Exodus 32:1-14 32 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. 2 Aaron 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. 3 So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt! 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord. 6 They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel. 7 The Lord said to Moses, Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; 8 they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt! 9 The Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10 Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation. 11 But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever. 14 And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people. This is the Word of the Lord. 1
09.15.13 A Bunch of Bull Those stupid Israelites! How could they be so dumb, so faithless as to lose trust in the God who had just delivered them from captivity in Egypt? Even worse, how could they place their trust in a manmade hunk of metal shaped like a calf? It s tempting, isn t it, to think such thoughts when reading this passage? But we should be careful in doing so, for as much as we might like to think that we would act differently, human nature hasn t changed much, if at all, in 3,000 years. In a narrative as rich as the one we have before us today, there are so many lessons we can draw from the text: Israel s fickle relationship with God that is hot one minute and cold the next, Aaron s being led by the people rather than leading them, God s righteous anger, God s openness to Moses appeal on behalf of the people, and God s mercy in the face of the Israelites sin. The challenge for the preacher, if he wants to keep the service to roughly an hour, is choosing which lesson to emphasize. While I am going to explore Israel s infidelity to God, I hope to look more deeply, not just at how it was expressed in the form of a golden calf, but at what lies underneath that infidelity. But before we go deep, let s go broad. If you will again indulge me in my fondness for maps, I d like to set the stage for this story by locating its setting on the map [SLIDE]. This is the Sinai Peninsula, which belongs to modern-day Egypt and borders the southern edge of Israel. When we talk of the Israelites wandering for 40 years through the wilderness before finally reaching the Promised Land, this is the area we re talking about. Although well populated along the coastlines, the inland area is a mostly barren land, with little water or vegetation to sustain life and few permanent settlements, even today [SLIDE]. Those who do live there, Arabic Bedouin tribes, live a nomadic existence, wandering from place to place, watering hole to watering hole. It was and is a harsh, inhospitable land [PREVIOUS SLIDE]. This is where the Israelites fled to after escaping Pharaoh s army in Egypt. Eventually, after about three months, they reached the wilderness of Sinai, near the southern tip of the peninsula, so some scholars think. The exact route of the exodus is a matter of debate among scholars, hence the different colored lines on this map. Here in the wilderness of Sinai is where most scholars believe Mount Sinai was located. 2
Although we read today from chapter 32 of Exodus, the story, in fact, begins back in chapter 19 [SLIDE]. There we learn that on the third moon after the people of Israel had fled Egypt, they encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai became a sacred place because it was where God met the Israelites and where Moses, in chapter 20, was given the Ten Commandments to give to the people as a sign of God s covenant with them. From 20:22 to 23:19 a full three chapters God issues a series of laws for Moses to tell the people, covering everything from social relations, to treatment of slaves, which was quite progressive for the time, to restitution (making amends for wrongdoing), to social justice, to laws about the Sabbath and festivals. In chapter 24, the covenant is confirmed, with Moses telling the people all of God s commands and all of the people saying with one voice, All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do (24:3). Then from chapter 25 to chapter 30 Moses is given specific instructions for the construction of the tabernacle and guidelines for the priests who will lead worship there. The tabernacle was the portable sanctuary of the Israelites, the place where they worshiped God during their journey through the wilderness and the place where God s presence dwelt among the people. It was the precursor to the Temple, which wouldn t be built until the time of Solomon, hundreds of years later. Finally, in chapter 31, just prior to the passage for today, the Lord tells Moses that above all, the people of Israel must keep the Sabbath holy, for it is a sign between God and them for all generations, so that they may know that the Lord has sanctified them, i.e., set them apart from all other people. The Sabbath also served as a sign that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and rested on the seventh day. After the Lord had finished speaking to Moses, God gave him the two tablets on which were written the Ten Commandments for Moses to present them to the people. With all of that as prologue, we will now have a better understanding of the context for today s passage. Let s look at the first verse [SLIDE]: When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. We don t know how long Moses was said to be on Mount Sinai, but in terms of the narrative, he was there for seven full chapters receiving instruction from God. Let s remember that Moses was the unquestioned leader of the Israelites, 3
not only physically leading them from Egypt to Sinai, but also leading them spiritually, rallying them when they tired and when they despaired. Thus, when he does not soon return from meeting with God, the Israelites panic. Where do they turn? To Aaron, his brother, the next closest thing to Moses. They demand of him that he make gods for them to lead them, for their leader seems to have disappeared. This probably strikes us as odd make gods for us? How does one make gods? Isn t this just silly superstition, believing that an idol an inanimate hunk of metal has divine power? Don t they realize, as we do, that God is God and cannot be contained in physical matter? It s easy to condemn the Israelites for being so quick to abandon Moses and seek to control when God appears to them, or more accurately, to ensure that God remains with them, which is really what creating the calf represents [SLIDE]. They certainly do seem quick to forget that the Lord delivered them from captivity in Egypt, that the Lord has chosen them from all the peoples on the earth, and that the Lord has entered into a covenant with them to be their God and for them to be God s people. However, their anxiety is more understandable given the transitory (the wandering) nature of their current existence in Sinai and the transitional stage that they occupy on their journey to the Promised Land. It s true that they are no longer slaves, but they are not yet entirely free either. They are no longer slaves, but they are prisoners who are being held captive to their fears. Think of their predicament. They are homeless, wanderers, strangers in a strange land with enemies all around them. They have already been attacked once, by the Amalekites, who appeared in chapter 17. They don t know what lies beyond the next hill or what invading army may come sweeping across the plain. One of the greatest human fears is the unknown [SLIDE]. Think of every scary movie you ve ever seen. I am a big fan of scary movies Sandy, not so much. The most terrifying scene in most scary movies is not what s presently happening but what might happen when the character opens that closed door or turns the corner to enter the next room. Thus, captivity, as awful as it was for the Israelites, carried with it the comfort of the familiar. They knew what to expect. But they were filled with anxiety about what might happen to them next here in the Sinai wilderness. There is an expression in English that captures this thought: better the devil you know than the one you don t. In other words, however bad your current situation is, it could always get worse. That type of thinking is paralyzing and makes us prisoners of our fears. In such situations, we will do anything, turn anywhere looking for a way out, for a way to regain a sense of control. 4
About 12 years ago Sandy and I somehow managed to open a small Christian café on the edge of Koreatown in New York City. The Koreatown in New York is much smaller than the one in LA, really little more than a block long 32 nd Street between Broadway and Fifth Ave. Our café was on the corner of 32 nd and Fifth, a block from the Empire State Building [SLIDE]. The only way we were able to open was that we came into some money as a result of living near the World Trade Center at the time of 9/11. First the Red Cross gave us a lump sum and then a group called the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation that was tasked with rebuilding the neighborhood around the World Trade Center gave us a monthly stipend. They literally gave us money each month just to keep living where we were, which was two blocks south of where the towers had stood. The name of the café was Café d Orsay. It was named after the Musee d Orsay, a museum in Paris that houses Impressionist paintings. Sandy designed the interior herself, and it was beautiful, with warm, rich burgundy and gold colored walls, floor-to-ceiling satin drapes that highlighted the large bay window looking out on Fifth Ave., Parisian style cocktail tables with stone and glass inlay, and an enormous chandelier that threw soft shadows around the intimate interior which was filled with the aroma of fresh espresso. It was a beautiful space that offered peace and tranquility from the bustle of Fifth Avenue just below [SLIDE]. Although it was beautiful to look at and to sit in, the cafe was a nightmare to own. We lost money every single month of the 18 months that we were open, from February 2002 until we mercifully closed in August 2003. And it wasn t has though we had a lot of cash reserves to see us through the difficult times. All the money we received from 9/11 we had put into the café. Plus, we took out a loan against our apartment and opened a couple of credit cards, which we quickly maxed out. We sometimes slept in the café, being too tired to take the subway home. The café soon felt less like the oasis it was meant to be and more like a prison. The stress from losing money caused stress in our marriage. I feared having to file for bankruptcy, having my credit destroyed, maybe even having to sell our apartment. We were desperate, willing to entertain any idea that might change our fortunes. Surely there must be something within our control that we could do to turn things around change the menu, raise or lower the prices, host events for which we could charge admission. Something! One month, I don t remember which it was, we simply did not have the money to pay the rent, which was $2500. Shortly before the rent was due, our 5
accountant, Mr. Choi, who worked next door in the Empire State Building, visited the cafe at lunchtime. Mr. Choi was a devout Christian and he played a part in Sandy s and my spiritual reawakening, but that s a story for another day. He ordered his coffee and then asked Sandy to join him at his table. Then he proceeded to hand her an envelope, inside of which was a check for $2500, which he said God had told him to give to her. We had never mentioned to him our inability to pay the rent and certainly not what the amount of our rent was. This was nothing short of miraculous, as much as the sea parting or manna falling from heaven. In the following months, he returned to the café two more times with two more envelopes, each of which contained checks for $2500. However, these times he confessed that he did not want to give us the money. I didn t blame him. The money he gave us was simply delaying the inevitable. So, no, Mr. Choi didn t want to give us the money, but he told us again that God was directing him to do so. Despite his misgivings, all we could do was say thank you. All told, Mr. Choi gave us $7,500, and I wish that I could say that there was a happy ending and that all that money helped us turn the corner and eventually turn a profit. But the truth is that all that money merely delayed our eventual closing. However, in those few extra months that we were able to stay open, Sandy and I learned a priceless lesson, one worth every penny of that $7500, at least I hope Mr. Choi thinks so. And the lesson was this: trust in the goodness of God. Trust in the goodness of God especially in those times when it seems as though God is absent. I don t mean to say that there will always be a happy ending to every challenging circumstance you find yourself in. And I don t mean to say that everything works out for the best. It doesn t. That is not the Gospel. But I do know this [SLIDE]: whatever our fears may be, God is trustworthy, God is faithful, and God works for our good. That doesn t mean that everything that happens is good, but it means that in everything God s goodness ultimately prevails for there is nothing greater than God. Let s return to the Israelites, whom we left at the base of Mount Sinai. They were asking Aaron to create gods for them so that they might have the divine presence under their control, so that they might always have God at the ready when they needed comfort, protection, or provision [SLIDE]. The irony here is that the tabernacle was meant to provide just the type of assurance of God s presence that the Israelites were seeking. Chapters 25 to 30 which fall just before the incident with the golden calf contain instructions for the 6
construction of the tabernacle. In other words, at the moment that the Israelites felt most abandoned, God was working on their behalf. For the Israelites of the exodus and for us as well, trusting in an unseen God, one whom we cannot control like an inanimate hunk of metal, can be challenging, especially when we are at our most vulnerable. When we fear the worst, we want tangible signs that God is with us, knows how we are feeling, and will do something to make our situation better. Like the Israelites, we too quickly forget our identity as God s beloved, as people for whom Christ died and was raised. But we don t need concrete or golden symbols that confirm our identity as God s own. Christ has done that for us on the cross, and nothing can ever take it away. A golden calf, whether physical or symbolic, is nothing more than a bunch of bull. 7