|
|
|
|
|
"Whose Gold?"
I hear this story and I cannot help but think of the scene near the end of the movie the Ten Commandments when Moses is up on the Mountain talking with God, and the people are down below. Moses has been gone a long time. They begin to wonder, and then voice their fears—perhaps Moses has deserted them. And if Moses has left, then perhaps God has deserted them as well. The people listen as Aaron tells them that they need a God. If the God Moses has been following is gone, then they will need a God they can carry ahead of them, to protect them. The people are eager to do just that! The movie follows the script right out of Exodus. Aaron comes up with a great idea. “Bring all of your gold.” he tells them. “Take the gold earrings from your wives and your daughters and bring them to me.” Then Aaron melts down the gold and sculpts a pretty good likeness of a calf from it. And the people bow down and worship it, and then begin to sing and dance and cavort and carry on like they had no sense. I don’t know how big the golden calf was in reality, but in the movie, it’s a pretty substantial chunk of gold. Fashioned from the gold earrings of the refugees fleeing in the desert. Maybe I have a twisted mind. But I always looked at that big golden calf, and wondered, “just how many gold earrings did those people have, anyway?” Something just didn’t fit--didn’t work right in my mind. When I was growing up, in Sunday school, I was taught that these were poor people, slaves, unfortunate slaves crying out in their distress who had been delivered out of their misery and were now wandering around in the wilderness. Poor people. Slaves with nothing of their own. So poor, that God has to feed them. Flakes of manna appearing with each morning’s dew. Quail, delivered for the picking from the desert floor. Poor people. Slaves. How did they come by so much gold? Enough to fashion a calf and worship it? You ever wonder about that? We get so familiar with these Bible stories, it says the slaves escaped to the wilderness, and Pharaoh's chariots got covered up in the sea, and that Moses went up Horeb to speak with God, and while he was up there, the Israelites became antsy and Aaron called for their gold and he fashioned a golden calf and they worshipped it. Ho-hum. Wait-a-minute! Where did that Gold come from? These people had been slaves in Egypt for generations. Conscripted labor. No wages, just a little food and shelter for their forced work. Don’t tell me these folks, THESE folks had enough gold to fashion a grasshopper, much less a calf! Where did the Gold came from? Do you know? Ah—I think I remember. The Gold was from the Egyptians. It was Egyptian Gold. And how is it that the Israelites have such an abundance of Egyptian gold? They plundered it, took it from the Egyptians just before they escaped. But wait a minute--that doesn’t make much sense either. Plundering comes after an enemy has been defeated. After battle. The victors steal from the dead and terrorize the survivors to hand over what’s left? But the Israelites slaves didn’t battle with the Egyptians. They didn’t defeat them so as to take all of their gold. No, no no. That’s not how the story goes. How did they come to take the gold from the Egyptians? Two short passages. Listen. Back in chapter 11: Now the LORD said to Moses, "I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here, and when he does, he will drive you out completely. Tell the people that men and women alike are to ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold."
And then in chapter 12: The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.
You get the picture? God gave them the gold. The Egyptian Gold. They went to the Egyptians and asked for it and the Egyptians handed it right over, because God had made it so. God provided that gold, which they stuck in their ears, and eventually melted down in the wilderness! And perhaps that’s what’s really so offensive about the golden calf. Perhaps that’s what is really so obscene in God’s eyes. That the people who had been saved by God, provided for by God, would take some of what God had provided and do something so abhorrent with it. To take what God had given them, and use it to replace God in their lives, to use what God had given them in such a way as to demonstrate total contempt for the very One who had heard their cries and answered their prayers. Can we even imagine the rejection and hurt God must have felt? Here God had not only responded to their distress, but delivered them from it, and on top of that, provided abundant resources from the hands of their captors. Everything they possessed had come from God. Literally. And they use these very same resources to create an idol and worship it. It’s not that they simply abandoned God in Moses’ absence. They betrayed God in the most repugnant, “in your face” way imaginable. Let me put it this way. It’s like a young woman taking the large diamond engagement ring her fiancée gives her and pawning it so that she can buy an extravagant gift for a new lover who she has just met. How could the Israelites do such a thing? Seems to me they forgot where the gold came from. Just like they forgot at times, in the wilderness who had made the manna appear every morning. Just like they forgot at times, in the wilderness, who had made the bitter water sweet and fit to drink. Who had made the quail appear. Who had made the sea retreat and fill again over their enemies. Who indeed had provided for every single need they had. But how could they forget? Well now.....that’s something into which we might have some insight. I’m sure we never forget...do we? We never forget all that God had given us. All that God has done for us. The mercy we have been shown. Forget that all we have, that all we hold, has come as a gift from God’s own hand. We never forget...do we? Oh, we might not do something as brazen as take what God has given us and fashion it into an idol to which we would bow down and worship...but... But then again ...how do we use what God has supplied? If I should make a fearless assessment of myself, when I am completely truthful, I must confess that I am awfully selfish and occasionally extravagant in the way I use what I have been given by my Creator. Some might think some of the ways I have wasted and spent obscene. If we are honest, we all have idols we acquire with the resources God has given us. Things we cannot do without. More than once, I have no doubt broken God’s heart by forgetting where it all has come from. I must find ways to keep me from forgetting. Tithing is one way I have of helping me remember. For me, to tithe, the setting aside of a tenth of all that comes to me and my family, is my way of recognizing all that God has generously sent my way. In tithing, I become more aware....that everything is from God’s hand. My ability to work. The circumstances of the opportunities I have had. Being born in this country, in this area, at this time. The special blessings I have experienced. The help I have received when I needed it most. While it is tempting in the face of tragedy to ask of God, “Why me?” we rarely think to ask the same question when we have received blessings. When we have been the recipients of God’s goodness. When we have been provided for. Why me? Certainly. Why me? That’s what the Israelites did. They forgot to ask themselves why they had been the recipient of all that God had supplied. And when they forgot that, they forgot God altogether. And the next thing you know, they are partying around a grotesque sculpture and worshiping it as their God. Do not forget--the way the Israelites did--where it all comes from. Do not forget your God who has provided for you and who will continue to do so. Do not forget....lest you turn away completely. Thanks be to God for all good things. Thanks be to God for God’s generosity. Thanks be to God. Amen. |
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
