Have you ever built a house? I mean have you ever
been a contractor, or carpenter? Or have you ever been the homeowner who
designed a home with a contractor and had a house built? Either way, it’s a big
undertaking. I have never done it, but I know it’s a risky business. When you
build a house from the ground up lots of things can go wrong.
Let me show you some examples of ones that did not
turn out so well.
House #1
All I know about this one is that it was poorly
constructed. ‘Ya think?
House #2
Likewise I found this one on the website of the
Affordable Housing Institute. The caption said: “We think this house may have
been ‘poorly built.’” No kidding
HOUSE #3
Rihanna
paid $6.9 million on a 10 bedroom mansion. She said she needs a whole lot of
umbrellas. She is taking a $2.6 million loss on the home. She
claims the home is so poorly built that it leaks water and is virtually
uninhabitable.
Where
did these builders go wrong?
•
They
cut corners.
•
Worked
too fast.
•
Used
inferior materials.
•
Did
not ask for help.
These
things happen all the time in all sorts of situations when we rely on ourselves
to do things that we are not qualified to do. Am I right?
We
are winding down our Old Testament Series on the matriarchs and patriarchs of
Israel, our mothers and fathers in the Christian faith: Abraham and Sarah,
Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah and Rachel, Joseph, and now Moses and his
wife Zipporah and his brother Aaron. Over and over again in the months as we
have made the journey through the book of Genesis and Exodus, we have seen
God’s deep love for God’s people. We have heard God’s promise of descendants
and land. All God asks is for love from the people. We looked at the Ten
Commandments last week, but remember, they can all really be summed up in love
and compassion for God, for ourselves, and for our neighbors. Love God, love
your neighbor and love yourself.
In
today’s scripture, their leader Moses has gone up onto the mountain for a while
to be with God. And do you know what happens? In just an instant THEY FORGET
EVERYTHING! They forget what it means to
be God’s people, to love God and to put their trust in God. They completely
forget the first two commandments: I am the only God, don’t have any other
Gods; and the second: don’t worship idols.
They
forget that they are completely dependent on God. Moses is gone, and they get
anxious and scared, like little children who get separated from their parents
at the amusement park. They forget everything Moses has done for them. Out of
sight, out of mind. So, like the builder who builds houses that fall down, they
cut corners. They think “We don’t need the one true God. Any old god will do.”
They ask Aaron to make them some gods.
I
don’t know what Aaron is thinking. He is the #2 man in this project, second to
Moses. He should know better. Perhaps the power goes to his head. He takes
their gold, melts it and molds it into a golden calf and builds and altar in
front of it. He tells them to get ready with their sacrifices the next day. They
are going to have a party, and party they do.
These
people, stray so far, so fast. They think they can make a god out of some gold
jewelry. They think they can replace the creator of heaven and earth with a
golden idol. Just like builders who build an unstable house with inferior materials,
the people of Israel think they can replace God with something they mold out of
their earrings.
Their
biggest failure was this, when they got anxious and scared, they turned to
themselves, rather than turning to God. They tried to come up with their own
solutions using their own resources. They got into a big hurry. Why were they
in such a big hurry? They knew that Moses has gone up on the mountain once
already and returned with the Ten Commandments. Moses has gone back up again to
pray and listen to God on their behalf. Now what I want to know is this: why
couldn’t they just remain in the camp, have some Sabbath rest, and wait for
Moses to return?
Their
fear and anxiety got the best of them. They wanted control. They wanted to get
moving to the Promised Land that God had been telling them about all this time.
And so they rushed, like a builder who rushes a job and creates a mess that is
uninhabitable.
As
the story goes, when God finds out what they have done, that they have so
quickly broken the first two commandments and built an altar to an idol, God
gets angry. The story tells us that Moses has to remind God of God’s love for
the people, because God wants to destroy them.
Now,
we have to remember that this story was written a really long time ago by a
people that were quite primitive. The only way they had to think about God was
in human terms, as if God were a super-man. We like to think we have evolved a
bit in our thinking and we don’t have such an oversimplified understanding of
God. It’s hard to believe that Moses actually had to convince God not to be
angry at the people. I think it’s more likely that Moses was angry at the
people, and he believed God to be angry. But as Moses prayed, he came to
understand that God is a God of grace. So even though God would have been
deeply disappointed in the people of Israel, God’s way is the way of grace and
mercy. And so, God did not punish the people. God loved them because it is
God’s nature to love.
So
this story invites us to ask ourselves: when are we like the people of Israel?
When do we get impatient with God? When do we get anxious and think God has
left us? And what are the ways that we start creating our own gods as
replacements? We often talk about material goods in American society as “the
golden calf” because we worship our stuff more than we worship God. It’s true.
But
I think if we dig even deeper into this story, the golden calf can be any
situation when we fail to put our trust in God. We all have times when life
gets hard. We are anxious and afraid. And we turn to anything and anyone except
God to help us. We eat too much, get drunk or do drugs, gamble, drive fast
cars, have sex with multiple partners, do extreme sports that abuse our bodies
or sit in front of the TV for hours upon hours. We do anything we can to numb
our bodies and minds.
But
what if we did this? What if we stopped running around, cutting corners, using
inferior substitutes for God. What if we simply asked God for help?
What
if we would slow down, and sit with God for 15 minutes a day. Just breathe in
peace and breathe out chaos. And say to God, “This situation, this thing, has
the best of me. I can’t cope with this alone. I need you.”
That
is what God asks us to do: to trust our most difficult feelings and situations
to God, to slow down, to rest in God.
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