Word to the Wise
Monday, July 27, 2009 - Monday in the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
[Exodus 32:15-24 and Matthew 13:31-35]Moses asked Aaron, "What did this people ever do to you that you should lead them into so grave a sin?" Aaron replied, "Let not my lord be angry. You know well enough how prone the people are to evil. They said to me, 'Make us a god to be our leader; as for the man Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.' So I told them, 'Let anyone who has gold jewelry take it off.' They gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and this calf came out."
Grade school and high school teachers know better than to leave the students alone in a classroom for too long, even if there is a "monitor" present! It must have taken God awhile to get those commandments carved into those stone tablets (and NOT as Roman numerals!). In any case, the Chosen People made their own choice. If God's "agent," Moses, was not going to be around, they would find an "agent" for another "god." Moses' brother, Aaron, shows himself to be a flexible kind of guy (Hey, go with the flow...!) and he is familiar enough with current designer-god patterns. His later explanation to Moses is really somewhat comical if it weren't such a serious offense: "I threw it [the gold] into the fire and this calf came out..." Yeah, right! There is much to be gained from serious meditation on this incident. I'll highlight just a couple. The first is the contrast between Moses and his brother, Aaron. Moses is going to represent God's message and will. Aaron is going to represent the great "Whatever...." Moses has the unenviable position of being a "mediator" between God and the Chosen People. Aaron just creates a "god" and lets things take whatever course the folks feel like doing! (It must have been quite a liturgy!) Pastors and liturgists have a lot to learn from this. The second is the whole question of our tendency to create a "god of our own design" when the commands of the true God become inconvenient or God appears to be "absent" or God's agent isn't around to keep things in line! We may find ourselves in big trouble. Moses grinds up the golden calf and makes soup of it! So much for the great god, Whatever! Blaming poor leadership isn't going to get us off the hook! AMEN