“Hi, it’s really nice to meet
you!” Meeting new people is always a pleasure. But what do you say after you
exchange names? Well, you might start with, “So, do you live around here?” Or
you might ask, “What kind of job do you have?” Or you might even ask, “Can I
friend you on Facebook?” But I’ll bet that you’d never ask anyone, “What god do
you worship?” I imagine that you’d get a blank stare if you asked anyone that
question. That’s because most of us, at least, here in this country, worship
the same deity. Jew, Christian, and Muslim all worship God (with a capital G).
We may understand who God is and how he works differently; but whatever name we
give to him, it’s the same god that we’re all worshipping.
But it hasn’t always been
that way. In the days when the Israelites left Egypt, there were a whole slew of gods that people worshipped! There
were as many gods as there are choices at Frisch’s breakfast buffet. You picked
the god who suited your particular needs, and worshiped whichever one you
wanted. Baal, for example, was a very popular god. You’ve probably all heard of
him. Baal was a fertility god who sent rain to make sure the crops grew. The statues
of Baal that have been found in archaeological sites are usually holding a lightning
bolt. If you were in the middle of a drought, you might want to sacrifice a few
bulls to Baal so that the corn would grow. Or you could worship Anat. She’d be
the goddess of choice if you needed somebody whacked upside the head. Anat was
really something. She fought like Rambo; and she was so tough that she wore a
belt made out of human skulls! If your neighbors were sneaking in and stealing
your sheep in the middle of the night, worshipping Anat might well put a stop
to it. And if everything else failed, you’d worship El. El was the big kahuna, the
chief god who kept all the other gods in line. El was the go-to guy if your
sacrifices weren’t working, because he could put in a good word for you with any
of the other gods. Even back then, it wasn’t what you knew but who you knew!
But the Israelites were
supposed to only worship Moses’ god, Yahweh – the Lord. The story of the golden
calf shows that they had a little bit of trouble adjusting to that. After Moses’
god had led them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and all the way to Mt.
Sinai, that god spoke to the Israelites out of smoke and fire on the mountain. And
they were scared to death! They weren’t used to having a god thunder at them
like that! So they asked Moses if he would
please talk to God in the future. So Moses went up to the top of Mt. Sinai to
talk with God and get instructions to give to all the people. When this
morning’s story begins (Exodus 32:1-14) Moses had been gone for 40 days; and
the Israelites had begun to wonder if he was ever going to come back! Maybe he
had displeased his God; and he was lying dead up on the top of Mt. Sinai. Maybe
this god was too dangerous to worship. The Israelites started thinking that maybe
they should worship a different god. After all, they knew Baal and Anat and El.
Moses and this god of his – they didn’t know them very well at all. So the
Israelites made a golden calf just in case Moses never came back. And… well,
you know the rest.
From our perspective 3,000
years later, the story seems almost unbelievable. God led the Israelites out of
Egypt, through the Red Sea and into the wilderness in a pillar of fire and
cloud; he provided manna and water from a rock, and they made a golden calf to worship? What in the
world were they thinking? We would never do such a thing! We would never worship anyone but our God! That’s what we all think when we read this story. And we believe it. After all, we
go to church as often as we can. We try our best to follow the Ten Commandments,
and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Besides, we don’t worship idols today! I
remember back when I was in seminary, one of my professors asked the class to
remember the last time that we gave a hellfire and brimstone sermon against worshiping
other gods. Of course, none of us had ever preached a sermon like that. It’s
just not an issue today… is it? Maybe it is. I think that we do still worship other gods. Now don’t
get me wrong. I don’t know of anyone who has a statue of Baal sitting on an end
table in their living room. But a god doesn’t have to look like a human being
or a calf or any other animal. A god is simply something we worship in the hope
that it will take care of us. Our god is whatever comes first in our lives. Our
god is our highest priority. If we’re honest with ourselves, most of have a god
or two tucked away in our back pocket just in case the Lord doesn’t work out.
In fact, those gods that were around in the time of the Israelites are still
here. They just have different names these days.
Remember El; the god who knew
all the other gods and could put in a good word for you if you needed it? He
hasn’t gone anywhere. Today, though, his name isn’t “El,” it’s “Status.” His
worshippers are concerned about making the right impression with the people
they think are important. They need to be acceptable to the movers and shakers;
because, after all, it’s not what you know, but who you know. This god even has
a brother whose name is “What will people think?” His worshippers consult with him before they
do anything that might be the least bit controversial. “Volunteer at a soup
kitchen? Write a letter to the editor protesting cuts in food stamps? Join a
demonstration on behalf of the homeless? My goodness, I couldn’t do that! What would people think?”
That fertility god, Baal, is
still around, too. These days, though, we don’t ask him for lots of rain to make
the corn grow. We ask him to make our dollars multiply so that our wallets are
fat! We pray prayers like “Please, make the stock market go up,” or “Could you
arrange for me to win the lottery?” Lots of people pray for enough money to buy
all the things that they want, when they should
be praying for the wisdom to know the difference between their wants and
their needs. As long as people believe that having lots of money and owning
lots of stuff will save them, Baal is guaranteed to have plenty of worshippers.
But what about Anat, that
tough babe with the skulls hanging on her belt? Surely nobody worships her any more? Oh, I think that she has
more worshippers than El and Baal put together! In the ancient Middle East,
Anat was the goddess of violence and war. Our news today is full of the
brutality of ISIS in the Middle East, random shootings around the country, and
daily murders in inner city Chicago. The leader of one national group responded
to the Sandy Hook school shootings this way: “The only thing that stops a man
with a gun is a man with a bigger gun.” For too many people, the only solution
to violence is more violence. As long as that’s the case, I’d say that Anat
worship is alive and well!
Now, we have no excuse for
worshipping other gods. When the Israelites said that they didn’t know the god
of Moses, we can’t argue with them. They had seen Moses’ god provide food and
water for them; but they had also seen that god destroy the whole Egyptian army
in the Red Sea. Was Moses’ god a god of peace or a god of war? They really had
no idea. Maybe that god would turn on them
one day if they displeased him! Did they really
want to worship a god like that? But we can’t make that statement! We know
Jesus Christ; and Jesus clearly said, “If you have seen me, you have seen my
Father.” When we see Jesus heal lepers and invite them back into the community,
we see God including all people in his kingdom of grace, not just the movers
and shakers. When we taste the bread and wine of Holy Communion, we remember
that Jesus feeds us not with growing corn, but with himself. And when we hear
Jesus say, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” we hear God promising us a kingdom of
peace where violence has no place, and where all brokenness is healed. We know
God; and we know that God loves us unconditionally! If you have a god in your
back pocket, you might want to get rid of it. God accepts us as his children,
satisfies our deepest needs with his own presence, and invites us into his
kingdom of peace. After the death of Moses, Joshua proclaimed, “As for me and
my house, we will serve the Lord.” I hope that you decide to do the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment