The Lord is my Shepherd

Exodus 32:1-14
Psalm 23

         On Facebook many of us like to share pictures with captions that strike us as funny or cause us to think.  Those who are my Facebook friends know that I like to post pictures from the website “I can has cheeseburger” that depict cute cats in compromising positions with captions such as “No not right now human…I’m busy being a cat” and “I eated Barbie…house mine now.”  However there is an interesting image making its rounds on Facebook.  On the left hand side is a drawing depicting the Israelite people worshiping the golden calf, underneath it is the caption “Canaan circa 1300 BCE”.  On the right hand side is a photograph of a bronze sculpture of a charging bull, underneath that is the caption “Wall Street circa 2000 CE.”  Above these pictures is the title “Bovine Idolatry Through the Ages.”  The more things change, the more things stay the same.

            It is easy for us to vilify the Israelites for their dance around the golden calf.  We wonder, what are these people thinking?  Do they not remember that the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham and Isaac is the same God who freed them from slavery from the Egyptians, who parted the red sea so that they may escape capture and then drowned the entire Egyptian Army with these same waters?   How could they turn away from the God who has given them mercy in order to worship lesser gods?

            Yes the problem was that the Israelites were not thinking when they worshiped built and worshiped the golden calf.  They were only reacting to the immediate circumstances that surrounded them.  We remember that the Israelites wandered in the barren desert for forty years after they were led out of Egypt. At first they encountered hunger.  They became anxious and complained to Moses that they wanted to go back to Egypt, “‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’” (Exodus 16:3)  God heard their complaints and sent them manna, bread from heaven.  With it God assured them that they would be provided for and commanded them to only gather enough manna to sustain themselves for the day.  However some Israelite tried to horde more manna than they needed for the day but quickly melted or went rotten. 

As the Israelites journeyed further into the desert they ran out of water.  Once again anxious for their survival they complained to Moses, “‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?... ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’” (Exodus 17:3b, 7b)  God heard the anxious complaints of the people and provided them with water.  There seems to be a pattern developing here, the Israelites encounter hardship, they become anxious, they react by complaining, and God provides for them but not according the Israelites terms or timeline.  Even though God has provided for their basic needs, the uncertainty of how and when they will be provided for fuels their fear.  With each setback the Israelites react with impatience.  They immediately think that God has abandoned them and that they can no longer wait for God’s reappearance, so they seek to fill the void with other things.  Whether it is a desire to return to the halcyon days of slavery in Egypt, or the useless hording of manna or even the worshiping the god of the golden calf, the Israelites try to ease their anxiety with a quick fix. 

The search for the quick fix is a natural part of the human condition.  Whenever we encounter something triggers our anxiety our instantaneous response is to either fight it or flee from it.  Without thoughtful discernment, we surrender to our anxiety and react to our situation without thinking.  We rely too much on our own expertise and rush towards other solutions without waiting for God’s guidance.  It is too easy for us to make the most important life decisions marriage, calling, career, family without bringing God into the conversation.  Sometimes it is just too easy to be just like the Israelites, seeking a quick fix instead of thoughtfully discerning a long term solution.

What we forget is that we are completely and utterly dependant on God just as sheep are completely dependant on their shepherd.  We cannot do it on our own.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want

He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;

He restores my soul.  He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.” (Psalm 23:1-3)

Some note that the Israelites longed to live with God as sheep live with a shepherd but their fear got in the way.  “They were too afraid to keep believing that this shepherd was leading them to green pastures or that goodness and mercy would follow them.  So they frequently rushed down more promising paths toward more manageable gods, which always led them to unmanageable trouble.”[i] 

Many of us go to the 23^rd psalm in times of distress.  It is often read at funerals and hospital bedsides to ease our grief, to calm our anxiety and to strengthen our trust.  From the beginning of the psalm with the words “The Lord is my shepherd” we are told who God is and who we are.  God was, is and will always be in control, we are not.  If we trust in God to lead us, God will always lead us to refreshing places along the best paths.  And even when we walk through the dark valleys of illness, depression, addiction, abuse, rejection, bitter disappointment and other hard experiences of life we will have no fear because God is with us, sitting by us, suffering with us.  God blesses us abundantly even when we are experiencing life’s most difficult times.  Yes there may be anxiety and suffering, but there are always blessings to be enjoyed even in the extreme situations where we are in the presence of those who oppose us.[ii]  If we stop dwelling on golden calves and the false gods of greed, domination, and the quick fix and instead choose to dwell on the house of the Lord which is a place of abundance and beauty surely goodness and mercy will follow us all our lives long.  May it be so.  Amen.

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[i] Craig Barnes “Sheep on the Run” The Christian Century March 10, 2002

[ii] David B. Calhoun, "Poems in the Park: My Cancer and God's Grace," Presbyterion, 2008.