, to Capernaum in Galilee.  The region of heavy Roman occupation.  The region of maniacal, murderous Herod.  A region in which there was an uprising against the Romans that was squelched.  And we hear the story of the centurion.  A centurion who has a slave, a beloved servant, close to death.  He sends word to Jesus—through the Jewish elders.  Things are not what they appear.Apparently, this Centurion is a good centurion—as if there could be such a thing!  The Jewish elders plead his case before Jesus- “He is worthy of having you do this for him, he loves our people, and built the synagogue for us”. 

Jesus begins to walk towards the centurion’s house, only to be greeted by more people, speaking on behalf of the centurion- this time, saying “I am not worthy- but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed.”  And Jesus does.  And the servant is healed.

And Jesus commends the centurion’s faith.  A worthy man, his request is granted.  We understand how God works.  But things are not as they appear.

Luke 7:11-17

¹¹Soon afterwards Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him.¹²As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town.¹³When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.”¹⁴Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!”¹⁵The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.¹⁶Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!”¹⁷This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

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

Jesus then goes to the village of Nain, a village southeast of Nazareth, and came upon a funeral procession, heading out of the city, to the burial ground, led by the mother of the dead man.  And Jesus disrupts the procession, puts his hand on the casket, and the men carrying the body stand still.  Probably in shock.  Because if you are a faithful Jew, you don’t touch dead bodies unless you absolutely, absolutely have to.  It makes you unclean, you have to go through a whole process, and then be declared clean by the priest, before you can get back to your life.  It just was not done.  But Jesus did. Jesus speaks to the dead man, and the young man is restored to life, and Jesus gives him back to his mother.

Before Jesus went to the towns of Capernaum and Nain, Jesus has been speaking to crowds, and he has been telling them stories, parables. Jesus has told the story of the wise and foolish men- the wise man builds his house upon the rock, but the foolish man builds his house upon the sand. He is telling that story to point out that those who SAY “lord, lord” but do not act in consonance with their talk, with their beliefs, have no foundation, and will be swept away by the storms of life.

Jesus is consistent in his speech and actions—he talked about God’s grace, and lived it out.

These two stories of healing stand together, and stand in contrast to each other.  The Centurion is an enemy- and yet his request is answered.  He says he is not worthy, but the Jews say he is, and intercede for him.  The widow in Nain—she makes no request.  We have no idea of her faith.  In the whole accounting of “worthiness”, she has none- a nameless widow, now with a dead son.  And yet Jesus interrupts the funeral procession—and restores her son and gives them both their lives back. 

Jesus heals one man, the slave, after a request, and talks about faith.  And Jesus heals a second man, an unnamed son, without a request, and with no comment about anybody’s faith.  So the healings are not really about worthiness, or the amount of faith, or even being “one of God’s people.”  They are about the overwhelming grace of God. 

The crowd, around the widow and her son, in the town of Nain, get it.  They get that in Jesus, God has looked favorably on God’s people.  The Jewish elders in the first story get it—they go to Jesus on behalf of the centurion. And the centurion himself, on some level, understands that Jesus has power- after all, he is in the army—he understands how things work. The centurion gives orders, and things happen.

Things are not what they appear.  The centurion says “I am not worthy to have you come under the roof of my house….”  Like Simon Peter after the great catch of fish, saying to Jesus “Lord, get away from me for I am a sinful man…” the centurion sees, clearly, who Jesus is, and who he is.

Last summer, the [Hector] youth went to Staten Island, to work with Project Hospitality, to serve food to the homeless and the poor, to learn about HIV and AIDS, to see how the people of God were reaching out in that area.  And things were not always what they appeared there, either.  People were coming to the food pantry driving some very high end cars.  And the youth struggled with that- how could they qualify for the food pantry while still driving such an expensive car?  And the people in the group with AIDS and HIV- they didn’t look sick, most of them.  And when we talked with them, or played card games with them, they didn’t seem so different from us. 

 

Reverend Terry Troia, the founder of Project Hospitality, recently wrote about the effects of Hurricane Sandy on the people of Staten Island that she serves.  She wrote of the help that had come from all over:  Buddhist monks, distributed 10 million dollars- in 100$ bills- to families in the area.  Monks, who had taken a vow of poverty, giving away millions.  She wrote of people from all over, from all faiths, Muslims and Jews, Southern Baptists and Mexican day workers who all worked together to help those in need.  She wrote of a town hall meeting, where person after person came up to the microphone:  immigrants, many of them, some long time residents, some disabled, some hearing impaired, gay, straight, young and old, all searching for hope “in the midst of devastation and despair”.  But she saw, through the eyes of faith, the people gathered at the great feast, the people who God had called and God loves, even in great tragedy.  “They shall come from east and west, from north and south, to sit at table in the kingdom of God” we say.

 

For God is working, even now, to heal and make whole.  Because when we look at Jesus’ actions in these stories of healing and hope and compassion, we see that Jesus doesn’t care about the lines, about the rules, about the way things “appear”- Jesus doesn’t care about whether or not the centurion is a Jew, he doesn’t ask about the status of the slave or their relationship—he only heals.  And Jesus doesn’t care that the son of the woman is literally almost in the grave—Jesus interrupts the funeral procession because he is moved with pity.  This is what God is like—because when God is involved, things are NOT what they appear—the rules about what is, or what should be, are laid aside in the face of overwhelming love and healing.  Thanks be to God.

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon Dec 16, 2012

Sermon

 

I am struggling, as I’m sure you are, on a morning when all of our hearts are heavy, when all of us have been left speechless by the tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday.

 

In the church calendar, today is called Gaudete Sunday.  Gaudete means “Rejoice,” which is why the candle we lit this morning is the Joy candle.  But I imagine few of us are feeling any joy right now.  How can we feel joy, when a school, a community, a nation mourns the loss of children.  The senseless tragedy seems especially heinous since the children were so young and innocent.  There don’t seem to be any answers, any words that could possibly heal our grief.

 

As people of faith, one of the places we turn to is Scripture.  Many seeing the scenes of distraught parents have been reminded of this story from the gospel of Matthew (2:13-18):

 

¹³Now after the Wise Men had left Bethlehem, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”  ¹⁴Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, ¹⁵and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

¹⁶When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.  ¹⁷Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: ¹⁸“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

 

That reading is assigned on the first Sunday after Christmas, a day called the Feast of the Innocents.  The story reminds us the Holy Family, Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus became refugees, fleeing for their lives. Herod, in his paranoia and lust for power, wanted to make sure the child did not escape, and called for infant boys in and around Bethlehem to be slaughtered.  On that Sunday we remember all those innocent children who have died at the hands of evil in this world.  It seems the Feast of the Innocents came early this year.

 

Death, whether experienced in a tragedy like Sandy Hook or in the quiet loss of a loved one, challenges our faith, our understanding of God. 

Most of us who have experienced such a loss can testify to the turbulent questions of faith that follow in its wake.  We turn to God and ask, “Why?”  When it involves children we want to know, “Why should the little ones suffer?”  But, perhaps, the toughest question is whether or not God is to be trusted.

 

The Gospel writer Matthew invokes Rachel’s voice in the midst of this story of God-with-us, the birth of a child whose name is a verb: save.  God’s salvation may seem far off and inadequate to the parents who mourn, but the promise is deeper than this moment in time. The threat of this Herod passes for a time, only to be replaced by another Herod, yet another ruler without scruples. But when this child of Rachel returns to Jerusalem as an adult, God enters into the fate of every doomed child and every grieving parent. (http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20071224JJ.shtml)

 

Jesus knows what suffering and terror are like.  God stands with the families who are mourning, including the family of the shooter.  But in a year in which there has been so much tragedy, so much suffering, in which people are still staggering from Hurricane Sandy, in which we have lost loved ones, or have traveled through that first year alone without our loved one, a time in which the biopsy came back malignant, a time in which we pray that the radiation will work, that the babies will be ok, that the world will be healed, we want to say “enough”.  Enough, God. Enough.  And we come to this morning’s reading from the prophet Isaiah:

 

¹The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; ²to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; ³to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.

 

The Bible is full of truth telling.  And the prophet Isaiah, in his message to the returnees to Jerusalem, is no different.  There is no sugar coating.  They have returned from exile—and their lives are no better, are, in fact, worse than when they were in exile.  The city is in ruins, the rebuilding seems impossible, they are faint of heart at the work that stands before them, and they are ashamed that they cannot restore the city and the Temple to its former glory.  All is in ruins.

 

And God, through the prophet, speaks a word of both truth and hope.  I know you are mourning, says the speaker.  I know you are broken hearted, I know your sorrow.  But there is comfort for those who mourn, there is good news—even when it seems incomprehensible, even when we cannot imagine anything except grief and sorrow.  For we have in Scripture the testimony of a people who have witnessed the acts of a God who brings hope and joy and life in the midst of despair and sorrow and death.  Stories of Abraham and Sarah, of Joseph and his brothers, of Moses and the Exodus, of the Promised Land, and of return from Exile.

 

This passage from Isaiah alternates between two voices- a human speaker, whom we just heard, and God.  The human voice goes on and says:

 

⁴They (the people of Israel) shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.  ⁵Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, foreigners shall till your land and dress your vines; ⁶but you shall be called priests of the Lord, you shall be named ministers of our God.

 

Which is what we are called to do.  In this time in-between, between Christ’s first coming and his return, in a world that is still broken and not yet healed, a time in which it seems evil and darkness are winning, all of us are called to be ministers, to be priests, to care for others in their sorrow and distress, to do exactly what the speaker first said: the share the good news, to proclaim liberty, to bind up the broken hearted.  Those words are associated with Christ.  But in our baptism, we are anointed with God’s Spirit, and we are called, as individuals and the church, to do the same work.  Binding up. Restoring.  Healing. Helping people see that God is indeed involved in human life, that God was not absent on that awful day, showing the love of God in our words and in our actions.  Because God promises us this:

 

⁸For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their restoration, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

 

The composer Johannes Brahms, grieving the deaths of his mother and of his dear friend, Robert Schumann, wrote one of his greatest works, “A German Requiem.”  As part of the opening movement, he chose the final verses of Psalm 126, which we read earlier.  These verses are, in a way, both prayer and promise:

 

“May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.

Those who go out weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.”

 

God knows our sorrow.  And even though it sometimes feels like we are still living in exile, God will never leave us, will surely restore us.

 

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

 

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.