Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
11th of October 2026
Exodus 32:1-14
It has been a while since we have checked in with the Hebrew Scriptures. The last time was early in August, when the brothers of Joseph son of Jacob sold him into slavery, and he was taken to Egypt. In the weeks since, had we read the lectionary’s suggested First Readings, we would have seen Jacob’s descendants become numerous and wealthy in Egypt before being enslaved by ‘a new king … who did not know Joseph.’ (Exodus 1:8) We would have heard of the birth and saving of Moses; his conversation with a God who spoke from a burning bush; the Passover; the crossing of the Red Sea; the whinging people being fed by God with manna in the wilderness and given water from a rock; and then God giving Moses the Ten Commandments. A lot has happened, but the one thing that has remained constant has been God’s care for the Israelites: from hearing their cries on account of their taskmasters and knowing their sufferings (Exodus 3:7), to providing them with everything they need in the desert, despite their complaining (Exodus 16), to providing them with the Law they will need to live as God’s people. (Exodus 20) So, what is happening in today’s reading?
The God who has been shown as caring constantly for the Israelites is portrayed in today’s story as angry and unforgiving, eager to punish his sinning people with total annihilation. Admittedly, the people’s most recent sin is worse than their previous complaining against Moses and Aaron and looking back to the pots of meat and fill of bread they had in Egypt (Exodus 16:3). Moses has just passed on to the people the Ten Commandments, a gift to the people of Israel from the God who had rescued them from Egypt. Immediately before giving the people the Law, God had said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the Israelites: “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.’ The people responded: ‘Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.’ (Exodus 19:1-9) Now, almost immediately, the people have broken the commandments they promised to keep.
In response to their rejection of God, God rejects them. The Israelites are no longer ‘a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.’ Instead, the Lord says to Moses: ‘Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely ….’
As we hear today’s story from Exodus, we need to remember that the God it describes is a character. In the same way that we do not believe in a God who cares only for one nation out of all the nations of the world, and is willing to destroy seven other nations (the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites) to let the Israelites settle on the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 7:1-11), we do not need to believe in a God whose wrath burns so hot against sinners that God wants to consume them. But there are still things we can learn from today’s reading.
Moses is on the mountain talking with God; the people are at the bottom of the mountain under the leadership of Aaron. And ‘when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”’ Moses had been the one who, under God, rescued them from slavery and had brought them safely to the mountain to encounter God, and now, because he is taking a while to return to them from his communion with God, the people turn from him.
Impatience does seem to be the prevailing characteristic of the Israelites. At the very beginning of the Exodus, when the Israelites left their homes in Egypt, headed down to the seashore on their way to the wilderness, and then saw Pharaoh’s army chasing them, they cried: ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt?’ (Exodus 14:11) The Lord then killed the entire army of Pharaoh, and ‘Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.’ (Exodus 14:31) Then, there was the moan about the lack of water and food. It went on and on. Every time the Lord provided the people with what they needed, they then complained about something new. No wonder that now that they have demanded a golden god to worship, the Lord loses his temper completely and describes them as ‘stiff-necked.’
The story of the golden calf is usually seen as a story about idolatry, about the danger of us making gods for ourselves. But it is equally a story about the importance of patience, about the need to wait for the revelation of God, to have faith that what needs to happen will happen in God’s time, kairos time. This is a lesson the people of Israel needed to learn over forty long years, as they wandered in the wilderness. Sometimes we do need to wait upon the Lord.
The story of the golden calf is also a story of leadership. We are given two leaders in this story, Moses and Aaron, who behave in vastly different ways. Aaron is the ultimate poll-driven leader. When the people approach him and ask him to make gods for them, he agrees immediately. No suggestion to the people that what they demand might not be good or even that it might lead them into problems further down the track. Aaron is the patron of all leaders who are swayed by the acclaim of their people, who give in to popular prejudices against their own best judgment. Aaron creates for his people a god who is more accessible and easier to comprehend and control than the transcendent, numinous God who is always beyond human comprehension. It might make him a popular leader, but it does not make him a good one.
In contrast is Moses. Moses in this story is given a great temptation. God does not threaten to kill him. Instead, God offers to make Moses the new Abraham – ‘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 is not willing to save himself at his people’s expense. He acts as a good shepherd, protecting his people from their threatened annihilation. And he does it very cleverly. First, he reminds God that the people are in fact God’s people, repeating to God what the Lord had said to him: ‘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?’ Then he appeals to God’s concern for his reputation; if the Lord kills the people of Israel, the people of Egypt will be able to mock: ‘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.’ Finally, Moses reminds God of the promises that he made: ‘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 for ever.”’ He reminds God of his relationship with the patriarchs and the covenants he made with them. He reminds God of who God is. And in response to Moses’ skilful arguing, ‘the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.’
Moses provides the people with the leadership they need. It might not be particularly popular; it might not give them everything they demand; but it does provide them with what they need. And Moses’ good leadership gives the Lord the chance to repent of his wrath. I can imagine that the character God in this story would later be grateful to Moses for saving him from wiping out the people the Lord had claimed as his own. To people who lead, this story gives advice and a warning: be Moses, not Aaron. To people who follow, the advice and warning is similar; be wary of the leader who gives you exactly what you demand.
Despite today’s story, Christians do not believe that we worship a God willing to wipe us out when we sin. But we can see the God we worship, the Creator of the cosmos and the Father of our Lord Jesus, in the God who remembers his commitment to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and fulfils the covenant made with them. This God is faithful, freeing the people from slavery, providing them with food and water when they need it, leading them to the Promised Land, and forgiving them when they fall – after some wise words from Moses. This is a story of the Lord’s care for God’s people.
For the Israelites, the God they worshipped was the one who told them:
It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 7:7-8)
Their relationship with this God was so intimate and immediate that they could imagine God sending them quails to eat in the evening and bread in the morning (Exodus 16:13-16); they could imagine the Lord being so hurt by their rejection that God needed to be talked out of killing them. As I have said so many times this year, the religion created by the Jewish followers of Jesus is an inclusive Israel gathered from all the nations of the world. The character of the Lord in today’s story is not identical with the God we worship, but this sense of intimacy between God and God’s people is ours too.
Knowing this, may we not be as impatient as the Israelites were when Moses’ return to them was delayed. May we be able to wait on the Lord even when God seems absent, being of good courage and taking heart, because the Lord loves us and has redeemed us with a mighty hand. Amen.
