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The story
is told of a newly commissioned Navy officer who was quite
proud of his accomplishments. He'd worked very hard to get
to where he was, and he was feeling really good about it.
In fact, he thought he knew just about all there was to know
about being a Navy Commissioned Officer, and he really had
reveled in the fact that now that he was on the top, all of
those under him succumbed to his every wish.
One stormy
evening as they were out in the middle of the ocean with the
battleship, the Navy officer was walking the bridge and he
noticed that there were lights from another vessel coming
in his direction from out of the distance. And so he became
concerned about it and called for his signalman. He asked
his signalman to send a message out across the water to the
other vessel. In that message, he asked him to say: "Alter
your direction 10 degrees to the North." So the signalman
sent the message out, and a few minutes later a message came
back, saying: "Change your direction 10 degrees to the
south." Well, the captain, knowing full well that he
was in full rank, said to the signalman: "I want you
to send another message out. This time I want you to say:
`Change your direction. I am the Captain speaking'."
Whereupon, they sent the message out, and the reply came back:
"You change your direction. I am the Lighthouse
speaking."
Some of
us have an easier time than others changing direction in our
lives. Some of us face it eagerly. Others of us drag our heels,
even when it is our choice, or for our own good. Regardless
of whether or not we welcome the change of direction in our
lives, the reality is that we all face changes or turning
points. Some of those changes might be changes in marital
status, changes in jobs, changes in location in which we live,
changes in family make-up due to a loss or a child growing
up and moving out, changes in habits or in lifestyles. It
is also a reality that in every change (whether we welcome
it or not), there is a period of time known as that in-between
time or that transition period which can often be difficult.
And yet it is how we respond to these periods of time that
are most pivotal to the outcome of the change.
Today's
scripture passage finds the Israelites in one of those in-between
times in the midst of change. Prior to today's passage, the
Israelites have been pretty darned excited about the change.
After many years of bondage, they are ecstatic about the turn
of events that their lives have taken since Moses walked into
the Pharaoh's palace with a stick that one day and began to
show his power. Moses is their hero. He had freed them from
their slavery. And since they've been following Moses around,
they have seen great sights and had wonderful adventures ...
the parting of the Red Sea ... the bringing of food from the
skies ... and the bringing of water from a rock. It's been
a pretty exciting trip. They have seen great sights and are
eagerly ready to worship this new God that Moses is teaching
them about. Yet despite the excitement and all the good things
that have happened, today's text opens with a very disgruntled
group of Israelites. In today's text, they find themselves
alone. Alone in the wilderness. Moses is gone. Someone has
said that he went up to the mountain to talk to God, but that
was days and days and days ago, and he hasn't returned. And
so they're really beginning to wonder: "Is he up in the
mountain or has he sneaked off in the night and left them
alone?" They're grumbling and they're fearful and they're
questioning. "Was it wrong to trust Moses?" "Was
it really such a good idea to leave Egypt?" "Did
we make a mistake?" They even began to pick Moses apart,
wondering about his leadership. And though they knew that
life was terrible in Egypt, at least they knew what it was.
So, not
knowing what else to do, and very much afraid of being alone,
they grab for the familiar, the past, the known. What do they
do? They go to Aaron, who is Moses' sidekick, and they say
to Aaron: " I want you to build for us a golden calf."
In other words, "We want you to give us back that which
we worshipped before." "Give back to us what is
familiar. For it was this that we worshipped when we were
in Egypt." And wanting to fill up the frightening unknown,
they get this calf built and then they begin to make all kinds
of noise and party and rivalry in order to take care of their
fears. But the scripture says that when God sees what the
people have done, God decides God's going to destroy them.
And God calls them a stiff-necked people ... meaning, to move
in one direction while looking back over one's shoulder.
I want
to pause for a moment to interject my own bias and gut reaction
to this Scripture. I don't know about you folks, but I don't
particularly like this passage in the Bible. I have never
liked violence. I refuse to watch any kind of movies that
have to do with war or shoot `em up and particularly I hate
the violence against animals in movies and will not watch
an animal beaten at all. I don't like violence in the Bible
either. I was raised in one of those churches in which the
minister pounded the pulpit and told us we were all going
to hell unless we were forgiven of our sins. And I abhor the
thought of a violent God. I'd much rather hold onto the image
of God as a loving and caring God.
Yet, did
you know that this is only one of over a thousand passages
in the Old Testament which portray God in violent acts of
punishment? And there are still one hundred other verses where
God had someone else do the killing? In fact, violence is
the most often-mentioned activity and the central theme in
the Old Testament Scriptures. And so being a person who preaches
the lectionary when the lectionary comes around, I found myself
having to struggle with this text in order to the able to
preach it. As I struggled with the text and the anger in it,
it occurred to me that the text really centers around one
climatic sentence. And that sentence being the one in which
God turns to Moses and says: "This is a stiff-necked
people. This is a people who are moving in one direction while
looking over one's shoulder." Further study of what this
phrase means leads me to believe that the passage is one which
has something important to say to us, each of us, about the
turning points in our lives and how we are called to respond
to them.
So I invite
us to go back and look at this story again. As I said, the
passage opens with the Israelites grumbling. Why are they
grumbling? Because they're scared. Because they are in the
wilderness alone, and they're scared. They're scared of the
unknown. They're grieving what they had. They are experiencing
the lost ties of where they were. And they can't yet see what
the future holds. And so that unknown and the aloneness makes
them scared. Not knowing what to do with it, but knowing that
it is terribly uncomfortable, they start looking for places
to fault the change. Someone to blame. Something to blame.
And when that doesn't work, they try to go back to what was.
By asking Aaron to build the calf. Anything that they can
do in order to get some sense of control and familiarity back
into their lives.
Yet isn't
it ironic that as much as they complain that God has abandoned
them, it is precisely the wilderness which time and time again
in the Bible is referred to as the place at which one experiences
God. When we experience changes in our lives, there is a point
at which we too find ourselves in the wilderness ... caught
between what has been and what we can't yet see in the future.
It is natural for us, like the Israelites, to panic, to look
for places to find fault, to pick apart or to try to go back
to what was in an effort to reestablish some central control
and familiarity.
Yet I
wonder. I wonder if the Israelites had simply waited in the
quiet of the wilderness with their fear and their uncomfortableness
what they might have heard and experienced. What might they
have heard and experienced if they could have trusted to wait
in the quiet and the unknown? But they don't do that. They
push it away. They build a calf. They begin to make merry.
The Bible says they reveled or they had an orgy. Isn't it
interesting? Sometimes, denial can be very deceiving. And
yet the reality is sooner or later, denial catches up with
you.
I'm reminded,
probably in my own anxiety of preaching this week before you,
of the minister who went to a new church. And he was experiencing
some of that anxiety. He was in that "in-between time,"
between having been in a church that dearly loved him and
moving into a new church that he wasn't quite sure about,
and they weren't quite sure about him. And not really wanting
to stay in that moment of "in-between time," he
decided that he knew exactly what he was going to do in order
to get the congregation to be fully convinced that they would
like him. He decided that the answer to that was to go and
to visit everybody he could possibly visit. And then, on top
of that, to write the most outstanding sermon that he had
ever written before he went into the pulpit the first time.
And so
he spent hours and hours and hours out visiting all of the
people and hours and hours and hours of preparing the sermon.
And he got up that Sunday morning, and he delivered the sermon.
After the service he stood outside the door, and a woman whom
he had visited that week met him at the door. She said to
him: "You know what? You are such a warm pastor."
And he thought to himself: "Ah, well, that visiting paid
off well." Then she said: "And not only that, you're
a model preacher." And he thought: "That's pretty
good, too." So he went home. That afternoon he was thumbing
through the dictionary and he looked up "warm."
It said: "not so hot." Then he looked up "model."
And it said: "a small imitation of the real thing."
Sometimes
denial can be deceiving, but sooner or later it catches up
with you. In this passage, God is not deceived by the denial
that the Israelites are experiencing. In this passage while
the Israelites are in denial of their fear and their anger,
interestingly God acknowledges it and claims it for what it
is.
Now from
an early age, I was taught and I imagine you were, too, that
anger is not an okay thing to have. To raise my voice, to
talk back to my parents or to snap at them and slam the door
was a good reason to give me something to be angry about.
In many ways, many of us as children were also taught that
God is a loving God ... one who is always right, who we should
not question, who always has our best interests at heart,
who is all-knowing and all-powerful and completely worthy
of our trust, and if we don't trust God or if we are angry
with God, it indicates a lack of our faith. Therefore we dare
not be angry with God or our parents or at least we dare not
admit it. Instead, we learn to hide it ... to stuff it ...
to disguise it in such things as compulsive or addictive behavior,
depression, anxiety or passive/aggressive behavior. We learn
to displace it by taking it out on other people or things
that are far removed from what we're really angry about. And
such methods of handling anger, according to psychologists
and marriage counselors, are among the main reasons that we
suffer in our country so much divorce, domestic violence and
abuse.
In today's
passage, God, by God's own example, offers an alternative
to the Israelites and to us who try to deny our grief, anger,
fear and other emotions related to change in our lives. God
demonstrates that to acknowledge our feelings, to own them
and to move through them, is okay. And Moses' response to
God's anger illustrates the promise of what happens when we
really do acknowledge those feelings for what they are. Look
at what Moses does. In response to God's anger, Moses listens
and hears God's pain and acknowledges it. And then Moses listens
and hears the Israelites' pain and anger and acknowledges
it. And then Moses reminds both of them of their covenant
with each other and appeals to God's mercy and faithfulness
for reconciliation.
What does
that say to us? Perhaps God's example reminds us that in the
wilderness-like transition or "in-between" parts
of our lives due to change we are invited to 1) acknowledge
our feelings; and 2) to wait upon the one who promises to
intercede and be present with us in them. That one being none
other than Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. It is then,
through him, we are empowered to move forward, not looking
over our shoulder, but with renewed faith, purpose, vision,
commitment and courage. May we call upon the one who intercedes
for us in the midst of the changes in our lives.
Let us
pray: Oh God, we recognize that our lives are full of turning
points. Some are larger and more dramatic than others. Some
are welcomed, while others are resented. Some are frightening,
others painful, and still others exciting. But, whatever the
changes, always there comes in them a point in which we find
ourselves caught between what has been and what is yet to
be. And these points can be lonely, frightening and disconcerting.
Help us to recognize the importance of allowing ourselves
the opportunity to surrender to the silent unknown ... acknowledging
our grief or other emotions, and waiting upon your Holy Spirit
who promises to be present with us and empower us to move
with faithfulness, strength, commitment and renewed vision.
In Your name we pray. Amen.
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