Reading: Exodus 33:1-4a, 12-23
It's time to leave Mt. Sinai. The people have followed Moses from Egypt to the foot of the holy mountain in the wilderness. There they have seen the awesome and terrible glory of God, and have received the lows of God for their life in the promised land still somewhere ahead of them. But when God tells Moses it's time to move on, God also says that for the rest of the journey they will be guided by an angel, not by God. The people have proven so troublesome that God fears for their safety if they remain any longer in the Divine presence. What follows is one of the more amazing conversations in the Bible -- with Moses taking God on, using God's own words against God, and backing God into a corner where God has to agree to go with them in person. As well as one of those so deeply meaningful moments when God agrees to let Moses see that God is really there -- except not to see God's face; only God's back.
By the way, the word God uses to describe the people is "stiff-necked" -- the way a farmer would describe oxen who spend more time fighting the yoke they wear and wanting just to keep ploughing straight ahead, than following the way the farmer wants to turn them.
What was God
thinking? Suggesting that the people go
ahead beyond Mt. Sinai into new territory unknown to any of them, towards a
promised land that none of them have ever seen without God going with
them? With only an angel – not the
almighty, guiding them?
Okay, there was that matter of possibly being consumed along the way. By God. Because of their stiff-necked-ness – their refusal at times to actually follow the way God was leading them. People with hard hearts and stiff necks sometimes don’t fare very well in the presence of the Divine.
Moses, for one, knew this well. Moses knew the power of God that can shake as well as shape all Earth. Knew the glory of God that can dissolve to nothingness anything and anyone who sees it. And knew the holiness of God that does not tolerate hard hearts and stiff necks forever. Moses knew the risk because he faced it and barely survived it every time he went up the mountain or into the holy tent of meeting to be in God’s presence to receive the word of God for the people.
So maybe it would be safer – less risky, to go on without God so close.
But then, what’s so bad – and isn’t really for the good, to be consumed by God in some way every now and then along the way? To have our world shaken up and reshaped from time to time in some better and more godly way than what has fallen into? To have some of our unhealthy and unhelpful priorities broken down, purified and redefined by some vision of what life is really all about? To have the unholy, unselfish and unloving parts of ourselves broken down and melted away by some holy encounter, to make room for the holiness, the openness and the love for others that really is our nature to shine, to be expressed in some way, and to become our real reason for living?
But again, on the other hand, maybe the people already had enough to go on, had already built up enough knowledge of God and life with God for this to happen without having to actually be open to God any more. Because this is, after all, chapter 33 of the Book of Exodus. They’re quite a ways in, and a lot has already happened.
Chapters 3-7, way back at the beginning, tell the start of the story of Moses born and bred between two worlds, who in the cracks and the tension between them becomes God’s liberating servant. Chapters 7 to 12 are the great public conflict with the pharaoh and all the signs the people see of God’s power unleashed upon those whose hearts are hardened. Surely a lot was learned there.
Then six chapters of journey through the wilderness with the pillars of fire by night and of cloud by day to guide the people, the crossing through the Red Sea to save them, the changing of bitter water to sweet, the provision of manna and quails, and water made to gush from a rock to sustain them, and all along the way protection from enemy tribes. That’s a lot of good experience, and a storehouse of stories and memories to feed their faith and keep them going.
Then in Chapter 19 they come to Mt Sinai where they receive the Ten Commandments and for thirteen more chapters, all kinds of rules and prescriptions about altars, holy tents, offerings and sacrifice, priestly vestments and Sabbath and festivals, as well as laws and commandments about slaves, violent acts, property ownership, debts and repayment, justice and fairness.
And isn’t that enough? Do you really need God when you have all of that – all the right rules and regulations, all the tried-and-true practices and traditions to guide you, to follow, and to fall back on? Things that worked in the past to help you get through, keep going, and stay alive?
I don’t know – there’s part of me that says surely that’s enough, and a whole lot easier than the presence of God. That happily and quickly says – or at least thinks, things like, “This is the way we’ve always done it. It’s what we know. And if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”
But then there’s also an other part of me – maybe a deeper part that says, “Really? Does that really satisfy? Does just doing what you’ve always done really give you what you need? Help you offer to others what they need? Give you any hope of getting beyond Sinai and on the way to the promised land? Or does it just keep you travelling and re-travelling the old route between Egypt and Sinai and back to Egypt again, over and over again? Without getting where God wants you to go, and where God is living and dying to lead you?
And it’s that part of me that says, “Thank goodness for Moses who knew the importance of God being present with the people, and the people being present and open to God for the journey to be accomplished. And thank goodness for people – for leaders among us today, who are still able to make that continued connection with God happen now especially as we find ourselves entering territory we haven’t encountered before, the landscape around us changing, and the old routines and rituals and ways of doing things no longer adequate in quite the same way.
How wonderful to have leaders who can honestly help answer our fears of being alone and without direction into the future, with the good news, “God’s back!”
And just a word about that. About God’s back. It would be nice, we sometimes think, to see God’s face. To see the whole of God’s outlook and purpose. To look God in the eye, and just know it all.
But it’s not gonna happen. At least not in this life. And not in this world.
What we’re offered is God’s back.
But when you think about it, isn’t that enough? And more than enough, isn’t it exactly what we need?
Because when you’re part of a group – part of a company following a leader who knows the way through a crowded time – a crowded marketplace of different ideas, values, visions and ways of life, with all kinds of other sights and sounds and voices all around us, and you get distracted for a bit and your gaze and your way start to wander, when you realize what’s happening and you want to get back on track, what do you do? What do you automatically and instinctively look for?
Or when maybe you’ve been following in one direction for so long that you’ve started just looking down at the ground ahead of you, just ploughing straight ahead assuming this will always be the way to go, and when you look up you realize with a shock that you don’t see your leader ahead of you. He’s not there anymore; somewhere he took a different direction. And when that happens, what do you look for with all your might?
Not your leader’s face. The leader is ahead of you somewhere, and his face is set straight ahead towards the future.
Okay, there was that matter of possibly being consumed along the way. By God. Because of their stiff-necked-ness – their refusal at times to actually follow the way God was leading them. People with hard hearts and stiff necks sometimes don’t fare very well in the presence of the Divine.
Moses, for one, knew this well. Moses knew the power of God that can shake as well as shape all Earth. Knew the glory of God that can dissolve to nothingness anything and anyone who sees it. And knew the holiness of God that does not tolerate hard hearts and stiff necks forever. Moses knew the risk because he faced it and barely survived it every time he went up the mountain or into the holy tent of meeting to be in God’s presence to receive the word of God for the people.
So maybe it would be safer – less risky, to go on without God so close.
But then, what’s so bad – and isn’t really for the good, to be consumed by God in some way every now and then along the way? To have our world shaken up and reshaped from time to time in some better and more godly way than what has fallen into? To have some of our unhealthy and unhelpful priorities broken down, purified and redefined by some vision of what life is really all about? To have the unholy, unselfish and unloving parts of ourselves broken down and melted away by some holy encounter, to make room for the holiness, the openness and the love for others that really is our nature to shine, to be expressed in some way, and to become our real reason for living?
But again, on the other hand, maybe the people already had enough to go on, had already built up enough knowledge of God and life with God for this to happen without having to actually be open to God any more. Because this is, after all, chapter 33 of the Book of Exodus. They’re quite a ways in, and a lot has already happened.
Chapters 3-7, way back at the beginning, tell the start of the story of Moses born and bred between two worlds, who in the cracks and the tension between them becomes God’s liberating servant. Chapters 7 to 12 are the great public conflict with the pharaoh and all the signs the people see of God’s power unleashed upon those whose hearts are hardened. Surely a lot was learned there.
Then six chapters of journey through the wilderness with the pillars of fire by night and of cloud by day to guide the people, the crossing through the Red Sea to save them, the changing of bitter water to sweet, the provision of manna and quails, and water made to gush from a rock to sustain them, and all along the way protection from enemy tribes. That’s a lot of good experience, and a storehouse of stories and memories to feed their faith and keep them going.
Then in Chapter 19 they come to Mt Sinai where they receive the Ten Commandments and for thirteen more chapters, all kinds of rules and prescriptions about altars, holy tents, offerings and sacrifice, priestly vestments and Sabbath and festivals, as well as laws and commandments about slaves, violent acts, property ownership, debts and repayment, justice and fairness.
And isn’t that enough? Do you really need God when you have all of that – all the right rules and regulations, all the tried-and-true practices and traditions to guide you, to follow, and to fall back on? Things that worked in the past to help you get through, keep going, and stay alive?
I don’t know – there’s part of me that says surely that’s enough, and a whole lot easier than the presence of God. That happily and quickly says – or at least thinks, things like, “This is the way we’ve always done it. It’s what we know. And if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”
But then there’s also an other part of me – maybe a deeper part that says, “Really? Does that really satisfy? Does just doing what you’ve always done really give you what you need? Help you offer to others what they need? Give you any hope of getting beyond Sinai and on the way to the promised land? Or does it just keep you travelling and re-travelling the old route between Egypt and Sinai and back to Egypt again, over and over again? Without getting where God wants you to go, and where God is living and dying to lead you?
And it’s that part of me that says, “Thank goodness for Moses who knew the importance of God being present with the people, and the people being present and open to God for the journey to be accomplished. And thank goodness for people – for leaders among us today, who are still able to make that continued connection with God happen now especially as we find ourselves entering territory we haven’t encountered before, the landscape around us changing, and the old routines and rituals and ways of doing things no longer adequate in quite the same way.
How wonderful to have leaders who can honestly help answer our fears of being alone and without direction into the future, with the good news, “God’s back!”
And just a word about that. About God’s back. It would be nice, we sometimes think, to see God’s face. To see the whole of God’s outlook and purpose. To look God in the eye, and just know it all.
But it’s not gonna happen. At least not in this life. And not in this world.
What we’re offered is God’s back.
But when you think about it, isn’t that enough? And more than enough, isn’t it exactly what we need?
Because when you’re part of a group – part of a company following a leader who knows the way through a crowded time – a crowded marketplace of different ideas, values, visions and ways of life, with all kinds of other sights and sounds and voices all around us, and you get distracted for a bit and your gaze and your way start to wander, when you realize what’s happening and you want to get back on track, what do you do? What do you automatically and instinctively look for?
Or when maybe you’ve been following in one direction for so long that you’ve started just looking down at the ground ahead of you, just ploughing straight ahead assuming this will always be the way to go, and when you look up you realize with a shock that you don’t see your leader ahead of you. He’s not there anymore; somewhere he took a different direction. And when that happens, what do you look for with all your might?
Not your leader’s face. The leader is ahead of you somewhere, and his face is set straight ahead towards the future.
What you look for
is his back. And as soon as you see it –
as soon as you recognize your leader’s back, you relax. You know you’re not lost. You’ve just been distracted for a bit. And now you’re back on track again, following
the one who will lead you well into the future.
Blessed be those who are able to come to us, help us pause and not panic, point in a clear direction – up ahead, or over there, or there, and then say with all honesty and truth, “God’s back!”
Is there any better news than that, for people wanting to know the way ahead?
Blessed be those who are able to come to us, help us pause and not panic, point in a clear direction – up ahead, or over there, or there, and then say with all honesty and truth, “God’s back!”
Is there any better news than that, for people wanting to know the way ahead?
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