Towards Sunday, October 15, 2017

Reading:  Exodus 32:1-14
(The people of Israel are still at the foot of Mt Sinai, and it's no more than a month since Moses brought down the Ten Commandments from God and the people agreed to obey them.  Prior to that, God and Moses set them free from slavery, led them through the Red Sea, saved them from the Pharaoh's army, provided bread, meat and water in the wilderness, and have given them hope of a Promised Land that they will journey to and live in as God's people on Earth.  

So what do they do when Moses goes back up the mountain to converse with God for 40 days and nights?  They grow restless and afraid when they can't see Moses or his God.  And in place of the God of Moses who has led them well thus far, they get Aaron -- Moses' brother and second-in-command, to make them an idol, a god they can see -- a golden calf, to which they now bow down as the god who will see them through.)

One thing that amazes me is that this is the official history of the Jewish people.  It's the state-sanctioned, dominant-class-approved story of the nation and its people.  It's what would be in the government-approved textbooks.  

And it's a story of massive sin, failure of character, weakness, misdirection, fear, idolatry and self-inflicted harm ... all in the end redeemed only by the gracious forgiveness and forbearance of God.

I wonder what our national story would be like, if we as a people had the same courage, honesty and faith in the way we tell it, and what we choose to tell in it?

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Specific to this story, are the people of Israel unique within humanity and among all nations in making a golden calf of their own design, along the way of their national journey?  In starting out well, and then giving themselves as a people to something other than God?  In saying "in God we trust" or calling themselves a godly or even a Christian nation, and in a number of ways having a different god in mind than the God of the Bible?  

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One more side note: the "golden calf" was a little bull -- the bull being a sign of vitality and strength often associated with, and deified by warlike and aggressive kingdoms.  The people of Israel chose to worship a sign of worldly strength and power (albeit a little one).  

Are there ways we do this?  In both our personal and national life?  What are today's signs of worldly strength and power?  Are they compatible with obedience to, and trust in God?  Are we as dependent on the gracious forgiveness and forbearance of God, as the people of Israel realized and remembered they were? 

And if so, it's no disgrace.  To the contrary, it helps us find more deeply the real way in to a very holy company.