When I was little, I had a children’s Bible; but even though it was a children’s Bible, it still had a lot of words in it. So Dad would read stories from it to me and my sister…
And this is one of the first stories I remember.
And back then, as a young child, I thought: how could the people have made such a bad choice, creating a golden calf while Moses was up on the mountain, talking to God, and receiving the Ten Commandments?
And I admit, in my young mind, I judged the Hebrews for what they had done, and I especially judged Aaron for going along with it, when he should have been the one to talk them out of it!
Well, my thoughts on this story have changed a lot over the years.
These days, I’m more inclined to identify with the people, and with Aaron… I judge them much less harshly these days. I sympathize with them, and I wonder if I would have done the same as they did, if I were in their situation.
Because: the scripture says that “The people saw that Moses delayed…”
I hate delays. I want a timeline, and I want people to stick to the timeline. Just ask Ginger how annoyed I get when we agree that we’re leaving the house at 9:00, and it’s 9:05, and we still haven’t left the house! I’m in the car, ready, because this is the time we said we were going to leave!
It happens all the time.
Moses was delayed; the people were annoyed.
Why was Moses delayed? Why didn’t he come back when expected?
Did Moses know how long it would take? Did he say, “OK, I’ll be back one week from today, in time for dinner”? Or did God not tell Moses how long it would take?
I think a schedule, a formal timeline, would have been helpful here, as long as everyone stuck to it…
That way, the people would have known when to expect him.
Then, when some of them started getting antsy and anxious and annoyed, others would say, “Hey, it’s only Tuesday; Moses said he wouldn’t be back until Friday.”
And then everyone would chill and relax, and all would be well.
But no. Apparently the timeline wasn’t given. It was indefinite. And things were taking longer than expected.
And yeah, that’s the kind of thing that drives me crazy.
I mean, do you see how we check our watches, check the clocks on our phones, so we start worship on time? (And by “we,” I mean, “me.”) Don’t want to be late!
We often have people worshiping with us online, and I know that if I’m waiting for a live, online event to start, I start to wonder what’s going on if nothing happens after just a few minutes.
If the time comes, and a minute goes by, and another minute goes by, I say to myself,
It hasn’t started yet? But it’s three whole minutes since the time it was supposed to start! What’s going on?
Once it gets to five minutes, I’ll go back and double check the posted time, just to make sure I didn’t get it wrong.
Once it gets to ten minutes, I assume they are having technical difficulties, and that it’s not going to happen at all, and I’ll just give up, and go look for something else to do.
Well, Moses was gone a lot more than ten minutes.
—
Like me, Presbyterian pastor Kathryn Z. Johnston has sympathy for Aaron. This, despite the fact that Aaron was the one who actually made the golden calf.
Pastor Johnston has wondered if maybe Aaron was just stalling for time. The people were upset, who knows what they’d do, so Aaron told them to go gather together all their gold.
That’s going to take awhile, right? Especially among all those thousands of people…
And while they’re off collecting all the gold from everyone, maybe Aaron is muttering, “Come on, Moses… I can’t stall forever…”
I don’t know.
But I do know how easy it is to get impatient when things don’t happen when we think they should happen, when things are delayed… and how easy it is to, maybe, do something you might regret or wish you hadn’t done just because you couldn’t wait for things to unfold.
So they gathered all their gold, and they gave it to Aaron; and, giving in to the pressure, unable to stall any longer, Aaron melted it down and made it into a calf.
And the people said to each other: "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!"
—
Meanwhile, up on the mountain, 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.”
Notice the use of the word, “quick.” They have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them.
Well. It didn’t seem all that quick to the people. It seemed to them like they had been waiting too long, that God had been acting too slowly, that things hadn’t been moving quickly at all.
What seemed quick to God seemed like too long to the people.
And isn’t that something we all have experienced!
In Psalm 106, the psalmist reflects on these things, and writes that the people “forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt” (106:21). They forgot God’s faithfulness. They forgot that God could be trusted, no matter how long things took.
—
I’m currently studying the story from John’s gospel about when Jesus raised Lazarus. I’m actually reading two books about it; one a nonfiction exploration of the story by James Martin; and the other, a fictionalized novel about Lazarus.
And in the story of Lazarus, when Lazarus is sick and eventually dies, his sisters both say to Jesus: “If you had been here, our brother would not have died.”
Jesus took too long. And Lazarus’ sisters—Mary and Martha—were upset. They didn’t understand. They were angry, and justifiably so.
Jesus took too long, and his delay in coming allowed death to take their brother.
I’d be upset too!
Just like I am upset at the many ways that God seems to move too slowly.
Why hasn’t God brought peace to Israel and Palestine?
Why hasn’t God led us to ending hunger and homelessness?
Why hasn’t God revealed more of his mysteries to me, so that I might have some of my deepest, most troubling questions answered?
—
But my comfort comes when I remember these stories from the past, how God was with Moses on the mountain, taking the time to help Moses prepare to lead the people into the promised land.
And I remember how God did raise Lazarus back to life, once Jesus arrived in Bethany.
And I remember that, though God may not always follow the timeline I wished God would follow, God was and is always there, always present, always working to bring greater healing and wholeness.
And these stories—of Aaron and the people losing patience and quickly falling away from God’s commands, and of Mary and Martha losing patience with Jesus and expressing their frustration at his delay—let me know that, whenever I feel annoyed or anxious, that I am not alone, that better, more faithful people than I have felt the same.
And these stories also remind me that, in all circumstances—even though God may not act as quickly as we hope or expect God to act—that God is always faithful, always trustworthy.
—
Five years ago, I preached a sermon on Habakkuk, and in that sermon I talked about our New Beginnings process. In that sermon, I said: “In our New Beginnings program, we keep finding ourselves rushing to find solutions and fix problems. Slowly but surely we're getting there. But “slowly but surely” is hard for some of us, isn't it?”
And, in that sermon, I also said: “It’s hard to wait.”
Well, now it’s five years later, and we’re still figuring things out, still having these New Beginnings conversations.
Granted, part of the reason for that is that the pandemic came along and stopped everything, and so much time passed, but all that just added to the delay, didn’t it?
How long must we wait?
And yet, throughout this whole process, have we not been made aware of God’s presence? Have we not learned new things about who we are, and who God is calling us to be?
So, maybe the waiting has been worth it.
The prophet Habakkuk wrote: There is still a vision for the appointed time. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come.
That is a message we too easily forget. We want what we want, and we want it now.
Yet I know—and I believe—that God is trustworthy.
I may not understand why God takes the time God sometimes does, or why God seems to delay when the need seems so urgent…
I may not have the patience I would like; I may get annoyed, or anxious, or even angry…
But God is trustworthy.
And when I forget that, or doubt that, I know I need to re-read the countless stories in scripture that remind me of God’s trustworthiness and faithfulness,
And I need to remember the times in my own life when God acted faithfully, and how I often did not even realize that God was doing so until after the fact.
And I’ll remember that what seems like a too-long delay to people often seems quick to God.
And if I do forget (when I do forget), I know that the Spirit will intercede on my behalf, just as Moses interceded on behalf of the people, and God will be patient with me—far more patient than I am with God—and God, who is slow to anger, yet abounding in steadfast love, will give me grace, and will not let anything separate me from God’s love.
Because God is faithful, and God is trustworthy.
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