|
“A GRAVEN IMAGE AND A GRAVE SITUATION”
EXODUS 32:1-14
32:1 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."
2 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."
3 So all the people took off the gold
rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron.
4 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!"
5 When Aaron saw this, he built an
altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, "Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD."
6 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.
7 The LORD said to Moses, "Go down
at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of
Egypt, have acted perversely;
8 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!'"
9 The LORD said to Moses, "I have
seen this people, how stiff-necked they are.
10 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."
11 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?
12 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.
13 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.'"
14 And the LORD changed his mind about
the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
Patience
is a virtue. That’s what they say and there are lots of situations where it’s true. You need a lot of patience when you’re dealing with a really difficult problem. You also need a lot
of patience when you’re dealing with really difficult people. A little boy didn’t seem to understand that which
is why he asked his mother a revealing question one day. At the time the mother was driving along a very busy highway. “Mommy,”
he said. “How come the idiots only come out when daddy’s driving?”
It isn’t
always easy to be patient. That was certainly true for the Israelites. Their problem started when Moses delayed to come down
from the mountain. They began to wonder and worry. There they were in the middle
of that fearsome and foreboding wilderness. They were like sheep without a shepherd.
In the past, every time something went wrong Moses had been there with God to get them out of the dilemma they were
facing. When the chariots of Egypt
were bearing down on them God worked through Moses to part the waters of the Red Sea. When
the people were starving Moses cried out to God on their behalf and God gave them the manna in the wilderness. When the people
were dying of thirst God told Moses to strike the rock at Mirabeh and it brought forth a river of water.
Now
the people didn’t know what to think. Moses had been up on that mountain
a long time. What if he was dead? What if the God who brought them out of Egypt had abandoned them?
If only
they’d waited a little longer, but no. They decided instead to make that
golden calf. They gave up on Moses. They gave up on God and in a way they also gave up on themselves.
There’s
a lesson here and it’s a very simple lesson. More often than not bad things happen when you loose your patience. The
Israelites became impatient because they were afraid. Now I will be the first to admit that fear isn’t always bad. In
fact, there are times when you should be afraid. There are times when you should feel the same way a man who applied for a
job with the circus. After the man told the ringmaster that he was a lion tamer
the ringmaster asked him if he had any experience. “Oh yes,” the
man said enthusiastically. “My father was a famous lion tamer. He taught me everything I know.” “Really,” the ringmaster said. “Did he teach you how to make a lion jump through a burning
hoop?” “Yes he did,” the man replied. “Did he teach you how to get six lions to form a pyramid?” “He sure did,” the man
replied. “That’s great,” the ringmaster said. “Did you ever stick your head in a lion’s mouth?”
At that point the man bowed his head solemnly and replied, “Just once.” The ringmaster was a little disappointed. “Why only once?” he asked. “Well, to tell you the truth,”
the man replied, “I was looking for my father.”
Sometimes
fear is good. It’s bad when it makes you so impatient that you do something
that you later regret. Sometimes you get impatient because fear gets the best
of you. Sometimes you get impatient because anger gets the best of you. You decide that you’re not going to take any guff from this person or that person.
Sometimes you get impatient because your ego gets the best of you. You decide
that you know what’s best and everyone would be a lot better off if they just listened to you.
That’s
the attitude that got an anthropologist into trouble years ago when she went on an expedition to Africa. One day she decided to take a few pictures of some native children playing in a village.
She didn’t get very far though, before the children started yelling and pointing at her. When the village chief came
over to see what was wrong the anthropologist realized her mistake. In her enthusiasm she had forgotten that some tribes believe
that when you take someone’s picture you in effect rob that person of his or her soul.
So, she apologized. She then did her best to put the chief at ease by showing him how the camera worked. Each time
the chief started to speak the anthropologist just gave him a little more information about the camera. Finally, when her
long and laborious explanation came to an end the chief smiled. “You should listen to the children,” he said. “They were trying to tell you that you that you forgot to take the lens cap
off your camera.”
More often than not bad things happen when you loose your
patience. It doesn’t matter if it’s because you’re afraid or angry or full of pride. The end result is often a decision that you’re going to regret later on. Moses seemed to understand
that. You see the Israelites weren’t the only ones who were impatient that
day.
God
also became very impatient. When the Israelites made that golden calf God flew into a divine rage. Go back to the top of that mountain and you’ll see that God says 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.” That’s when Moses springs into
action. Moses urges God not to do anything rash.
He appeals to God’s pride and suggests if the Israelites are wiped out it will make God look bad. Moses suggests
that when the Egyptians hear about it they’ll snicker and sneer. Then Moses
appeals to God’s heart. He talks about the promise that God made long ago
to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the promise to make of them a great nation. In doing that, Moses reminds God that in spite of
everything that’s going on he really does love the Israelites. That’s
when God thinks it over and decides to give the Israelites another chance.
I’d also like to believe that in that moment, God
was also very pleased with Moses. You see, in the heat of that moment Moses showed
God that he really was a good and gifted leader. Moses knew that bad decisions
come from an impatient heart that’s full of anger, fear or pride. Good
decisions come from a patient heart that’s full of love. Maybe that’s
why the Apostle Paul put patience at the top of the list when he talked about love in his letter to the Corinthians. You’ve all heard the words many times I’m sure. “Love is patient and kind. It is not jealous or boastful. It is not arrogant or rude. Love does
not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.”
Paul then ends his definition of love by going back to the theme of patience. “Love bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…” (I Corinthians
13:4-5)
An impatient
heart that’s full of anger, fear or pride almost always leads to bad decisions.
A patient heart that’s full of love almost always leads to good decisions.
That’s what a busload of tourists saw one day while seeing some of the sites in Rome. At one point the bus dropped them off
at a basilica. This basilica happened to be in the middle of a piazza that was
surrounded by several lanes of relentless traffic. Now I’ve never been
to Rome but from what I’ve been told the drivers over there are even crazier than the
drivers you find in and around Boston. Anyway, when the time came for the tourists to get back on the bus they realized they had a problem. The bus was parked on the other side of the street. How were they going to dodge all
those cars speeding here, there and everywhere around the basilica? After standing there for several minutes a few of the
tourists began to get impatient. Finally, their anger and indignation got the
best of them. They decided that they weren’t going to wait any longer. Step off the curb, they thought to themselves and the drivers will have to stop. They didn’t get very far though before the tour guide started screaming at them. “Wait! Don’t do that,”
he shouted. “You cross one by one; they hit you one by one! But if you cross together, they think you will hurt the car!”
A patient
heart that’s full of love almost always leads to good decisions. That’s
why a patient heart that’s full of love really is a virtue. Amen.
Rev.
Dr. Richard A. Hughes
October
9, 2005
|
