| Lost
Memories and Miracles |
| When the people saw that Moses
delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered
around Aaron, and said to him, "Come, make gods
for us, 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." Aaron said to
them, "Take off the gold rings that are on the ears
of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring
them to me." So all the people took off the gold
rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. He
took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast
an image of a calf; and they said, "These are your
gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of
Egypt!" When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before
it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, "Tomorrow
shall be a festival to the Lord." They rose early
the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought
sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to
eat and drink, and rose up to revel. The Lord said to
Moses, "Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought
up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they
have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded
them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf,
and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, "These
are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the
land of Egypt!' " The Lord said to Moses, "I
have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now
let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them
and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great
nation." But Moses implored the Lord his God, and
said, "O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against
your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt
with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the
Egyptians say, "It was with evil intent that he
brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to
consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from your
fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster
on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,
your servants, how you swore to them by your own self,
saying to them, "I will multiply your descendants
like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have
promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall
inherit it forever.' " And the Lord changed his
mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his
people. |
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| Exodus 32:1-14 |
| At this point in Israel’s communal life, Moses and
God delayed too long! Communal memory had already forgotten
God’s promises, miracles and abundant love. “When
the people saw that Moses delayed to come down form the mountain,
the people gathered….” They didn’t
gather to rehearse the story of God with them. They didn’t
gather to seek out and question God’s whereabouts. As
the story unfolds, it is hard to understand why the people
didn’t simply gather and yell, “Come down the
mountain Moses! God where are you? Aaron, where’d
Moses go again? When’s he coming back?” They
had stopped questioning and seeking, yearning and remembering. They
had moved on with a faith more secure in present reality than
God. |
| If Moses is not around then God must be gone too! God’s
people are living in the moment. They chose gods they
could see before them instead of living in wonder and questioning
the power and mystery of God. Faith is easier when we
can see the object of our belief. It doesn’t take
much faith to idolize what we create for ourselves. Actually
believing in God, who we often cannot perceive as with us,
is what faith is all about though. Israel’s
plight in our text is about remembering what God has done for
them and clinging to that hope. |
| Israel had just been given the covenant. This is Moses’ first
time away since the giving of the Ten Commandments. The
people are called upon to trust that God is with them even
though Moses their mediator was not. Who wouldn’t
prefer a god to have with them all the time, a god to cart
around with you over a God who takes off for 40 days? What
happened 40 days ago, that Ten Commandments thing, seemed so
far away after 40 days. It was a memory lost to this
drifting, wandering, desert community. |
| 40 days ago here school had just started. 40 days ago
we were barely getting the news of how much devastation Katrina
had caused! Imagine, 40 days without a word to or for
the people as they waited for their next move. The thing
that always catches me about this story is that God never called
them to blind obedience. Why were they just waiting? God’s
call was to a relationship. The true God of the exodus
is a lively subject and not an object to manipulate. (1) |
| God is angry at the people. The first two of the Ten
Commandments have been broken. No other gods, broken. No
idols, broken. God tells Moses “your people, whom
you brought out of the land of Egypt”…are stiff-necked! The
community that was supposed to be in partnership with the one
God wanted idols to worship. Gods that could be managed
and moved around as needed. But God cannot be carted
around! God’s ways are so different from our own
survivalist mentalities. |
| Amazingly, to an angry God and a stiff-necked people came
Moses. A mediator, a reminder. Turn, change, and
remember. These are the words Moses called God to and
later called Israel to as well. They are words we would
do well to hear today. Turn, change, and remember. Moses
clung to God’s actions in the past and challenged God
with what he remembered of God’s word. And God
accepted Moses’ challenge. Moses stepped between
God’s righteous anger and an unrighteous people and God,
changes God’s mind. One scholar explains God’s “change” this
way, God’s “justice is tempered with mercy…only
the patience and mercy of God sustained the relationship, and
only the patience and mercy of God permitted the people to
move from doubt to faith.” (2) Moses often sparked Israel’s
memory. In our text he sparks God’s memory. |
| We need daring intercession today, calling us back to be
a people of hope in God. We need reminders of God’s
promises to strengthen our faith. Otherwise we create
our own security systems by creating false idols we worship
as our hope and security when we face the unknown. For
we also lose our way and our memories, both individual and
communal. |
| The loss of individual memory is devastating for individuals,
their friends, and family. We have all been saddened
by the tragedy of memory loss in a loved one. The person
we knew leaves us, yet is with us. Connections become
harder to make, and when they are made, they are reason for
rejoicing over common recognition and shared love. When
an individual loses their memory, our hope becomes a future
time when there will be comfort instead of pain. Our
memories of the past with our loved one bless our journey toward
hope again. We work to keep those memories alive in us. They
sustain. |
| Although it is harder to see the loss of communal memory
is no less tragic. When we forget or deny our shared
past, we are usually heading toward a road of grief. Historians
say we’ll repeat mistakes we should have learned from. But
we go ahead and build false idols in a sense of arrogance trying
to assure ourselves our human condition has changed. Communities
often forget the past because we prefer to stop talking about
what we perceive as shameful stories. Israel learned
through faith to be resilient in remembering and claiming their
communal sins. As their partnership with God grew their
trust of God overwhelmed their shame. In Psalm 106, which
we used as our Confession this morning, the Psalmist goes on
to claim the idolatry and sin of the golden calf incident as
his own. |
| Just as Israel did, we confess our sin with an understanding
of God’s mercy. We believe God forgives. Therefore,
we should not be afraid to claim memories we would rather forget
along with God’s promises. Claiming them shows
that we expect God to work miracles of healing, hope, new life,
forgiveness and maybe even reconciliation. To a stiff-necked
people came God Incarnate and the Spirit with us to guide us. None
of us deserves forgiveness, yet God forgives because God has
chosen to be in relationship with us! |
| Turn, change and remember. The Bible tells us, God
is dynamic; a living force to be reconciled with and forgiven
by. Today during William Brian’s baptism we will
have an opportunity to be reminded of God’s grace towards
us through Jesus Christ. We’ll acknowledge our
past and present lives as we celebrate the miracle of God breaking
into the world that we might live a new life. Look, listen,
participate, and be encouraged that God is doing the same old
thing and also a brand new thing today, and God promises to
do so always. |
| Amen |
| Beth E. Godfrey - October 9, 2005 |
| Central Presbyterian Church, Geneseo, New
York |
| (1) Walter Brueggemann, “The Book of Exodus” in The
New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes,
(Abingdon Press: Nashville, 1994) 931. |
| (2) Walter Bureggemann, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa
and James D. Newsome, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary
Commentary Based on the NRSV – Year A, (Westminster
John Knox Press: Louisville, 1995) 517. |
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