Instead of The Calf

Exodus 32:1-14

Imagine yourself out in the wilderness, with the people of Israel.
They’ve been rescued out of slavery in Egypt and invited on a journey to the land of promise. They’ve been fed miraculous bread and quails in the desert, drunk water that sprang from a dry rock, and seen the power of God vividly outlining the Commandments of their new way of life.
And then Moses goes off up a mountain to talk to God about the rest of their lives, while the people wait.
And wait,
…
…
and wait.

Not just for hours, but for so many days and weeks that they can’t count them anymore.

Have you ever felt abandoned by God? Or even just stood up for a meeting?
It can happen. A time when somehow God just seems to vanish from your life, even though you keep showing up for church, trying to be faithful to the journey God’s called you on. But now it seems like God isn’t picking up the phone, or even checking voicemail.
It’s that way for the Israelites in the wilderness. Moses was the only way they had to talk to God – and he’s vanished.

So they ask Aaron to come up with a way for them to be in touch with God. To make God available more conveniently, more obviously, less mysteriously. And Aaron comes up with the golden calf.

This golden calf was produced by our middle school students, a year or so ago when they were talking about the challenges of trying to live as God commands us to.
But I think I make idols – and maybe you do too – less on purpose than unconsciously, turning to projects or stories or other people that might fill up the hole anxiety or loneliness creates.
I think we make idols anytime we try to arrange our relationship to God so that it’s more comfortable, or more convenient.

This golden calf is made of fairly common materials, but did you notice what the golden calf in the Exodus story is made of? Jewelery. The decorative treasure and the portable bank account of a wandering people. Aaron passed around the collection plate, and picked up all the wealth in the camp to make that calf.
It costs a lot to fill the hole that’s left when you seem to have lost your connection with God.
And it’s bad stewardship.

Now, that’s not the way the story is normally read. It’s more traditional to talk about the breaking of the second commandment, about the idol-making itself. And there’s no doubt that that’s a problem, and that it’s enough to get God pretty steamed up.
But I think that idol-making tends to come from misunderstanding and bad stewardship, rather than the other way around.

The Israelites didn’t earn that jewelry that the calf is made from. They left Egypt with it stuffed into their pockets and packs because God arranged for it. With the whole country terrorized with plague after plague, at God’s suggestion the Israelites were more or less paid off to go away and take their dangerous God with them.

In the wilderness, fresh out of oppression, it’s easy to remember it’s not our money. It’s the money God arranged for us to have. Just like it’s easy to remember that freedom is God’s gift, when we’re just now freed from whatever held us down. And that relationship is a gift when it’s new and fresh.

But then we can get used to it – freedom, relationship, financial security – and it’s easier to forget the gift, and believe it’s all ours, and that it’s up to us to set the terms of the life we live, and the way we’re going to relate to God.

And when we use those gifts to fill up our own anxiety and loneliness; when we turn to things or people we can predict and manage, to relationships and places that are comfortable and convenient, to fill up our longing for God, and our fear that God might not be paying attention,
it’s bad stewardship.

But I don’t think God gives us freedom and wealth just so we can sit still and wait, either. Avoiding all risk never gets a lot of applause in the stories of the Bible. Instead we learn that when our hands are full but God isn’t issuing commandments, it’s an invitation to good stewardship – of our freedom, our relationships, and our jewelry (or however we may carry our wealth).

So:
Imagine that you’re Israel.
Your hands are full of the gifts of freedom, wealth, and the promise that God wants to be in a relationship with you. And then you come to a point where God stops giving directions for a while.
How do you respond? What would be good stewardship of those gifts?

What might God have invited them to do with those resources if they hadn’t made a calf? What story might we be telling, now, about how God rejoiced at what Israel did with their freedom and treasure?

Go ahead and think about it.
And write it down on the post-it note in your leaflet.
Don’t worry if it might be silly. And you don’t have limit yourself to the possibilities of a desert camp (Israel didn’t stay in that camp forever). Just set your imagination free.

When you’ve written it, bring it up here and stick it to our golden calf.



****
Here's what you said, unedited:
Share our gifts with others
Save for buying food and other necessities when they find people who have them to sell
Take these gifts and share their wealth with people they encounter on their journey. Share this wealth with one another in thanksgiving to God.
Use the gifts they are given to help others to know God better. Feed, clothe, tell stories, keep company, share wealth.
Have a party that allows everyone to rejoice in the knowledge of the Lord.
Use them to feed the hungry.
Feed the poor.
Make water pitchers.
Use those resources for other people when they enter into Caanan  SHARE
Friendship
Proclaim the grace of God. Help the poor. Enjoy them. Be grateful to God for everything.
Walk on to those gifts – the promised land and trust God.
Fellowship with everybody there.
They could have gone on to other towns and told their story. In those towns bought food or clothing for others to help teach about God and his people.
Comfort others in prayer.
Wealth: Use the gold to buy a guide to get through the desert more quickly. Freedom: develop a culture of worship that moved with them rather than through the Law. Relationship: developed patience.
Spread it to those less wealthy. Help the poor- feeding, clothing, caring for the sick and infirm and aged.
Feed the hungry. Take care of the sick. Teach the unlearned. Bring God into the lives of those who do not believe.
Fed the less fortunate. Built shelter. Clothed those in need.
Built housing for themselves.
They could have built a permanent town to live in with a really nice temple.
Be proactive in giving my wealth to those with less and sharing my freedom and belief with those who are struggling.
Used wealth to help those in need.
Dig wells. Plant food. Give to poor.
Purchased flocks to feed themselves and those less fortunate.
Created new waiting rituals, ways to help one another feel supported and unified as a people while waiting.
Become a nation of kindness (with relationship) and generosity to others (with wealth)
They could have given their gold as an offering for a new temple in which to worship.
Use it to feed more people – find ways to grow products or animals/food etc
Buy oxen, horses, etc to get to the land they are promised. Dig wells when needed. Plant vineyards, etc.
Pray.
Build a new community in the wilderness, bringing in those who don’t have relationships.
Share their wealth amongst each other, and teach their gifts to each other, so that all could benefit.
Use them as decoration in a temple to God.
Feed the hungry with food and God’s word.

****
I asked you to do this because God gives you and me those same gifts God gave Israel: freedom from what oppresses us, the resources we need, and the extraordinary relationship that starts when God chooses us, and invites us on a journey to the land of promise.
We’re stewards of the very same gifts, and this story is our story.
And our story should be good news.
Amen.

Daily Bread

Exodus 16:2-15, Matthew 20:1-16

Years ago, I used to drive home from work along Sheridan Road in Evanston.  And when it was dark, at a certain point I’d look up and see a vision:

A warmly lit window, an armchair, and a floor to ceiling bookcase.

It’s not a very sexy fantasy, I know, but at the end of a long day of hauling gear, juggling staff and guides, managing clients, and - of course, a ringing phone, incessant email, and most days, something wrong that I couldn’t fix – a life full of books sounded like heaven.

Your vision might be different. But I used to look into that window as I drove past and think, “God, I want that.”

Five years later, one seminary evening when I was up to my ears in deadlines, theology to read and papers to write, meetings to attend, services to plan, I reached up to switch on a lamp and recognized my vision.

I was sitting in a chair in a warmly lit window, right next to a floor to ceiling bookcase.

Oh.

What do you do when God answers your prayer?

Or when God answers what you didn’t even think was a prayer?

It happens all the time.

Thousands of years ago, out in the dry and lifeless wilderness, the Israelites weren’t actually talking to God. They yelled at Moses and Aaron,“What kind of dumb idea was this, hauling us out of Egypt to die out here?  At least in Egypt there was food.  This place has nothing but rocks.  Couldn’t you have left us in Egypt to die?”

It’s actually a clear and honest assessment of the mess they’re in, an entire nation out in the middle of nowhere with no chance of dinner in sight, much less breakfast or supplies for a long and dangerous journey.

And in that moment, God speaks to Moses: I’ll feed them.  I will give them what they want, and everything they need. And that will be a test.

Huh?  It’s a test when you get everything you wanted?

Well, it might be.  Extravagant good fortune is as good at pointing out true character as horrible bad luck and distress.  But I think the question God is raising here is exactly the question the Israelites raised themselves: Are they ready to be out of Egypt?

It’s not an exam, it’s an experiment. 

So far the people of Israel have only known God in crisis.  God appears in the midst of genocide and oppression, swoops them out through plagues and wonders and whisks them dry through a sea that crashes in to drown the pursuing army.  They see God’s dramatic power, and they believe.

But now here they are in the wilderness.  Rescued.  Free.  But hungry and facing the everyday problem of something to eat.

They don’t turn to God. They turn to what’s behind them – the predictability of working for Pharaoh – and blame their leaders for losing it. For a story with so much complaining in it, it’s remarkable to note that no one is ever scolded for whining.  Instead, over and over we hear that God hears. 

And God responds.

They need bread.  God gives them bread.

They want meat.  God brings quails.

It’s not dramatic.  It’s mundane.  And the “bread” that appears isn’t readily recognizable.  The name manna actually comes from the Hebrew for “What’s that???”  

So it’s quite possible, despite all Moses and Aaron can say, that the Israelites don’t quite understand that their prayer has been answered.  They didn’t think they were praying, after all, when they complained about their leaders and their practical, daily needs.

And that’s why this bread is a test. An experiment, to see if we’re ready to live in the promised land, in the kingdom of God.

Are we ready for God to be this involved in our daily lives?  To know God not as the one we turn to in crisis, but as the one we breathe with, the one we eat with, the one we trust for basic, practical, and intimate daily needs – and wants?

Are we ready for our daily lives to be this engaged with God – so that what we murmur is answered and the very bread of life is so clearly not our possession or our pay, but a gift?

In God’s country, it’s not our own resources and efforts that keep us fed and safe and even comfortable.

In Egypt, food and safety come from following the rules and working hard.

But in God’s country, daily bread is a gift.

And it’s completely different to receive a gift than to earn a living.

That’s what Jesus says about the kingdom of heaven: It’s like a crowd of day laborers – people who quite literally have to find work today to eat tonight. Some of them are hired for a day’s work that assures they’ll feed their family. Some of them are still standing there, waiting to be hired, all day long, so dependent on being hired to eat that they do an hour’s work for the hope of “whatever’s right.”

And every one of them goes home with daily bread.

No less.  But no more.

Because in God’s country, you don’t need more to have enough.

In God’s country, life is a daily gift.

And receiving is different from earning.

Earning is about expectations, limited resources, and “productivity.” Receiving is about open hands and delight, and our relationship with the giver. 

To earn, you have to do things right. To receive, you have to trust.

The laborers in Jesus’ parable get in trouble when they focus on what they earned, instead of noticing what everyone received:

Daily bread. 

The thing you and I pray for all the time, whether or not we’re paying attention.

Give us today our daily bread.

And you know, most of the time we get it. 

But as we eat, we’re often too distracted to recognize each meal as an answered prayer. 

Our wilderness has grocery stores instead of quails, and a different set of dangers and fears.  But our daily bread is still the same: the answer to a prayer, and a test. An experiment to see if we’re ready to live from trust.  Ready for the knowledge that God is listening powerfully, not just in crisis, but in the murmuring of our wants and daily needs. 

We’re ready to live in God’s country when we can look around at the answers to the prayers we never knew we prayed and say,

Oh.

This is where I belong. Because this is where God is.

This is what I need.

Because God is here.

The pain and the grace

Matthew 18:21-35

I couldn’t turn on the radio or the internet all week without hearing something about Nine Eleven. Conversation, reporting, commentary.  Stories about what’s changed and what we remember. 

In self defense, I kept the TV tuned to House Hunters.

Because all week, it’s felt like bleeding from an open wound.  And I was looking for a bandaid.

It’s different if you were there that day, or if you were here.  Different for each of us.  But wherever you were, on Tuesday ten years ago, you probably remember.

And then life goes on.

Not just after Nine Eleven, but after a death in the family, after a terrifying diagnosis, the loss of meaningful work or the breakdown of an important relationship.

It’s not always welcome news that life goes on.  But it does, so we look for a thing called “closure.”

We heard about closure in May when Osama bin Laden died.

We heard about it in September and October and November 2001 in the long search for missing persons and something to bury.

And, in fact, we heard about it – ever so briefly – in the gospel today.

“How many times do I have to forgive?” Peter asks Jesus. “Say, seven times??”

Peter’s being generous.  He knows he’s already been forgiven much himself, he knows that miracles and grace are more abundant than he’d expected.  So he wants to forgive as much as possible.

But still he wants closure.  He wants to be able to be done with forgiving.

He may want to know when he doesn’t have to try anymore, but I rather imagine he wants to know when it will stick.  When forgiveness will be complete, and he’ll have “closure” for the pain of being hurt.

But Jesus says, Seventy times seven.

(The gospel math is ambiguous.  It could be 77, it could be 490.  Either way, Jesus’ actual answer is No.)

No, you can’t count the times you have to forgive.

No, you can’t forgive in order to be finished.

“Forgive and forget” is probably one of the most misleading sayings out there.

If you forgot, you wouldn’t need to forgive.  And forgiving – really forgiving – won’t really help you to forget.

Because forgiveness is not a bandaid.

It’s open heart surgery.

It’s about opening up all that’s blocking the flow to our heart, in and out, in all our relationships. About not letting pain cut off the vibrant, complex strength of those relationships.

When we love someone - parents, children, siblings, spouses, friends - we will get hurt.  And we’ll hurt those we love.   Same for living in community – a community like Calvary, or like our nation. So we have to keep turning back to those relationships with open hearts after angry words, and careless mistakes, and major trauma. 

And then do it again. 

And we need forgiveness that washes over and over and over our souls, over the raw anxiety, sorrow and fear of having done wrong or hurt someone else.

Forgiveness is the other extreme from closure.  And it’s even more healing, because its continuous nature makes us resilient, able to dream and hope and act to make our visions real.

When I’ve been hurt, what I usually want most is for the pain to stop.

There are times when hurting someone else runs a very close second.   But mostly I want to block off the pain, to walk away or “forget” with an act of will.  To turn on House Hunters and ignore the grief and anger and fear of memory.  To ”move on.”

That helps with the pain, which is not a bad thing. And sometimes it is the very best thing we can do.

But it’s not forgiveness.  Not the forgiveness Jesus is talking about.

Because forgiveness doesn’t set limits, it opens doors.

It’s not something we do by ourselves or by an act of will.

It’s what we do when we let God flow through us, when we open our hearts wide to God, through God’s people.

When I close my eyes and think about September 11, I don’t see the towers any more. 

I see first responders: firefighters and police and paramedics.  I see frightened, confused people reaching out to take hands with strangers, and making safe space for others in even greater pain and fear.  I see people carrying those who cannot walk.

I see people who literally reached into that burning wound and pulled it further open trying to save and to heal.  People who breathed the physical form of loss and heartache and horror.   People who did that because they wanted desperately to help and people who did it just because it was their job, or because they happened to be there.

I see the glory and the grief and the steadfast love.

And I go ahead and cry.

Because I can’t separate the pain from the grace.  And that's probably a good thing. 

It might be the way God looks at us, day in and day out.

To stay in relationship with us, God doesn’t fence off the angry words and careless mistakes of our everyday sins from our everyday acts of grace.  Nor does God separate the intentional murder of thousands from the wild outpouring of compassion and unity and self-sacrifice that happen in the same place at the same time.

But over and over and over and over again, God turns an open heart to us, refusing to let grief or anger block the flow of love and grace.

We need this, and we pray for it in confession and in the Lord’s Prayer.

And we are invited to do the same. To turn our open hearts toward God and to one another and to strangers, and let the grace flow with the pain, so that nothing can block or limit the hope and love and caring and strength that God offers us and we give to one another.

I haven’t forgiven the hijackers, or the sheer impersonal pain and fear, or the nation of liberty and justice for all for not living up to our dream.  And I haven’t forgiven – or been forgiven – all the errors and omissions of family life, and life with you, and the rest of my communities.

But I am forgiving them, and I will be, with God’s help, the rest of my life.

After this weekend the TV, radio, and internet will fill up with other news: football scores, Washington politics, traffic, and the everyday working of Murphy’s law.  We’ll talk less and less about the particular tragedy of September 2001, and more about our other tragedies and joys and daily routine.

The wound won’t be as open.

But closure isn’t the good news.

The good news is that it isn’t over.  That we are still, always, forgiving and forgiven, for that day and for every day. 

Because as our hearts stay open to living with memory and grief and fear, great or small, we stay open to unlimited, lively compassion and love. We stay in stronger relationship with one another, with our community, with our dreams, and with God.   

And that’s what living is for.

 September 11, 2011