SCRIPTURE: Exodus 33:12-22
TEXT: THEME: we are favored by God because of GOD’s character INTRODUCTION When we summed up the Ten Commandments last week, the commandment about carrying the name of God seemed to encompass all of the other commands of loving God and loving others. Desmond Tutu expressed this by calling women from his church in South Africa “God carriers.” Not only are they made in the image of God, but as the ones who carry the Name of God for all the world to see, by what it means to live in relationship with God. Israel is growing in their relationship with God. They have an incredible heritage and a homeland that they are returning to. They have God’s involvement in their lives, liberating them from Pharaoh, providing in the wilderness. But now Moses has been away from them as he went up the Mountain to spend time with God. They feel insecure, frightened, nervous, and abandoned. Fear causes them to feel anxious as they wait for Moses’ return. They soon reach the point where they are ready to abandon all of the headway they have made in their relationship with God. They resort back to what they are familiar with. They go to Aaron, sensing their evil intent, he initiates a grand gesture to appease their fears. He collects their gold and forge it in the shape of a calf, a symbol strength and wealth. While on the mountain, God gives Moses a heads up of what is happening down below. God is ready to throw in the towel with Israel but Moses restates the intents of God and God stays the course. This doesn’t prevent Moses from being livid when he arrives and sees the revery and smashes the stone tablets. God would step back and let some other heavenly agent take oversights over these people. But Moses, in the passage for today, convinces God to remain and have favor with the people God. SCRIPTURE Moses’ negotiations with God are clever. He is not making God do anything God doesn’t want to do. Actually all Moses does is restates what God has said, God wanted to accomplish. How can Israel show that they are a favored people if God is not with them? How can God show Israel the way of God if God is not with them? How can God be distant from them if they are to carry their relationship with God to other people? This brings us to the importance of this passage, of being favored by God. I listened to a Pod cast this week by Mo King who interviewed African American Astronaut Leland Melvin. Leland Melvin is also a former NFL athlete, scientist, engineer, photographer, musician, author, and an inspiration to the next generation of explorers to pursue S.T.E.M. careers. As he tells the story of his life, at critical points there were people who helped him, stepped in, gave guidance, and encouragement. He described them as the man in the Yellow hat from Curious George books. The man in the Yellow Hat was always there and always had Curious George’s back. We have people who have done that for us, and this is what it means to have God’s favor, to have God present, to be in relationship with God. It is living our lives as Curious George and knowing that God, will be the person in the Yellow Hat, who always has our back. This is what it means for us to be God Carriers, this is what it means to be God’s People, distinctive for the rest of the nations of the world to see. God has our back. APPLICATION In our evolution of theology, of what it means to be the church, is being shaped by changes in our society. Certainly technology is shaping us. The younger generation not finding our present form of the church relevant, is changing us. We are more than a century and a half of being the church in Wailuku, with stories of God, and faithful people who have shaped us into who we are today. Building upon that foundation, we are trying to position ourselves to be ready for the next thing God is going to be doing as the church. How do we continue to build upon where we have come to and not find comfort in the old models of how we used to be? Moses negotiated for the presence of God to continue to be with the people of God as a sign of God’s continued favor upon them. As God is present, there can be a continued understanding of what it means to live according to God’s ways. There can be a continued discovery of the many facets of the character of God, there can be the building of our live on truth with a deeper of appreciation of its wisdom. Our relationship with God has never been on where we ask and God gives. It has been a mission, a calling, an equipping, sending and engagement. Our God cannot be manipulated or managed. This is not the kind of God that makes life or religion easier, but the Certainly, kind of God that travels with us, moves us towards others, wrestles with us, builds and forms better communities. Seeing God face to face, as equals is not the goal of our life with God. It would be the death of us. But being able to see the glory left in God’s wake is. To see the activity of God in love, compassion, making accommodations for others to participate, God’s listening to our cries and God’s initiation of good towards us is all part of living in God’s favor. CONCLUSION God’s Compassion and favor towards us is not based on how good we are, but on the character of God, just like how our parents loved us when we were good and bad. It is God’s character that shapes and forms us to evolve as human beings. I talked with Josh, our Hoku I’wa consultant this week and he asked how things were going with the working of the Three churches. I said we are at three very different places. And then came the fear. When I retire or die in the pulpit, whichever comes first, and the church is without pastoral leadership for a couple years, A few well intended members will go to the Council and say, “we want things to go back to the way they were.” Then the Council will say, “lets collect all of your gold rings, earrings, bracelets and chains and melt them down into a mold of an idol of the past and have a revival.” Or will the church say, “We have come all this way with God, theologically, structurally, in being the faithful people of God and in what we are doing in the community. And yes, it is uncomfortable to feel this anxiety and discomfort, with the calling of the new minister taking so long (because there are less ministers out there, and those in seminary don’t want to work with congregations, and not all are theologically trained to consider other theological theories of salvation) but God has brought us here this far. So let us keep on keeping on, trusting in God, in ourselves and each other until the next part unfolds.” When things take longer than we think it is okay to sit in the discomfort and resist the temptation to snap back to how things used to be and wrestle with God, because if we do, we see God, like the Person in the Yellow Hat being with us. I hope there would be some in the congregation who would shout out “No golden calf.” And the historians in our group who would say “remember, Edmund Bailey when he was the only member for 10 years, remember when E.K Fernandez cut the price of their soda at the County Fair and how God provided. Remember how God kept us going during the Pandemic. Remember when we got the new organ. Remember when we needed money to fix the roof on Ritter and Sanderson Hall. Remember that God has been there like a person in a Yellow Hat and God is there for us today.” And then someone will say let’s turn to the TNCH 25 and sing, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” and all kinds of prayer would erupt as we would be church. WUC would be in many forms incarnate in Wailuku, and we all would be praying. and would be the church following God.
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