Your People

Originally preached on October 9, 2011

Your People

Exodus 32:1-14

Psalm 106:1-6&9-23

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.

This morning’s scripture is the story of anxiety, broken covenant, anger, all of which reveal the pathos, the deep feelings of compassion, of God.

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron, and said to him, “Up, make us gods, 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.”

They have escaped Egypt, and now they are in the middle of the land of “now what?!?”  And Moses, the one who gathered them together and led them forth, the one that God talks to and who talks to God, he went up the mountain and he has been gone too long.

We do not know how long they waited for Moses.  Time passes differently when we are anxious.  However long they waited, when it got to be more than they could handle, they went to Aaron.  

No “good morning.”  No “Have you heard anything?”  They just command him, “Up!  Make us some gods we can follow!”  They want a god they can touch and see, like the peoples of Egypt and of Canaan.  So they make a statue, out of the gold they took with them out of Egypt, and they form a calf.  Now here is a god they can sacrifice offerings to and carry before them and know that this god is present.

There is little doubt in the Hebrew scriptures that this is a Bad Idea.  But anxious peoples like bad ideas, as long as they can be done quickly in an attempt to alleviate the anxiety.

Did any of you catch the PBS documentary on Prohibition?  It was very well done.  It is the story of anxiety and another Bad Idea.

It traces the roots of the Temperance movement to our Congregationalist forebears trying to deal with the real problems of a saloon culture, rampant alcoholism, and its side effects of domestic violence and poverty.  Estimates put the rate of alcohol consumption back then at three times the level of today.  It sparked non-violent civil disobedience.  Women would gather outside the saloon and kneel in prayer.

But soon enough, groups gathered in support of Prohibition out of their anxiety.  Quickly, rather than being about moderation, it became all or nothing.  For some, it was about being “Real Americans,” unlike the Irish, the German, the Italian immigrants coming to our shores.  For others it was about being “Real Christians,” unlike the Catholics and the Episcopalians and the Lutherans.   

For the labor movement, it was getting rid of the chains of alcohol, which they saw as a tool of management.  Even the Ku Klux Klan got involved, out of fear of African-Americans.  The political left and right both voted for this, not out of bipartisanship, but out of their many and various anxieties.  Everyone’s anxiety got hitched to the same wagon, as it were, and the first constitutional amendment limiting freedoms was passed.

Unintended consequences abounded.  Crime soared.  Alcohol became more popular and even easier to get.  Hypocrisy abounded.  People in charge of law enforcement and civil service discovered that a lot more money could be made through illegal alcohol than could ever be made legitimately.

Out of their anxiety, the people voted in a law that did not alleviate their anxiety.  It did not settle issues of racism, or labor versus management, or a culture of abuse that had led people to vote it in.  Nor did it do anything about the sources of anxiety that led people to drink in the first place.

Out of their anxiety, the people of Israel forgot who brought them out of Egypt.  “Up!  Make us gods to follow!” they said to Aaron.

Aaron makes the calf of gold, and declares that tomorrow will be a feast day.  And the people party.

             

Meanwhile, up on the mountain, we discover the pathos of God.  

And the LORD said to Moses, "Go down; for your people, whom you brought up out  of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves;”

Who speaks like this?  “Do you know what YOUR child did today?!??!”  This is a parent.  Suddenly these are not God’s people.  These are Moses’ people.  “YOUR people, whom YOU brought up out of the land of Egypt."

And in this moment, there is this anger of God towards the people who have rejected God.  “And after all I have done for them….” we might imagine God saying.

Moses stands as the mediator.  Moses reminds God of the love God has.  Moses does not appeal to God on the basis of the people, for they are indeed a stiff-necked  and forgetful people.  Moses does not appeal to God on the basis of Moses’ own worth.  He prays, “Remember your covenant.  Remember your promises.  Remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to whom you swore by your own self.”

And God remembers the covenant.  In this we find this most paradoxical (perhaps scandalous) line:  “And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people.”

Out of our anxiety, we often make bad decisions.  Out of our anxiety, we often put our faith in something other than God.  Out of our anxiety, we look for the quick fix, the magic bullet, the instant gratification, the illusion of control.

But God remembers the covenant.  God who, like a parent, gets angry at our stiff-necked nature, and our forgetfulness.

And when we pray for God to remember God’s promises, we are reminded as well.  When, like Moses, we call God to fulfill God’s promises, we have turned away from the calf of gold (or whatever it is we have been putting our faith in) and once again put it where it belongs.

For God is faithful.  And we are God’s people.  And God has brought us out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.  Let us remember, and say,

“Thanks be to God."
Amen.