Very near the beginning, and very near the end of the Old Testament story, are two great disasters. Near the beginning we have the story of God creating the paradisal garden of Eden and setting in it the first man and the first woman. The God who is all goodness and generosity creates something different from God’s own self: a delightful, rich, productive space in which a very special being can respond with a Godlike goodness and generosity. This being is the human race. But, strangely, this first man and this first woman mess things up catastrophically and are expelled from the Garden of Eden. This is the first, the original disaster, of the Bible’s story.
Very near the end of the great Old Testament story, Jerusalem, the holy city is besieged, captured and destroyed by the armies of the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar. Many of God’s chosen people, Israel, are taken into exile. The temple, the meeting place of heaven and earth, is destroyed. The holiest object of all, the Ark, is lost for ever. The date is 587 BC. The sinfulness of the people had brought down on their heads a disaster. The original disaster of Adam and Eve has found expression in the historical sinfulness of God’s own people Israel.
If this were not enough, set between these bookends is another episode: the making and worship of the golden calf. As God says in our reading from Exodus, ‘[The people] have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods!’ This is another disaster.
Let’s put this episode in its context. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has rescued his people from the cruel slavery of Egypt. They have come to the holy mountain, called in the Old Testament both Sinai and Horeb. At the holy mountain God has told the people through Moses, ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore … obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession.’ (Exodus 19.3f). After this the people are given the ‘Ten Words’ or ‘Ten Commandments’. Then Moses goes up the mountain to receive the fuller teaching of God which include details of how God is going to continue to meet with the people in the future. This would be the ‘Tent of Meeting’ or ‘tabernacle’. At its heart was the Ark, also called the mercy seat, the very throne of God. ‘There I will meet you’, God says to Moses.
After all this, what could possibly go wrong? Everything it seems. The people impatient at Moses’ 40 day stay on the mountain think they know better. Perhaps this God that Moses has asked us to follow has disappeared. They then get Aaron, Moses’ brother, to arrange for the casting of the golden calf. In doing this the people have broken the bond of sacred trust. Understandably, God is pretty fed up. No, its more than that, God is angry. No, more than that God shows that he is a searing flame of holiness and what has happened is so fundamentally misguided and perverse that it must be destroyed.
The first humans found themselves expelled from the paradisal garden. The people of Israel were sent into an alien land, Babylon. So now, at the foot of the holy mountain, the people have rejected their status as sons and daughters of the living God; they have exchanged their glory for an idol. They are about to feel the impact of the holy and righteous God.
What are we to make of all this? Well, as they say there’s good news and bad news. Which do we want first? The bad news.
Actually I think it is sobering news. What we have laid before us in the Biblical story is a picture, an insight into the human condition. What is it actually like being a human being? What situation are we in? Adam and Eve are all of us. That’s the point of the story. They make wrong, even disastrous choices. We, the human race, make wrong even disastrous choices. And we are never to think that it’s just other people who are capable of doing that and do do that.
Listen to some words of a prayer I have been using since the invasion of Ukraine: Lord, as we remember with sadness the horror of war….open our eyes to see our own part in discord and aggression between people now; forgive us our pride and divisions.
It’s a prayer for sight, true seeing, of what it means to be human. And we see the bitter fruit of humanity’s folly and cruelty: Ukraine, agricultural land turning to desert owing to climate change, Gaza, the extinction of swathes of species on land and in the seas. This is our situation. ‘Lord, open our eyes.’
The good news. It’s there in our reading from Exodus and in our Gospel (Good News) reading from Luke. Moses pleads with God, ‘O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people? … whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?… turn from your fierce wrath … and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel your servants and swore to them by your own self ‘ I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven.’ (Exodus 32.11ff.). Notice the crucial phrase ‘your people’. The good news is that God cannot afford to abandon God’s people. As the Exodus reading ends up, ‘And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster he planned to bring on his people.’
God cannot afford to abandon God’s people. It’s there in our gospel reading too: the parable of lost sheep. We had this same gospel on our recent Good Shepherd Sunday. The shepherd realises, as he pens up the sheep for the night, that one is missing. Why is he so concerned? Because the sheep are his livelihood. It’s an economic parable. The sheep are his living. The shepherd can’t afford to lose a sheep. Jesus’ hearers would know that. That’s why Jesus uses this parable. God cannot afford to lose any one of his people, even the sinners whom Jesus is spending so much time with. Jesus embodies the God who cannot afford to abandon God’s people. That’s the good news.
At every Eucharist we come into God’s holy presence. If we have our eyes open we come in fear and trembling. The early 17th century Anglican poet, George Herbert, captures the thought;
Love bade me welcome yet my soul drew back / guilty of dust and sin.’
At every Eucharist God meets with us. In fact God longs to meet with us. We are his people and Jesus is that meeting point. And as we make our communion our idols are cast away, our exile is ended and the gates of paradise are opened. We learn to be God’s people once again.
Service: Canon Bill Croft 14th September 2025. (St John the Baptist Church Peterborough UK)
Readings: Readings: Exodus 32.7-14; Luke 15.1-10