We Should Fear, Love, and Trust in God above All Things

+ In the Name of Jesus +
We Should Fear, Love, and Trust in God above All Things
Sermon on Exodus 32:15-26
for Pentecost 5 (Proper 8, A)
June 29-July 2, 2023

It’s strange and interesting what you remember as a child. I remember our First Reading from Exodus—either as a Sunday School lesson or a Bible History lesson in school. First, I remember how strange it was that God was giving Moses the Ten Commandments on the top of Mount Sinai, and the Israelites were breaking the first of those Commandments at the foot of the mountain. Second, I remembered what they were worshipping. A golden calf. I grew up on a dairy farm, so I knew about calves. Sometimes I had the job of mixing up a powdered milk product for the calves to drink. Small, awkward and sometimes scrawny animals. What a thing to worship! (Historians tell us that the Egyptians worshipped a bull god named Apis, and that is probably what the Israelites were imitating.)

I. We should fear … God above all things.

1. Exodus 33 is a lesson in the First Commandment. In the catechism we learned it as “You shall have no other gods. What does this mean? We should fear, love and trust in God above all things.” We often teach that the word “fear” in Luther’s explanation means “to have a holy respect.” More and more, I find myself explaining “fear” as “taking God seriously.” Think of what happened earlier in the book of Exodus. Moses went to the king of Egypt and said, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Let my people go.’” The king refused, and then the Lord turned the Nile to blood. “Take me seriously!” “See what I can do?” It was also God’s way of convicting them of a crime—the Egyptians had thrown Israelite baby boys in the river. Now, the river turns to blood—much like Abel’s blood crying out to God for justice (Genesis 4:11). And then when the king refused, there were frogs, and then there were gnats, and then there were flies, and then there was disease on the animals, and then there were boils, and then hail, darkness, and the death of the firstborn. “Take me seriously!” God was saying—both to the Egyptians, and to the Israelites. “See the power of God who is rescuing you from slavery!”
2. Now what do we see at the foot of Mount Sinai? A lack of fear. They had heard God say, “You shall have no other gods beside me. You shall not make any carved image for yourself… Do not bow down to them or be subservient to them”  (Exodus 20:3-5). And now what are they doing? Aaron was the worst! Aaron had already been appointed Moses’ spokesman and God’s High Priest. He should have known better, but what does he do? He fears the people. “[The people] said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”  He took the desires of the people more seriously than the clear word from God.
3. We have signs of the power of God that should make us pause. This last week we had two funerals. Life is short—for an 81 year old or a 52 year old—for both of them, the end was sudden and short. “Take me seriously,” God says.  “Seek the Lord while he may be found” (Isaiah 55: 6). We see terrible things in the news: war, political corruption, natural disaster. “Take me seriously,” God says. We see many who don’t take God seriously, bringing shame and destruction on themselves and others. Sometimes we feel the hurt, first hand, of someone who hurt, harmed, or betrayed us. God gave his commands, “Do not murder,” “Do not hurt or harm your neighbor,” “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not give false witness,” to protect his gifts. Someone didn’t take God seriously, and we felt the hurt. All those are a call to us to take our God seriously.

II. “We should … love … God above all things.”

1. Love is a word that can mean that you regard someone as most important. When God gave his commandments, he prefaced them with a word of love, a word of Old Testament gospel. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, where you were slaves” (Exodus 20:2). “I want you! I want to be your God, and I want you to be my people.” “I saw you in your need, and I freed you.” God saw his people as most important. Important enough to interrupt history, to interrupt the laws of nature, to visit the Egyptians with plagues and pestilence, all to free his people and to keep his promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
2. St. John wrote, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).  That means “We look to God, because he first looked out for us.” “We look to others, because God first loved us.” We live in a world of so many distractions—each one that demands our attention—many of them are really distractions to serve self at the expense of helping someone else. God want us to love him above all things, to pay attention to what he tells us—both for his glory and our good, and for the good of those around us.

III. “We should … trust in God above all things.”

1. Trust is what makes faith faith. Aaron was lacking in trust. He was impatient. “They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’” Aaron was also jealous. “Little brother Moses has his God and is getting plenty of attention, I’ll make my own” (See Numbers 12).
2. God is worthy of your trust. Trust comes from fear and love, doesn’t it? We take our God and his word seriously, regard him and his word as most important, and then we trust, we apply that to our situation. It can make a change in how we look at things. It can move us to action. Like Abraham, packing up and moving out when he had no directions from God other than “Go to a land I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). Like the Twelve apostles hearing Jesus’ command, “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18), and then actually going. On the other hand, lack of trust can display itself in lack of love and lack of fear. Judas trusted his own ability to get money, and when Jesus interfered with that, his love disappeared. He also didn’t take the power of all the miracles seriously. His greed had gotten that strong.
3. Jesus tells us that by letting go of the things the world fears, loves and trusts, we will truly find our life with him (Matthew 10:38-39). Living in that love and trust for God and reflecting his love for us is a different kind of righteousness—not a righteousness to earn anything, but a reflection of God’s goodness.

God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

Amen.

Exodus 32:15–26

15Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

17When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.”

18Moses replied:

“It is not the sound of victory, it is not the sound of defeat; it is the sound of singing that I hear.”

19When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. 20And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.

21He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?”

22“Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil. 23They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ 24So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”

25Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. 26So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him.