Exodus 32:1-14
Today we have the story of the golden calf and yes, we could get lost on a couple things in the story. About how just a few verses ago God gave the ten commandments in front of the whole assembly and they have forgotten them already. Or we could look at how awful it is that God is willing to destroy everyone and Moses bargains with God for their lives. But I've found myself returning again and again to how this all starts out. See the introduction to this is Moses has been gone for 40 days and they come to Aaron, not just coming to him, but the Hebrew says to overthrow him because they feel lost. See their connection to God is through Moses and in the last chapter where God gives the commandments the people tell Moses they never want a direct encounter with God again, so can you do it for us. In order for this to happen Moses has to go to the mountain for forty days.
30 days + 10 days and they think Moses is gone. You could say they have a wild imagination, he could have gotten eaten, he could have gone off and left us, he could have... Well, you get the picture. So they think their connection to God is gone because this was the way they got out of Egypt, this was the way they crossed the Red Sea, this was how they got water, this is how they were fed. They complained to Moses and then Moses prayed to God and then all is fixed. Without this they need a new intermediary and they know Aaron, Moses brother, isn't the answer.
Have you ever made a connection like that? Something happened which was magical when you were a kid and so you went back and tried to recreate it so it would happen again and it just doesn't work. You lost it, its gone, and you can't figure out but there has to be some step, some thing you left out and this is why it doesn't work. Or maybe its just a feeling you had at a certain place and you go back and everything has changed so you can't find the inner feeling you once had. Or have you ever felt lost, deserted and there is no way there is a connection with God, it just doesn't exist. Have you ever been totally lost? How do we really think God shows up? Do we think God only shows up in spectacular and magical ways or do we expect to encounter God ourselves?
C. S. Lewis displays this problem in the book Prince Caspian. Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy end up back in Narnia but hundreds of years have passed and nothing is the same. The people believe Aslan, the savior lion, is just a fairytale. He never really existed, he never was there before and the children start to doubt too as the story goes on and Aslan doesn't come and bail them out of trouble exactly when and how they think he should. He's not there, he doesn't know, and he has left them to struggle on their own. So they end up putting faith in only themselves and their own power and don't trust Lucy when she sees Aslan and understands he wants to talk with her alone.
We're not much different. We think God is some magic genie who will make everything alright and when hard times fall we don't understand why God hasn't saved us. So then it follows there mustn't be a God. Or we think if we pray a certain prayer or act a certain way, God will reward us for our rightness in doing this and when God doesn't we're disappointed and don't understand God. We're not so different from this bunch of Hebrews as we thought. This brings us to look at what is our picture of God? What do we see when we picture God? Do we allow ourselves time and space to have time with God or do we expect the church or worship is supposed to be our one encounter for the week?
See how much easier it is to change our focus on this story because these questions are a lot harder to wrestle with. These questions mean we can't make up excuses about how backward and how unlike these people we are nowadays. These questions mean we really have to look at how alike we are, that in over 2000 years we've learned very little about our relationship to and with God. Just look at our world right now wars indifferent countries, starvation, acts of violence, acts of nature, and where is God and how do some respond to where is God. Do we take the time to be found or do we just complain about where we are and fill ourselves with so much busyness we can't possibly begin to hear a thing, so lost is what we remain.
So maybe, just maybe we need to take time to listen. Here and now. To find where God is for us. To see if we can weed out all the noise and hear a still small voice. God is here if we choose to listen, if we choose to not build other mediums to find God, if we slow down and be still, be still and know God is near.
Today we have the story of the golden calf and yes, we could get lost on a couple things in the story. About how just a few verses ago God gave the ten commandments in front of the whole assembly and they have forgotten them already. Or we could look at how awful it is that God is willing to destroy everyone and Moses bargains with God for their lives. But I've found myself returning again and again to how this all starts out. See the introduction to this is Moses has been gone for 40 days and they come to Aaron, not just coming to him, but the Hebrew says to overthrow him because they feel lost. See their connection to God is through Moses and in the last chapter where God gives the commandments the people tell Moses they never want a direct encounter with God again, so can you do it for us. In order for this to happen Moses has to go to the mountain for forty days.
30 days + 10 days and they think Moses is gone. You could say they have a wild imagination, he could have gotten eaten, he could have gone off and left us, he could have... Well, you get the picture. So they think their connection to God is gone because this was the way they got out of Egypt, this was the way they crossed the Red Sea, this was how they got water, this is how they were fed. They complained to Moses and then Moses prayed to God and then all is fixed. Without this they need a new intermediary and they know Aaron, Moses brother, isn't the answer.
Have you ever made a connection like that? Something happened which was magical when you were a kid and so you went back and tried to recreate it so it would happen again and it just doesn't work. You lost it, its gone, and you can't figure out but there has to be some step, some thing you left out and this is why it doesn't work. Or maybe its just a feeling you had at a certain place and you go back and everything has changed so you can't find the inner feeling you once had. Or have you ever felt lost, deserted and there is no way there is a connection with God, it just doesn't exist. Have you ever been totally lost? How do we really think God shows up? Do we think God only shows up in spectacular and magical ways or do we expect to encounter God ourselves?
C. S. Lewis displays this problem in the book Prince Caspian. Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy end up back in Narnia but hundreds of years have passed and nothing is the same. The people believe Aslan, the savior lion, is just a fairytale. He never really existed, he never was there before and the children start to doubt too as the story goes on and Aslan doesn't come and bail them out of trouble exactly when and how they think he should. He's not there, he doesn't know, and he has left them to struggle on their own. So they end up putting faith in only themselves and their own power and don't trust Lucy when she sees Aslan and understands he wants to talk with her alone.
We're not much different. We think God is some magic genie who will make everything alright and when hard times fall we don't understand why God hasn't saved us. So then it follows there mustn't be a God. Or we think if we pray a certain prayer or act a certain way, God will reward us for our rightness in doing this and when God doesn't we're disappointed and don't understand God. We're not so different from this bunch of Hebrews as we thought. This brings us to look at what is our picture of God? What do we see when we picture God? Do we allow ourselves time and space to have time with God or do we expect the church or worship is supposed to be our one encounter for the week?
See how much easier it is to change our focus on this story because these questions are a lot harder to wrestle with. These questions mean we can't make up excuses about how backward and how unlike these people we are nowadays. These questions mean we really have to look at how alike we are, that in over 2000 years we've learned very little about our relationship to and with God. Just look at our world right now wars indifferent countries, starvation, acts of violence, acts of nature, and where is God and how do some respond to where is God. Do we take the time to be found or do we just complain about where we are and fill ourselves with so much busyness we can't possibly begin to hear a thing, so lost is what we remain.
So maybe, just maybe we need to take time to listen. Here and now. To find where God is for us. To see if we can weed out all the noise and hear a still small voice. God is here if we choose to listen, if we choose to not build other mediums to find God, if we slow down and be still, be still and know God is near.
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