Exodus 32:7-14
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.
I know some might think it’s silly,
but often when I read a book, watch a movie or television show, or hear a story,
I ask myself, “what if…?” My mind begins to unwind all the possible paths a
story’s protagonist might have taken if she or he had made one or two critical
decisions differently in the narrative. What if…Dorothy had struck a bargain
with the Wicked Witch of the West and simply handed over the ruby slippers in
exchange for a safe ride back to Kansas? What would have become of the
Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, and the Lion? What if…the Joad’s had just left Jim
Casy back in Oklahoma instead of bringing him along for the ride to California?
Would Tom Joad have ever been involved in any controversy that would lead to
his fleeing from the law, abandoning his family? What if…Voldemort had actually
succeeded in destroying Harry Potter? Would someone else rise up to defeat him,
or was Harry the only one ever capable of standing up to him? What if…?
Some might think it a wee bit
sacrilegious, but I also find myself asking “What if…?” when it comes to the
stories we find in the pages of the Bible. What if…Adam and Eve had just obeyed
that one, small rule in Eden? Would they have lived out the rest of their days
in paradise, or would something else tempt them in the years to come? Would one
of their children have been the first to fall? What if…Noah had taken a pass on
the whole “go build an ark” thing? What if Noah had just said, “Nah, I think
I’ll wait it out with my neighbors and see what happens”? Would God have
miraculously buoyed the bodies of Noah and his family to the surface of the
flood waters, or would God have moved on down the list of righteous persons
until God found the person willing to build a boat big enough for creation? What
if…Abram had said “no thanks” to the call to father one nation and bless all
nations? What if…David hadn’t killed Goliath or took advantage of Bathsheba?
What if…Jonah never went to Nineveh? What if…John the Baptist never made it to
the Jordan? What if…all those people following Jesus had actually gotten the
message—actually understood the whole “Kingdom of God” thing—and what if the
Romans caught on too? What if…Saul of Tarsus had chalked up his Damascus road
experience to a bad burrito from dinner the night before? What if…?
It’s the kind of question that can
cause our minds to chase ideas down endless trails with innumerable forks, and
it is precisely because such a question opens our minds and expands our
questions and even our doubts that I think it’s a healthy question to ask. So,
it’s the very question I bring to the text before us this morning.
To just sort of sum it all up, the
Israelites—descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Israel)—were bond in
slavery in the Egyptian empire for four hundred thirty years. Then, Moses comes
along (after an intriguing backstory that involves the slaughter of babies, an
Egyptian princess, murder, and a burning bush) and God uses Moses (along with
his brother Aaron) to liberate the Israelite slaves through a series of pleas
and plagues. Once these newly liberated Israelites are free from Pharaoh, they
immediately begin complaining: they complain about not having any bread; then,
when God gives them bread from the sky, they complain about not having meat;
they get meat, and I’m sure some folks complained that it wasn’t steak! They
complain about the journey; they complain about their leader; they complain
about having to walk across the desert when Egypt looked so nice in hindsight.
Eventually (despite all the complaining), they all make it to the mountain to
which God told Moses to bring them, Mt. Sinai/Horeb. Once they get there, God
calls Moses up the mountain for a little one-on-one time.
Now, here is where the story gets
interesting. In fact, you can just read along with me the six verses that
precede out text this morning (Exodus
32:1-6): 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." 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." So all the people took
off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 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!" When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made
proclamation and said, "Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord." 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.
Now, something that is lost in
translation in this passage is the notion that the Israelites aren’t necessarily
asking Aaron to build them an idol to a new, or different god—at least Aaron
seems to be under the impression that this golden calf is YHWH, or at least an
object upon which YHWH will be seated. In short, these complaining, impatient
people have grown tired of waiting for Moses to show back up with some word
from God, so they attempt to invoke God’s presence by putting God in a golden,
calf-shaped box.
As we know from the verses that follow in our text for this morning, the
whole “let’s build a golden calf and call it YHWH” thing doesn’t exactly thrill
the Almighty. God becomes furious. At first, God tells Moses in verses 7 and 8:"Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land
of Egypt, have acted perversely; 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!' "
Did you happen to notice what God did there? He tells Moses, “YOUR
people, whom YOU brought up out of the land of Egypt…” God seems to be playing that game parents play
when their child misbehaves: “Your
son hit another kid on the playground at school…your daughter called another kid names…” God is sort of throwing
Moses under the bus! “YOUR people, whom YOU brought
up out of the land of Egypt…” Moses
is silent: maybe because he’s stunned by what the people are doing or maybe
because God has just dumped them into his lap. Either way, before Moses can
muster a response, God says in verses 9
and 10: "I have seen this people,
how stiff-necked they are. 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." In other words, “I’m through with these hard-headed,
complaining people. They’ve angered me to the point where I can’t see straight,
so I’m going to kill them all—get rid of them—and guess what, Moses; I’m
starting all over with you.”
You can imagine the mix of feelings rushing through Moses’ mind:
confusion, disappointment, fear, excitement, maybe even a little bit of pride
(after all, God wanted to start over with him). This time, however, Moses
musters the ability to respond to God’s proposition in verses 11 through 13: “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? 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. 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.' "
You noticed what Moses did, right? He flipped the script on God, pulling
that same pronoun punch: “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?” Moses reminds God that Israel
is God’s people, and Moses reminds God of the whole reason they’re all there in
the first place: because God showed up the gods of Egypt (including Pharaoh).
If God destroyed them all now, the Egyptians wouldn’t see God as that much of a
threat; in fact, they may have simple seen God as an inconvenient deity who
consumes its own followers. Moses even reminds God of the covenant God made
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, perhaps in an attempt to remind God that God
shouldn’t promise Moses something God isn’t willing to follow through on with
those first patriarchs.
Then, it seems as if Moses does the impossible—Moses changes God’s mind! It’s not heresy; it’s not speculation. It’s
right there in the text, in verse 14: “And the Lord changed his mind about the
disaster that he planned to bring on his people.” Moses was able to
change God’s mind, to turn God’s mind away from destruction and annihilation,
towards forgiveness and mercy. It’s here, though, that my mind wants to ask,
“What if…?”
Now, don’t jump to any conclusions. Sure, there’s the question, “What if
God hadn’t changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring to his
people?” But that isn’t where I’d ask the question, “What if…?” No. You see, I
tend to identify a bit more with Moses in this story, but not necessarily with
his actions.
Put yourself in Moses’ place in this story for just a minute. Remember,
you’ve led these hundreds of thousands of complaining, irritating, helpless
people out of bondage. You’ve been the one who’s had to hear every complaint
about how great Egypt was, how much better it was in their old place, how much
they hated the sudden change of having to relocate. You’ve been the one they’ve
come to whenever they had stupid arguments about insignificant issues in the
desert. You were the one that was called away from a comfortable life of
tending your father-in-law’s sheep on other side of the wilderness, just to
stand against the most powerful man in the world, with the very real threat of
death in your face. You were the one who’s had to hear God say that God wanted
to wipe them all out and start over with you…
What if Moses had said, “OK”? Maybe God was testing Moses. Maybe God was
trying to see where his true concerns were. But what if Moses had said, “OK”?
Would God have wiped them all out and started a new nation with Moses? Would
the nation of Israel have been called “Moses” instead? I don’t know, but when I
ask myself that question about this story, the other question I ask is, “Why did Moses reject God’s offer and try to
change God’s mind?” I believe it’s for the very same reason Christ said from
the cross in Luke 23:34: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what
they are doing."
Moses knew those people at the base of the mountain, those people
reveling and dancing around that golden calf. Moses knew those people were
irritating; he knew they were complainers; he knew they were idolatrous; he
knew they were stiff-necked and hard-headed; he knew they were capable of
wicked crimes and sinful actions. Moses knew all those things about those
people he helped to bring up out of Egypt, and he knew he wasn’t any better. He
was just as guilty as they were, and he knew he had no right to the title of
“father of a nation.” Moses could have stepped back and watched as the wrath of
an angry God consumed those sinners at the base of Sinai…but he didn’t.
I think we could learn a thing or two from this scene in Moses’ story. Too
often it seems like we would rather stand aside and allow (or even pray for)
the wrath of an angry God to consume all those people we’ve deemed “sinners.” Too
often it feels as if we would rather cast judgment on our brothers and sisters
and wait for the lightning bolt to strike them or the finger of God to flick
them from existence. Too often we take the offer God put before Moses, and we
wish God would just start over with us, the “real Christians,” while God’s
wrath burns hot against those who aren’t in our camp, those who aren’t like us.
I’m afraid we Christians have gotten way too comfortable with pointing fingers
and not nearly comfortable enough at putting ourselves in the place of love and
forgiveness, of compassion and mercy—the place between God and our brothers and
sisters.
May we learn this lesson from Moses. May we strive to be people of
compassion, people who do not seek to condemn others to the wrath of God, but
people who seek to live in and share the forgiveness of God through Christ Jesus
our Lord.
Let us pray…
