Sermon October 9, 2011

Exodus 32:1-14, Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23

Philippians 4:1-9,Matthew 22:1-14

“God Matters”

I read recently that what we really believe and hold true is revealed in our actions rather than our words—and in light of this morning's scripture I would add—and revealed most clearly when we are afraid, under great stress or in pain. As I read in a novel, one character said, “If you aren't afraid, why are your teeth chattering.” And the answer, “I'm not afraid, but my teeth are and my knees are. My head knows there's nothing to fear.”

Our bodies reveal the genuine faith of our hearts—and our bodies don't lie about what we really feel.

Now, that isn't to say that we have to go along with our bodies or we can't set boundaries and live toward better ways and godly ways. As a matter of fact, that's exactly what we are to do—to reveal a better way, to reveal that God really matter, to show the way that Jesus brought to us in his life.

The story from Exodus is one that is pretty familiar in our culture—if not from our reading of scripture then certainly from the movie The Ten Commandments. The scene in the movie shows the men and women dancing with abandon—and at least one scantily clad woman—around a large golden calf bedecked by flowers, fruit and other offerings. (Though in the desert wilderness, finding flowers or fruit would have been rather difficult, I would think.)

We see a picture depicting an orgy of decadence—scandalous and sexually alluring. Yet in the scripture, the description is a mixture of intent. Is Aaron trying to assure them of God's presence? And the people seem genuinely afraid of this powerful God who has freed them from slavery—they want a god (with a little g) that's not so scary. I can almost understand that . . . almost. Then you add the element of time—they had waited and waited for Moses to come back down the mountain from his time with this God. And this seems to be months after they received the commandments God had given them.

They were impatient. They didn't understand what is was they were doing there in that place. They wanted to get on with the promise—whatever it was that was coming next, so they took the reins in their own hands and took off on their own. And Aaron didn't want to argue—so he recast their desire for a new god (with a little g) as a festival for the one God (with a big G).

But they, in their impatience, in their desire to have some god, any god, forgot the second commandment in a very short time. “The people at the bottom of the mountain do not like waiting interminably while Moses, at the top of the mountain, continues his long conversation with God. Perhaps they have other priorities and more pressing things on their minds. In any case, the scholars seem to agree that the people identify Moses' presence with the presence of God: if Moses is there, God is with them, and if Moses isn't there, well, obviously God has left them on their own. And most of us don't like to be left on our own, especially in the midst of a wilderness, without some clear goals and an action plan, not to mention a healthy dose of reassurance that everything is going to be okay. This is definitely an anxiety-producing situation.”¹

In Exodus, when the people are faithful, someone is going before them—either in reference to God or to Moses, so when there is no recognized authority there, they want to create one.

People seem to need reminders of a presence beyond themselves although sometimes we don't want that presence to be too far beyond. We want God, but we want an understandable God, a tame God who only does what we can explain. And that was the other mistake—the sin of the people and of Aaron. They want a god they could literally manipulate or make by hand instead of receiving and worshiping God whose power would make them into a nation and shape them into a people. They want a god that fits in their hand instead of God (as the psalmist writes) on whose hand we are written.

We often slip into the idea that idolatry was more of a sin for those Old Testament people because they really did make and build statues to worship—or the sin of the Greeks and Romans who created gods out of nature and named them things like Zeus, Hera, Apollo or Jupiter, Mars and Venus. But in the midst of our journey—the journey along that way that creates us as God's own people, we, too share that desire and temptation to shape gods we can manipulate. They are achievable goals for us and understandable—conceivable. The gods we make might look or seem more like us—or just slightly more powerful. In this story, we are reminded that in our very natural quest for spirituality—not all of the objectives we strive for are equal. In classic terms, though we are empty without God, we cannot fill the hole in our lives with just anything.

The contemporary false god are likely to be money, prestige, success, celebrity and power. Though we may mock the obsession with many of these as so far from us here in Crawford County, we still pay some attention to the accumulation of wealth, success and even celebrity in our entertainment. We might also believe falsely that superior weaponry and armaments will somehow assure our salvation or create a victory for our brand of religion. The bull calf that Aaron created was a symbol of fertility as well as military might—things haven't changed all that much for human beings.

And we, too, don't pay attention to the flexibility of God, even in the movement of the Old Testament narrative. God works in many roles: creator of all things, companion on journeys, mighty hand of freedom and power, caregiver whose hand holds and guides an infant people, strong king and gentle shepherd. We like to set God down into a mold—perhaps created in our own image or at least in one finite time and place that we can fully understand.

One of the attributes of a genuine eternal and infinite deity is that God is beyond the mind and intellect of mortal and finite creatures. And at that same time—an idea even farther beyond our understanding—God is ever near and presence, trustworthy and loving, caregiving and gentle, even and especially when we don't deserve it. God is angry and full of wrath—God is soft-spoken and embracing.

We are idolatrous—we put other things before God. Our lives are no different in this way that the lives of those Hebrews wandering the desert. We get impatient for what we believe God will do instead of doing what God has given us to do. The king in Jesus parable said, “Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” It's not our job to provide the banquet—just bring people in and make sure they are welcomed. It's not our job to speculate on who belongs or doesn't belong. We don't assume the role of God by defining the guests, but bring everybody in—beggars and merchants, rich and poor and people who did more evil than good and those who do more good than evil. And make sure the party is packed, the feast was loud and joyful.

The raucous nature of the festival wasn't the sin—even if that's how Cecille B. DeMille saw it. The sin was that the people discounted the presence of God when God was always there. They were impatient for Moses to bring God to them when God had always been there. Instead of actively creating a community according to God's commandments, seeing God and one another in loving relationship, they wanted something they didn't have to work at. Instead of power and fire and Spirit, they wanted something less, something they could see and hold and touch.

And then the story ends with Moses dialogue with God on the mountain, as a commentator notes, “in which Moses boldly steps between the weak, fearful people and the God who reacts like the parent of a teen-ager who has finally gone too far. [and the writer notes] (As the mother of three former teenagers, I know, just a little bit, how God feels. Just a little bit.)” And Moses' faith in God is an audacious faith, it not only permits but requires questioning. And another writer feels it is a comfort to know that we have been made in the image of a God who feels as deeply as we have been created to feel—and that God feels anger and disappointment as deeply as love and forgiveness. We can find comfort in this knowledge that the depth of God's love is deeper even than this depth of anger—and that the covenants we break are recurringly remade. Broken by humanity's (here Israel's) stubbornness and defiance and remade by God's generosity and compassion—not once, but over and over and over again. God's anger is justified and God's anger has an end—because that is just. Moses appeals to God's justice and to God's practical mercy. “Don't give up on them—you claimed them from Egypt, let's show Egypt what that means—that you are their God.”

May our desire to do God's will mean more to us than not doing the sin—may it mean joy, as Paul wrote, may it mean that God matters so much that we are genuine, just, real, truthful, and living in God's will. That is the only excellence—and as we reflect that God matters to us, God will be our companion.

In the name and in the will of God—full of glory and grace. Amen.

1http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/october-9-2011-twenty-eighth.html