Our readings this week are Exodus 32.1–14 and Matt 22.1–14.

The Exodus reading is one of those half-remembered Sunday School stories - you remember the one:  with Moses away up the Holy Mountain spending time with God, the people left below get bored of waiting and make a new god for themselves, by melting down their golden earrings and casting them into a cow.  Yes, Holy Cow Batman!

It's not a complicated story, and coming hard on the heels of the 10 Commandments, it's a very obvious breach of 'You shall not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything... on the earth'.  From there it's a quick hop over to the usual narrative of how bad these people were at actually following the commands they'd been given, and only a tiny step further to a vengeful God.  Not technically in our reading, but verses 25-28 gives us Moses' judgement on the situation, 

"When Moses saw that the people were running wild (for Aaron had let them run wild, to the derision of their enemies), then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, ‘Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me!’ And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. He said to them, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “Put your sword on your side, each of you! Go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill your brother, your friend, and your neighbour.” ’ The sons of Levi did as Moses commanded, and about three thousand of the people fell on that day."

But please note that I just wrote "Moses'" judgement on the situation not "God's".  I'm going to put this out there - blessed hero of faith that he was, I think Moses dropped the ball on this one.  I think Moses stepped over the line on another commandment, namely 'You shall not misuse the Lord's name'; and don't get me started on 'You shall not murder.'  No, actually, do.

I do not believe for a moment that anyone - even Moses - who claims to be acting in the name of God, and uses that name to order, authorise, explain, or justify the killing of another human being, is telling the truth.

Because. God. is. love. 

He is not hatred. He is not warfare. He is not retaliation, vengeance, or persecution.  He can't be those things, because God is love, and love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  And, when it needs to, love dies whilst praying forgiveness on the hands of those who kill it.

And I believe that our scriptures bear that out - not only when they are full of the best (thank you 1 Corinthians 13), but even here in Exodus amidst the bloody raw mess of 3,000 corpses as brother slaughters brother, friend, and neighbour. 

Because show me where in this text those hateful words of Moses are formed on the lips of God.  You can't.

Look back to our reading, to verses 7-14 to see what God actually says, and what actually happens:

1.  God tells Moses what the people are up to, and his anger burns against them (vv. 7-8,10); 
2. God calls them out for being stiff-necked (v.9); 
3. Moses argues in their defence, and asks God for leniency (vv. 11-13)
4. 'The Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened'. (v.14)

'But God wanted to destroy them', you might argue, 'it was only Moses that held him back'.  Perhaps, but how about this for an alternative - could it be that this was God roleplaying with Moses the situation about to unfold below so that he would know what to do?  Hear me out - watch what happens when Moses gets down the mountain, and meets his prophet Aaron:

1. Moses sees what the people are up to, and his anger burns against them (v.19)
2. Aaron points out the people's stubbornness, 
3. and speaks in their defence, asking for Moses' leniency (v. 22-24)
4. Then Moses hardens his heart, and brings disaster on the people (vv.27-28)

What similar sequences they are, but with what very different endings.  God, it seems to me, rehearses Moses in the interaction to come, and models for him the outcome most in the divine character - to forgive: to relent on a punishment that by any human measure might be considered deserved, but by every divine one lies rescinded and forgiven, not because it is undeserved, but because Christ bled, and love died that it may be so.

And Moses, human as he is, fails to get the point, fails to learn the lesson, and ever ready to defend the holiness of a God who needs no defending cannot do in actuality what he argues for in the abstract - cannot forgive - and instead brings down a rain of blood and slaughter in God's name, tarnishing it for generations to come.

If only we'd learned to do better since then.  Maybe the headlines in our news would be quite different.  So I suppose my question is this, are you ready to relent?  To forgive them that trespass against you, in the same that God forgives? Are you ready to recognise that God doesn't need us to fight for him, and instead to pray with Christ 'Father forgive them, they know not what they do'?  Are you ready to sit with him by the side of every parent left childless by humanity's fruitless addiction to violence, and shed your tears with his?  Because that's where he is, and that's where love is winning.

Compline this evening ended with this prayer. You may find a use for it:

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who wake, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, give rest to the weary, sustain the dying, calm the suffering, and pity the distressed; all for your love's sake, O Christ our Redeemer. Amen.