Sunday October 12, 2008 - Pentecost 22, Proper 23, Year A (RCL)
It was three months
since they had begun the journey,
three months, but it seemed more like three years.
Three months
of waking up every morning in a new place,
three months
of days when the only relief from the of sand and rock and dust
was the glaring blue of the sky
and other days when a smear of green in the distance
promised palm trees, and more importantly, water,
three months of uncertainty.
Finally they stopped. It wasn’t much of a place to stop - a few cypress and olive and hawthorn tree, some low bushes for the flocks to nibble on, sand under their feet - but there was water.
And looming over it all
a huge granite crag,
the crust of the earth pushed up in folds and bumps,
sheer cliffs
and narrow goat tracks.
And there they camped, and not just for one night. There was time to wash their clothes, crusted with sweat and sand,
and Moses told them to prepare
to meet God.
And so they washed, and waited, and on the third day there was thunder and lightning and the blast of a trumpet, an smoke and earthquake,
and the people stood at the foot of the mountain
and they were terrified.
And they told Moses that he could go up and talk with God if he liked,
but they weren’t going
anywhere near.
And God spoke the Ten Commandments
and Moses relayed them to the people.
And then
Moses
went back up the mountain
and again God spoke,
and again Moses brought the message back down.
And then Moses took three of the leaders,
Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu,
and seventy more of the elders
with him up the mountain,
And they saw God.
And what they saw, was so overwhelming, that when they tried t describe it,
they only got as far
as the ground under God’s feet,
which they said
was something like a pavement of sapphire stone,
like the very heaven for clearness.
They saw God,
and they at and they drank
in the presence of God
and then they went back down the mountain.
And then Moses went back up the mountain
this time taking only his assistant Joshua,
and this time
he didn’t come down.
And a cloud covered the top of the mountain where Moses was
for six days,
and still he didn’t come down,
and then there was a glowing on the mountain,
and it grew an spread
until a raging fire covered the top of th mountain,
and still Moses
didn’t come down.
That day,
or the next,
or the next.
Every day
the people looked up towards the mountain, even venturing as far
as the first big lumps of rock,
hoping
that Moses
would suddenly appear.
But he didn’t,
and as weeks passed
they began to lose hope.
If Moses hadn’t fallen to his death
when the cliffs
were shrouded with cloud,
then surely, tragically, he had died
when the fire roared
across the mountaintop.
And finally
they gave up hope.
Forty days it took, almost six weeks that they’d had no sight of him,
and they were beginning to get worried.
Well, not just beginning.
Because if Moses had perished
then what about them?
Moses
was their conduit to God,
without him
how were they ever going
to find their way out of this dusty wilderness
let alone to the promised land?
And then they thought
of the Egyptians with their divine statues
and the Canaanites with their clay idols,
and they began to wonder
if perhaps
God might deign to speak to them
another way,
that perhaps if they had some symbol of him,
he might still lead them
to safety.
And so they called to Aaron, Moses’ brother,
and asked him
to help them build
a golden calf.
and it’s hard to know
if they thought that this calf
would represent God,
or maybe just that because altars were often built
with the form of a bull at the base,
maybe God would see this calf
as an invitation
to come among them again,
a kind of throne for God’s glory.
But whether or not their intentions were good,
by the time they’d handed over their gold
and the calf was sculpted,
they were ready to treat it
as if it were God.
To sacrifice to it,
to worship.
And you have to wonder
where the elders were all this time.
The ones who had been up the mountain with Moses
and seen the sapphire pavement
and the God who stood on it.
Had they forgotten already?
I guess so.
And so there the people are, down the bottom of the mountain,
wondering where Moses was,
and then coming up with something tangible,
that golden calf,
to assure them of God’s presence.
And up on top
there is Moses,
with God
giving him instructions
on how to build a tangible representation of God’s presence,
the ark of the covenant
and the tabernacle,
the dwelling place
of God.
You see, God knew
that clouds and fire weren’t enough,
that we humans
are physical beings,
we experience the world through our senses,
that the people needed something
to help them focus on God.
They needed something
they could see with their own eyes,
and feel with their hands,
and sounds and tastes and smells
to go along with it all.
God knew it, and had the plans all ready for them. Just a few more hours
and they would have had what they wanted.
But instead they built the calf;
they pre-empted God,
and if it hadn’t been for Moses’ begging
God would have destroyed them.
But God didn’t. God was gracious.
And the golden calf got destroyed,
and instead
the people were given God’s plans for the tabernacle,
something tangible
that would help them
to worship and trust in God,
a visible sign
of God’s presence with them.
We’re not so different
from the people of God
waiting at the bottom of the mountain.
Because like them
we need something tangible
when things are tough,
especially when we’ve begun
to lose hope.
Not least at times like this, when our financial systems – and not just ours, but the whole world’s –
are in crisis.
Because it doesn’t matter
how much our friends or our brokers or our governments try to reassure us,
it’s scary to watch this happen,
and it’s at times like these
that we want to cling onto things that we can get hold of with our hands.
We know we’re supposed to trust God; the psalms tell us
to cast our burdens on the LORD, and he will sustain us. (Psalm 55:22).
We know that no matter what happens, God is still God and Christ is always with us.
But still we need something tangible.
We need some visible sign of God
to grab hold of, something that we can touch and taste and feel that lets us know
that it’s true,
that God really is with us.
Which is what
God
has given us.
God has given us Jesus.
God incarnate, God as a human,
God who knows what it’s like
to be afraid
and uncertain
and not sure that we can trust.
The only problem is,
Jesus died 2000 years ago.
And while we know he is with us through the Spirit
it’s still not quite as tangible
as we need.
But there are three other things
that God has given us, things that are a little easier to hang on to.
The first is scripture. The Bible.
Words that we can read, words that we can memorize.
Words that are God
speaking to us.
The second is the cross.
The cross is a strange symbol, when you think about it.
It’s the thing that killed Jesus. And so having it as a symbol, is like having a gun or a noose.
And yes, that cross
is a symbol of Jesus’ death,
but even more than that, it’s a symbol
of the forgiveness we have been given, it’s a symbol of the incredible love
that Jesus has for us, so much
that he gave his life for us.
And so when we look at a cross, or hold one,
our eyes and fingers can know
the love of Christ for us.
And thirdly, the Eucharist. Bread and wine, the body and blood
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In it, we taste the presence,
the goodness
of God.
Bible, cross, Eucharist. None of them
taking the place of God,
but all of them reminding us as we see and hear and touch and taste and smell
that God is with us.
God is with us.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2008