19th Sunday after Pentecost
October 19, 2014
Exodus 33:12-23
This morning’s passage from Exodus falls in between the
two sets of ten commandments. If you
remember, the first time Moses comes down Mount Sinai with the ten commandments
inscribed on two stone tablets, he finds that the Israelites have melted
together all their gold jewelry and made a baby cow to worship. Moses is so upset he breaks the stone
tablets. Later, he goes back up Mount
Sinai to get another set from God.
Today’s conversation between Moses and God happens in between those two
trips up Mount Sinai. It happens after
Israel breaks their part of the covenant with God, by getting impatient waiting
for Moses to return and so making an idol to worship. The Israelite leaders who were left in charge
know that they’ve messed up, and Moses is so furious he smashes the first set
of commandments and has to go get another set!
So much for “Thou shalt have Taco Tuesday.” Now it’s “Thou shalt not kill.” Way to go, Israelites. Idle hands can be the devil’s playthings, and
now that God’s seen what the Israelites do when they’re bored, he tells them
that break time’s over. God tells Moses
that it is time to leave Sinai; they are not in the promised land yet, and God
will send an angel with them, because God’s so
mad that if he goes himself, he might go all fire-and-brimstone on them and
start over with the lemurs. And that’s
where today’s conversation comes in, where Moses talks God into coming,
too.
Moses’ main argument is that Israel’s survival depends on
God’s presence. Israel is God’s people,
made by God, set apart by God to be his people, and their existence doesn’t only
make no sense without God, their existence just doesn’t happen without God. God has to go with them if they’re going to
move forward. They can’t do anything
without God. They can’t save
themselves. They obviously can’t rely on
their own righteousness or morality to keep them going. When they tried that, they started worshiping
a golden calf! In a similar way, our lives don’t make sense without God’s
presence, either. The church,
gathering together on Sunday morning, is pointless if God didn’t exist. It’s really hard to be “God’s people” without
God, and “golden cow’s people” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Our existence doesn’t prove God exists;
rather, we exist because God called us
into existence. God called us to follow him.
This all began because of God. He
made us in his image and issued the invitation; he invited us to his feast; he called
us to be his people. And our survival as
God’s people, just like Israel’s, depends on him. We cannot be good enough or virtuous enough
or do enough right things to ensure our continued existence. We depend on the presence of God in our lives. We cannot save ourselves; our existence and
salvation depend on God.
Now, there are times when it is obvious God is
present. In many Anglican, Episcopal,
and Catholic churches there is a red light somewhere in the chancel area above
the altar. This light signifies that the
bread and wine for communion are present, because these are traditions that
celebrate the Lord’s Supper every week.
These churches want you to know that Christ is present in his sanctuary,
in case you’d forgotten or weren’t thinking about it. It’s a visible reminder.
However,
there are other times when it’s harder to recognize God’s presence. They say hindsight is 20/20. Sometimes
we do not recognize God is present until after the fact. Take, for example, how the conversation
between Moses and God ends. Moses has
already talked God into doing one thing, now he asks for something else: to see
God’s glory, “the dazzling light of God’s presence.”[1] Moses, you see, is a pretty gutsy guy. Not only does he insist that God not incinerate
his people, but now he wants to get a good look at him. God says no, you may not see my face and
live. But, God says, I’ll hide you in
the cleft of a rock, an opening in the rock.
I will go past the rock and while you cannot see the front of me, you will see my back. After God has passed by, Moses can see God’s
back. He can see that God has been
there. He can’t see God while God is
present right in front of him, but after God passes by, Moses can see God’s
back. Similarly, we don’t always recognize
when God is present. Yes, it’s easy to
say God is always present everywhere, but sometimes we only really realize God is
there, afterward.
When Jacob was sent from his parents, Isaac and Rebekah,
to work for his uncle Laban, he spent the night in Bethel. That’s the night he dreamed about the ladder
going up to heaven and angels going up and down the ladder and God spoke to
Jacob in the dream. In the morning when Jacob
woke up, he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it!”[2] There are times we don’t go looking for God,
or we don’t expect God to show up, or we are somewhere where we don’t expect
God to be. There are times we don’t
recognize God’s presence until afterward, and then we say, oh, God had his hand
in this! Yup, God was definitely
watching out for me. “Surely the Lord is
in this place and I did not know it!”
Or, after we had decided to move to Maryland and my
husband was commuting up here during the week, we had our doubts as to whether
we’d made the right decision. Yes, it
was the move we had discerned from God, but maybe God was crazy or maybe we
shouldn’t have listened or maybe we’d heard wrong, because the move didn’t make
sense. Last spring, when my husband was
getting far more familiar with I-95 than he’d have liked, a song that caught
his attention on the radio was “Home” by Phillip Phillips. Listening to it, my husband realized that God
was indeed in this place and in our move and it reaffirmed that God was in our
decision to move. The chorus of the song
says, “Just know you're not alone, ’cause I'm gonna make this place your
home.” Surely the Lord is in this place,
in this decision, in this event, and I did not know it or I had my doubts about
it! Has that happened to you? Looking back on something, you realized God
was there? Or you thought God was there,
and then questioned it, and then God gave you reassurance that he was indeed
there?
Finally, it is important to acknowledge God’s presence
when you recognize it. A good way to NOT
acknowledge God’s presence is by making a golden cow. I don’t recommend that. There are, however, a variety of ways to
respond to the recognition of God’s presence, and they all involve some form of
worship. As I’ve said before, we were
made to worship. One form of worship is
the prayer before a meal. The family
prayer I grew up saying at dinner time is also found in our hymnal and begins
by praying, “Be present at our table, Lord.”[3] It’s a prayer that explicitly invites God to
be present at the dinner table. Any
prayer before a meal acknowledges that God is taking care of us by providing
the meal. Remember, our survival depends
on him, and that includes our physical survival. Another common part of grace is
gratitude. At mealtimes and other times
we explicitly give thanks for God’s presence in our lives and for his provision. Having an attitude of gratitude keeps us
mindful of our dependence on God. Besides
an invitation to be present and a prayer of thanksgiving, another form of worship
is praise. An excellent song of praise
was our psalm this morning. “The Lord is
King; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the
earth quake! The Lord is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples. Let
them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is he!”[4] Our opening hymn this morning was one of
praise: “Crown him with many crowns!” We
praise God for his presence in our lives.
In all these forms of worship we are marking the spot, remembering the
event of God’s presence in our lives. Jacob
marked his spot at Bethel with a stone, saying “Surely God is in this place.” We mark our worship with prayers and hymns and
praises, with our offering and with the sacraments. We acknowledge God’s presence by worshiping
him.
God’s presence is what makes our presence possible. He guides us and leads us. He keeps us safe in the palm of his
hand. He speaks to us. We may not always recognize when he is
present, but once we do recognize it, we owe him our worship, because he alone
is worthy of worship. Not gold cows or
anything else.
Our middle
hymn this morning is “Rock of Ages Cleft for Me.” Perhaps you’re hiding in the rock this
morning, waiting to see God’s presence.
Or maybe you’re at the point of acknowledging that your life and your salvation
depend on God. Either way, it’s the
water and the blood from Christ that save us.
Not something that we do on our own.
Not something a golden calf can do.
Our presence relies on God’s presence.
Our final hymn this morning is one of praise. “How Great Thou Art” celebrates God’s
presence in creation and in our lives. When
I consider all that God has done, and all that God is doing, my soul sings to
my Savior God, “how great thou art.” Thanks
be to God. Amen.
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