READ | SERMON NOTES
Summary l A common parable is told about four blind men and an elephant. By feeling just one part, they each had a very different idea of the appearance of the elephant based on their perceived truth. In the same way, no assumptions can be made about what God is like based on just our own understanding. Also, we cannot know Him just by thinking or feeling. He has to reveal himself to us!
In Exodus 32, the people chose to reach up to God to try to make sense of Him themselves, instead of waiting for God’s self revelation which was coming down with Moses in the form of the Ten Commandments. If we do not let God speak on His own terms, through His Word, we are bound to infer erroneously who He is and what He is like.
The people inferred that God was unpredictable because Moses had not returned. The golden calf they made was a representation of Baal, the Canaanite god of the storm. They had seen lightning and heard thunder on the top of Mount Sinai so they formed their own opinions instead of waiting for God to reveal Himself.
In V4 the people declare “These are your gods, O Israel”. This is strange as there was clearly only one idol.
By leaning on their own understanding, the people seem to have acquired a pantheon of gods. “In biblical thinking, the abandonment of the living god is not followed by atheism but by polytheism.” (Iain Provan) Aaron then built an altar and announced a festival to the Lord following the pattern of orthodox worship as decreed by Yahweh. It is possible to believe that we are worshipping the true God when in actual fact we are participating in idol worship.
”In that ancient community, as even now, idolatry (wrong speech about God) rather than atheism (refusal to speak about God) is the more compelling and dangerous issue.” (Walter Brueggemann)
Idolatry is anything we believe about God that does not come from Him.
Israel is exactly like the blind men trying to see what the elephant is like without realising that the elephant wants to reveal himself. We too make the same mistakes. There are three gods we tend to worship in Wesley.
The god who helps those who help themselves. This ancient Greek wisdom is not Biblical. We cannot earn salvation. God saved His people before he gave the law. The covenant is unilateral. We cannot help ourselves despite the plethora of self-help books. We must surrender to God.
The god who is only approached in praise. Conventional wisdom starts a worship service with upbeat praise songs. But we have lost the ability to lament. This denies the present suffering and tragedy in the world. We become too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.
The god who takes our souls to heaven (and discards our bodies). This implies that spiritual things are good but earthly things are bad. Yet Jesus prays for his kingdom to come to earth and was resurrected so we too must believe in bodily resurrection.
We need to stop worshipping false idols. God helps those who cannot help themselves. God wants us to come to Him with all our real emotions and questions. And our bodily resurrection means we can look forward to meeting our loved ones again in eternity. Are we worshipping the true God?
PONDER | REFLECTION QUESTIONS
- In your opinion, who is Theology for? An exclusive few? Or for everyone? Why?
- What is God like to you? Where does that idea come from?
- In the sermon, there are three ‘gods’ mentioned – have you ever believed in these gods?
- How do your beliefs about God affect the way you see the world and live?
