From the Daily Lectionary for Thursday in the Fourth Week of Lent
Exodus 32:7–14
The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'” The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”
But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'” And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
One thing I love about the Daily Office Lectionary is that we get to read passages of scripture that are not a part of the Sunday cycle of readings. This passage is one such example, and it is a wild one! God is royally peeved at the wandering people of Israel in the desert of Sinai. While Moses has been meeting with God up on Mt. Horeb, the Israelites have made an idol for themselves, and they have begun worshipping it. This, of course, is a violation of the Covenant (You will worship only the Lord your God). God’s first reaction is that God will wipe them out, which is the second part of the Covenant (Turn from me and you will be cursed). And then Moses, appealing to God’s ego [“Why should the Egyptians say, it was with evil intent that he (the Hebrew God) brought them out to kill them in the mountains.”]. Moses then acts as advocate for the preservation of the Hebrew people… and then we are told that God changes God’s mind…. Does God change God’s mind?!
For me, being something of a devotee to Process Theology, this is a testimony to God’s improvisational tendencies. Rather than having a concrete plan of salvation, it seems that God is making it up as God goes; adapting; using God’s creative imagination; honoring the random iterations of the created order, which God Godself created. If we humans are made in the image of God, and we learn, grow and evolve, then it stands to reason (at least among Process Theologians) that God grows, learns and evolves as well.
Jack Miles is a formidable, but little-known Jesuit theologian, who has written a book entitled God, a Biography. Based on Hebrew scripture, his premise is that throughout the so-called “Old” Testament God is becoming; learning how to manage the created order; learning how to cope with disobedient humans; growing in wisdom, maturing into God’s own Godlikeness, if you will.
My point is, we have learned much more about God than this caricature the Deuteronomistic historian presents (Perhaps God has learned a lot about Godself as well?). In the person of Jesus we know that God is about giving away God’s life for the well-being of the world; that God is about welcoming the outcasts, the shamed, and the disenfranchised, even the sinner. God is Love, and Love is sacrifice… Loving one’s neighbor as one Loves oneself. And we also know that God suffers in solidarity with us; that is what the Cross means, participating in the crises that are life’s journey toward reconciliation, renewal, and joy. In these times of challenge, remember that God does not need cajoling into sparing us from harm. God is with us in every moment of what the beautiful randomness of creation can muster. God is Love, and Love is stronger than we know.
A prayer for Compline (BCP p. 134 adapted)
O God, your unfailing providence sustains the world we live in and the life we live: Watch over those, both night and day, who work while others sleep, especially for healthcare workers and essential service workers, and grant that we may never forget that our common life depends upon each other’s toil; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
