Supper
Exodus 32:1-20
October 9, 2011
That legendary quip attributed to George Bernard Shaw – England and America are two nations divided by a common language – had never posed a more fundamental problem for our family. A professor had kindly invited all of us to his house for tea on Sunday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. That morning Molly was preaching at a Methodist church outside the London Ring Road, so we knew that we could make it back barely on time.
The dilemma we faced was the definition of the word “tea.” This may go over the heads of many of you, but all the ex-Brits here know exactly what I am talking about. Tea can mean the hot beverage with some crumpets and biscuits, the traditional afternoon event. Or, it could mean a pretty full menu with meats and biscuits and desserts. Should we find something to eat to tide us over or should we fast until the four o’clock hour arrived? I am certain that I will have all of our English members offering very good advice and precise definitions of a proper English tea later on, but I must say that you’re all too late. This happened 14 years ago and we decided to fast and were fittingly famished when we arrived at four. And for the record, the professor and his wife served wonderful scones with honey and lots of hot tea. It was a wonderful, gracious afternoon, but our children almost starved.
Are any of you having a Thanksgiving breakfast tomorrow? Or a Thanksgiving lunch, maybe a snack or perhaps a Thanksgiving supper? It may be just word games, but I would guess that you are uncomfortable with those occasions because you are more concerned about the food than the idea of giving thanks. Is there a particular kind of meal that expresses thanksgiving more than others? The infamous story of the Golden Calf shows us how a meal can be particularly unthankful.
It’s all about how long can you wait? Waiting for something that has not yet arrived is one of the fundamental human lessons we teach our young children and then realize in our mature adulthood that we never really have learned how to wait.
There is a family story about a young relative who lusted after the perfectly browned skin of the Thanksgiving turkey. The turkey was all prepared, but sequestered in a side room and she found it too difficult to resist peeling off a piece of the crisp skin. Then another piece and another and it didn’t take too long to denude the entire turkey. It also did not take long for fire and brimstone to erupt from family members, and before too long she was also sick to her stomach.
The inability for adults to wait is rehearsed almost every night with the political news. As bad as many politicians are about not being able to wait for reforms to happen before they bitterly criticize their political rivals, worse are the people of the constituencies who demand instant results. Moral Man and Immoral Society is Reinhold Niebuhr’s summation of the human condition. Whether that be electorates, provincial legislative assemblies, thousands of fans whose team has just blown the Stanley Cup, or congregations, it is particularly as a collection of people that we are challenged the most to behave in a moral fashion.
We keep reading and hearing about the Hebrew nation, freed from bondage in Egypt, that they are not thankful. The first word out of their mouths is about their entitlements: where is our food? Where is our meat? Where is our water? Complaining loudly that “we got more stuff back in Egypt as slaves!”
Moses and God made sure they got their stuff anyway and now they are at the foot of Mount Sinai at the moment that will define them as a unique people and nation. Moses goes up to the top of Sinai to talk with God about who they are meant and destined to be. Moses even attempts to bring them up closer to God on the mountain, but the people are frightened and refuse. “You tell us what God says and we’ll listen; but don’t let God talk to us, for we’ll die.”
Moses went back up to the dark cloudiness and got all of God’s stuff, and there had to be a lot for he was up there on Sinai for forty days, which means he went up there on August 31st. The Israelites were tired of waiting and attributed to Moses their own motives.
They are not dumb either. Cunningly, when they crowd around Aaron, the second-in-charge, they invoke the sacred buzz phrase of the Exodus, “as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of Egypt, we do not what has become of him.” God brought up Israel out of Egypt, but now it’s Moses’ fault. They have forgotten God and if there’s no God, who needs to be thankful? Instead, they demanded outright and out loud what most other human groups just do: “make gods for us.” There is nothing religious about making gods.
Poor Aaron, he really was caught in a no-win situation and more than likely had his life threatened in no uncertain terms. It was his idea about the gold - all that gold and silver given to them by the Egyptians upon leaving. The gifts of slavery became a golden calf, one of the traditional characters in a Near Eastern pantheon, and the people once again proclaimed the golden phrase, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” No, they aren’t, and no, they didn’t. If you make up your own gods, they will be as real and kind and helpful as you are.
They may have been starving and dying of thirst, but these Israelites were party animals who brought out all the meat and wine and instruments, and after eating they rose up to play, and they played hard. When Moses was coming down the mountain with the two stone tablets, Joshua came up to him and said, “There is a noise of war in the camp,” but Moses replied, “Nope, it’s not war, but the noise of singing.” Are we in trouble here with all our singing?
First it was God who became really angry at all of this; and in a little while Moses would lose his cool and break the stone tablets. Joshua talked some sense into Moses as earlier Moses talked some sense and compassion into God. God is said to have repented of the evil he was about to do his people – an odd phrase that has given Biblical readers something difficult to ponder for several millennia. But God did repent, thank God.
The Israelites had a different kind of meal, a little more free-formed than our versions of Thanksgiving, yet after all, most other countries and cultures do not have a Thanksgiving meal the way we do, so what we do is a little unique, if not odd. What really is different is that the feast to the Lord at the foot of Sinai was thankless, driven by an unwillingness to wait for God’s grace to evolve. Full of gods that they had made, gods who were too busy serving their needs, there was no room for thanks.
Whether you celebrate Thanksgiving today or tomorrow, be thankful for what you have not earned, which is almost everything; worship only one God that you didn’t make up; and if you can, eat turkey, and no bull.
Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan