A Bowl of Pottage, a Golden Cow, and Thirty Pieces of Silver...

 

A Bowl of Pottage, A Golden Cow, and Thirty Pieces of Silver

 

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."

32:2 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."

32:3 So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron.

32:4 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!"

32:5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, "Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD."

32:6 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.

32:7 The LORD said to Moses, "Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely;

32:8 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!'"

32:9 The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are.

32:10 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."

32:11 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?

32:12 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.

32:13 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.'"

 

 

I admit, in my retirement, I am enjoying catching up on “old” TV shows I either remember from my childhood, or missed out on during all of those church meetings and Bible Studies. (I never sprang for a DVR from my cable TV suppliers, and my last VCR died out a decade or so ago.) Thankfully, reruns in syndication are a saving grace, as are streaming channels. As I write this week’s message, I’ve been doing a once-a-week “binge watch” of the older episodes of “Law and Order.” I don’t know what all the actor, Jerry Orbach, starred in, but he knocked it out of the park in “The Fantasticks” and as “Lenny” in “Law and Order.” OK, out of that rabbit hole…”Law and Order” has an entertaining way of reminding us just how diabolical human beings can be when we want something so bad, but it just way beyond our grasp. It also reminds us how extreme anger in the face of circumstances way beyond our control may kindle into a capital crime, even quicker than some of the best of us admit. Sometimes bad things happen to good people because other good people MAKE them happen. And from time to time, a decent hand that is dealt to us just doesn’t pay off quick enough, so we are compelled to cheat, or to take advantage of someone whose misfortune makes them vulnerable. “Law and Order” uncovers some of the worst in what started out as “good” people. This is what made this a hit program for over THREE decades. Bad guys doing bad things is not much of a story. Sounds like the Bible.

 

What causes good people to make poor choices, or in short, just do bad things? The “Three S’s” might be the culprit: selfishness; stupidity; and serendipity. Selfishness is a no-brainer (literally?). Many have suggested that it is the true “original sin” over which the human race has never recovered. To live the way Jesus taught—loving neighbor as much as ourselves, do unto others as we would have them do unto us, turn the other cheek, forgive seventy times seven, etc.—requires deliberate deviation from the “natural” urge to do what is best for us. Stupidity? We all suffer with this little chestnut, from time to time. But it becomes “acute” when it leads us to ignore community or personal standards to default too easily to the FIRST “S.” Stupidity may also be the universe of our best excuses for doing “dumb” (wrong) things. Watching “Law and Order,” I’m amazed how many times crime suspects claim some form of ignorance, if not of the law, of society’s mores, to explain their actions. 

 

I’m sure you are not surprised to hear of the first two “S’s,” but what of serendipity? Sometimes, “opportunity” just knocks with a less than valiant invitation, and we’re too curious, not to open the door. There are major breaches of law in our history that were “launched” by a serendipitous circumstance, be it an act of treason by a member of the intelligence community who is exposed to a juicy national secret and sells it to the enemy, or a President who takes advantage of a flirtatious, young intern who just “happens” into his service. The temptation—to a major crime, a crime of passion, or even just a “little white lie” to get ourselves off the hook—is often just too great, especially when it just “falls into our lap.” Some may attribute this sleazy, serendipitous temptation to the devil, and it would be folly to throw that idea aside, as clearly, the devil used such circumstantial temptations on Jesus, himself. But, of course, we are not Jesus, and regardless of what you believe, theologically, about the devil, at the very least, the Bible does not give him the godly attributes of omnipresence, or even omniscience. No, sometimes opportunities to do selfish, stupid, even sinful stuff just presents itself, and with the added temptation of not being easy to “trace.” Of course, God DOES have the attributes of being omnipresent and omniscience, so we should remember that God DOES know. Unfortunately, that rarely seems to be enough to combat the selfishness/stupidity/serendipity cycle, even for serious believers. I’m sure this is one of the reasons the Wesleyan “class meetings” (and Alcoholics Anonymous in our time) turned out to be so successful—they offer personal accountability “with skin on,” as they say.

 

The Bible is full of stories of the scourge of the “Three S’s.” We could start with Adam and Eve, but that’s just a too low hanging fruit. Think of the Jacob and Esau story, where Esau comes home famished and Jacob, with a little prompting from Mom, offers him some sumptuous porridge in exchange for his birthright. All “Three S’s” were at work, here. Jacob was quite selfish, Esau had the stupidity to match, and serendipity brought them together at a point of exchange. Both of them certainly knew better. 

 

Or what of Judas Iscariot? We really don’t know his story, other than the fact that he betrayed Jesus, was paid for it, and later regretted doing so, to the point of his own death. If one argues, as many do, that Judas “believed” Jesus to be the Jewish Messiah, his betrayal may have been an attempt to force Jesus’ hand to “stand up” before the authorities to defend himself, and launch his victorious, justice-aimed messiahship. Then, disillusioned by Jesus’ conviction and death, he returned the money and died by suicide. There IS the possibility that the “devil made him do it,” as the Bible says. But what if Judas is just another example of the cause and effect of the “Three S’s”? As the treasurer of the disciples, Judas may have had his hand in the till, or at least had become preoccupied with money, as so many have, down through the ages. He was offered a sizeable bribe to turn in Jesus, and the “Three S’s” put him into a position to give in. He could have been so blinded by the money that he just didn’t figure how awful the outcome might be, or just too stupid to see it coming. When confronted with the horror and reality of Jesus’ crucifixion and the scattering and grieving it elicited among his fellow disciples, he took the easy way out. No matter how you look at it, Judas is a tragic figure, but one who may have made better choices, had he not succumbed to the synergistic lure of selfishness, stupidity, and serendipity.

 

The ”big story” of this weekend, though, is the Exodus passage, one we’re quite familiar with, aren’t we? While Moses is up on the mountain “negotiating” with God, Israel gets impatient. There’s news. Even modern Israel is heinously impatient: they want what they want when they want it. They were given land and granted nation status by the United Nations in 1948. In the affairs of nations, this is a very recent development. Over the years since, they have annexed lands from the Palestinian people (which includes Christians, not just Moslems), and squeezed them into slivers of land now “islanded” by Jewish forces, cut off from clean water, important roads, and other essential infrastructure. Why? Because Israel wants what they want when they want it. The political forces that govern Israel say it is “for security” that they have walled off and confined the Palestinian people, but it’s mostly a land and resources grab. Yes, among some of the Palestinian factions (and there are many) are terrorists who hate Jews and Israel, and their “fall” to the “Three S’s” in this most recent and horrific attack will surely lead to ALL Palestinians in that region being all but obliterated by the superior, West-fueled military of Israel. I point this out about Israel’s impatience, however, to demonstrate the “jump the gun” DNA that has followed God’s people Israel from the very beginning. In this weekend’s text, their impatience leads to yet another huge breach of their supposed faith in the Almighty. Moses has been gone for a while, so they decided to make their OWN God out of their gold. Their selfishness led to the “we want what we want when we want it” cycle; their stupidity led them to believe a golden cow could substitute for a legitimate deity; and the serendipity of Moses’ absence from them provided opportunity.

 

You could argue that it was either selfishness, stupidity, or a nice blend of both that led them to believe God wouldn’t notice their little “Cow God” experiment, but, of course, God did, and was not happy about it. REALLY not happy. The interesting thing about the account we have here in Exodus is that it suggests that this even leads GOD to fall prey to the “Three S’s!” If God can be “selfish” (the Bible often uses the term “jealous”), God is, in this instance, not wanting to share the weekly worship guide with a gilded bovine. This selfishness leads God (again, according to the account we have) to want to obliterate the people God has worked so hard to free from slavery and protect. Sounds like a STUPID idea to me! And the serendipity enters the picture because God can SEE the sin of Israel and HAS the power to wipe them out in the wink of an eye. A good God is about to do a bad thing, because God can. 

 

One could engage in an interesting biblical and theological argument here about whether the “inspired” Word IS telling us that God can fall prey to the same ill-advised series of temptations as human beings do, or whether what we have here is an anthropomorphized “tale” related to us by whomever wrote the text, just to get buy-in from the less-than-theologically-sophisticated audience. Either way, it should make you question what—if any—“biblical authority” is at play here? Personally, I’ve always believed and relished in the idea that what is “different” about the Judeo-Christian view of deity is that God’s willingness to get “down and dirty” amongst God’s creation. I’m NOT comfortable, however, with the concept that God is just as vulnerable as we are to more base motivations and resulting acts. Dare I say, “sins”? If you figure this out, get back to me. 

 

In today’s account, Moses becomes the voice of reason. He argues his case that God would be doing a foolish thing by killing off Israel and starting over, citing all that God has “gone through” to get them this far. Moses, of course, is “nice” about it, but he, too must have been seething about what Israel so quickly turned to while he was briefly absent, AND about the fact that Aaron was a party to it. NOW he must also be seething about God’s “plan” to remedy it by genocide and a wave of the wand to make a new people. Moses could have really lost his mind, here, but he forms a cogent argument and wins his case. God “changes God’s mind,” and Israel is spared. 

 

If you want to have another good theological discussion, wrap your head around the concept that God can “change God’s mind.” If you believe the heretical hymn in our hymnal, “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise,” this could never happen. It certainly would be unsettling to folk who believe God “has everything under control,” or who hold to the idea that God has some kind of eternal “master plan” for the earth and humanity, one “preexisting before the world began.” If God can simply change God’s mind, all that theology could go up in smoke…literally!

 

But Holy Moses, we should be thankful that Moses was a good lawyer, on our behalf. It should not surprise us that when Jesus chose to have a celestial “meeting” on the mountain with someone from the Bible’s past, Moses was one of the invites! As the proverbial “teenager” of the Trinity, Jesus may just have been looking for advice as to how to handle his OWN dealings with “Dad.”

 

I hope I’ve given you plenty to ponder from this pregnant pericope. Let me say a good word about serendipity before I sign off, though.

 

Serendipity is very often a GOOD thing. In politics and social justice work, we have seen “the right person arrive at the right time” to do the right thing, be it FDR or Winston Churchill in World War II, or Martin Luther King, Jr. at the perfect point of the fight for Civil Rights. For us as individuals, serendipitous occurrences may places us at just the right place or the right time to engage in some act that could benefit many people, even if it is just our family. Serendipity is no “respecter” of opportunities, though. Serendipity CAN lead to great opportunities, OR it may open the door to something selfish and stupid, and possibly even something with on-going potential for degradation or harm. Maybe in evaluating the opportunities serendipity puts before us we should see if they pass the “selfish” and/or “stupid” test, and then hold it up to John Wesley’s “acts of mercy” concept?

 

OK, friends, go do your homework. Think about these things, and make some notes as to how you might avoid the “Divine Cow” temptations in the future. Go do some good! Amen!