Today’s Scripture Reading (July 22,
2013): Psalm 106
I recently
watched Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello sing and dance their way through “Hudson
Hawk.” In fact, as I write this I cannot get their duet of “Swinging on a Star”
out of my head. The plot of the 1991 film is about a thief who is getting out
of jail. And the plot twists early in
the movie as Hawk (played by Bruce Willis) is walking out of prison and his
parole officer is casting the vision for the next crime that he wants Hawk to
commit. Now, it is not supposed to be that way. The parole officer is the one
person that you would think would be the one making sure that you were planning
to go straight. But in this movie, the parole officer is playing for the other
team. He tells Hawk that his future is in his hands, and if he refuses to do
the crime then he will find some way to send him back to prison to do the time.
The Psalmist
remembers what happened at Horeb. Horeb is another name for the area around
Mount Sinai. And part of the shame of the events at Horeb (the making of a calf
to worship) is that it happens in the shadow of Mount Sinai. While Moses is up
on the mountain having an authentic experience with God, Israel is settling for
a counterfeit experience.
Part of what
God is telling Moses on the mountain while the Golden Calf is being created is
that Israel shall make no image that is supposed to be him. The second
commandment reads like this – “You shall not make for yourself an image in the
form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters
below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them ... (Exodus 20:2-5a.) But
that was exactly what Israel was doing. Sometimes we think that they were maybe
worshiping other Gods, but the reality is that they made the Golden Calf and
called it Yahweh. In the same way, the Northern Kingdom of Israel when they
broke away from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, did exactly the same thing –
they made two Golden Calves and called them the God who has brought us out of
Egypt – they called them Yahweh.
Horeb became
remembered as the first place where Israel sinned by trying to make an image of
God. I have said this before, but I am honestly concerned about the way that we
treat the cross inside the Christian Church. I know that we never intended it
to be this way, but sometimes that cross has the potential to become our Golden
Calf – it has the potential to become the plot twist that we never saw coming.
The cross is a symbol, but it is not God. And for me the second commandment
makes it clear that we are never to bow down to it. And yet I see good
Christian people bowing down to a cross almost every week. I am scared that we
are close to committing the sins of Horeb.
God says
make sure that the one that you are bowing down to is me – and not any image of
me. The Calf was not wrong because it was another god, but because it was
supposed to be a representation of the living God – which God has prohibited.
And good people were enticed into sin without realizing that what they were
doing was wrong.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm
111 & 112
No comments:
Post a Comment