Welcome to the fifth week in our summer message series, “Moses: Lifelong Journey of Faith,” here at Resurrection Parish. Even though Moses, one of the most important people in the Old Testament, lived nearly 3500 years ago, through this series we are learning that he has a lot to teach us for our journey of Faith.
In the first week, we learned that gratitude is the foundation of greatness. In the second week, we learned that we can be freed from the “limiting beliefs” we have about ourselves and our circumstances by listening to the “liberating truths” that God reveals to us, so that we can become the person that God has created us to be. In the third week, from the drama and excitement of the ten plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea, we learned that God rewards those who move forward, and trust that He will act. Last week we learned an important leadership lesson, taught to Moses by his father-in-law, Jethro, that effective leaders are delegators, and not merely doers.
From the excitement and drama of the plagues and crossing of the Red Sea two weeks ago, and the leadership lesson from the more mundane traveling of the Israelites last week, this week we turn to the lowest point of the whole Exodus. After about two months of traveling, the Israelites finally make it to Mount Sinai.
It was there at Mount Sinai that God told Moses more of his vision for the Israelites, for them to be a kingdom of priests through which the whole world would be blessed. The whole world did not know God, so God wanted to have a special relationship with Israel and bless them so that in seeing their material and temporal blessings, other nations would be drawn to them. The Israelites were to represent God to the world and mediate God’s purpose and God’s grace to the world.
It was in this context that God, through Moses, gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments. The people agreed to follow God’s commandments and so a ceremony was put together to ratify this covenant, this agreement. Exodus 24 tells us about this agreement: “Moses then wrote down all the words of the LORD and, rising early in the morning, he built at the foot of the mountain an altar and twelve sacred stones for the twelve tribes of Israel. Then, having sent young men of the Israelites to offer burnt offerings and sacrifice young bulls as communion offerings to the LORD, Moses took half of the blood and put it in large bowls; the other half he splashed on the altar. Taking the book of the covenant, he read it aloud to the people, who answered, ‘All that the LORD has said, we will hear and do.’ Then he took the blood and splashed it on the people, saying, ‘This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you according to all these words.’” (Ex 24:4–8).
Now that sounds nasty and gross to us, but for that culture this was a way of creating a family bond between two parties. Israel was claiming God as their father. And so God was committing himself completely to Israel and Israel to God. The blood symbolized this close family union. It was also a way of saying, may my blood be shed just like the ox, if I break the covenant. It was a serious commitment and it was done in this way so that the Israelites could understand the seriousness of their commitment.
Immediately after this, Moses went up Mount Sinai to meet with God about how to build the Tent of Meeting.
Then we are told, “When the people saw that Moses was delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said to him, ‘Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for that man Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him’” (Ex 32:1).
Aaron should have reminded them about the covenant and that it was really God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, but instead he said, “‘Take off the golden earrings that your wives, your sons, and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.’ So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He received their offering, and fashioning it with a tool, made a molten calf. Then they cried out, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt’” (Ex 32:2–4).
The golden calf represented a god in Egypt named Appis, who promised money, sex and power. While we don’t bow down in worship to these three things, we certainly sacrifice a great deal for them. Like the Israelites, we often take the very gifts of God or what we have by God’s grace and use them to pursue money, sex or power. With Appis, as with many gods, you worshipped the gods through sex and temple prostitutes. There are still many temples to other gods today – in the red light districts of the big cities and all over the internet. Our culture has a lot more in common with the people described in the Bible than we think.
The Israelites basically start having a huge party, sacrificing to the Golden Calf. In the meanwhile, Mose is up on Mount Sinai with God, who says to Moses, “Go down at once because your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned aside from the way I commanded them, making for themselves a molten calf and bowing down to it, sacrificing to it and crying out, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’” (Ex 32:7–8).
After all that the Lord has already done for the Israelites – freeing them from slavery, leading them through the desert, feeding them with Bread from Heaven, and providing them water from a rock – they still do not have faith in God. They are stiff-necked, so the Lord says that He is going to wipe them out, and make of Moses a great nation.
Now for some of you, this feeds into the idea of the angry, wrathful God of the Old Testament. And personally, I agree with you. The anger and wrath of God are in the Old Testament and I think to ignore it is to really irresponsible. But if you were God wouldn’t you be ticked. And I don’t believe this is anthropomorphism.
But there is something else going on here as well. God is testing Moses to see how he would respond.
How does Moses respond? He shows the type of leader he is. Moses reminds God that if the Israelites are blotted out the Egyptians will misunderstand his character and intentions. He also reminds him of the promise he swore to Abraham, Isaac and Israel that he would make of their descendants a great nation. The Lord decides not to wipe out the Israelites.
Moses comes down the mountain and he is ticked. He takes the stone tablets on which were written the ten commandments and he smashes them as a sign of what the Israelites had done with their covenant with God. Then he takes the golden calf and burns it in fire, reducing it to powder, mixes the powder in water and makes them drink the water.
He then speaks to Aaron and says what were you thinking? Why did you let them do such a thing? Aaron blames the people. Now that’s poor leadership. Whenever you blame the people under you, you have abdicated leadership.
“Moses stood at the gate of the camp and shouted, ‘Whoever is for the LORD, come to me!’ All the Levites then rallied to him” (Ex 32:26).
“So Moses returned to the LORD and said, ‘Ah, this people has committed a grave sin in making a god of gold for themselves! Now if you would only forgive their sin! But if you will not, then blot me out of the book that you have written’” (Ex 32:31–32).
The Golden Calf had disastrous consequences for the people of Israel. While God’s intention had been that the whole nation would be a kingdom of priests, now only the Levites are priests. And God has to put in place a whole different plan to make up for Israel’s apostasy and idol worship.
Moses shows his leadership and his character profoundly in this episode with the Golden Calf. He has become so dedicated to the people he leads and embraces such an extreme ownership for their well being that he is willing to sacrifice himself for them.
This story is a reminder for us of two things: One, we need to follow his lead to take extreme ownership for the people we lead and who look up to us. God is looking for people who will be like Moses, who are willing to sacrifice themselves for others.
Second, this story is a reminder of what Jesus did for us. While God the Father told Moses he would not have to lose his life for the people, it was a different story for his own Son. Jesus took the consequences of his sin upon himself.
Our homework for this week: identify who is it that you lead, even if it is just yourself. How are you taking extreme ownership with who you lead, and are you willing to sacrifice for them?