Today our Readings start with an account of Moses arguing with God (Ex 32:7-11, 13-14). There are a number of occasions like this in the Hebrew Scriptures which may seem a little odd to us (e.g. Abraham negotiating over Sodom and Gomorrah Gen 18:20-32). We don’t really see an all-powerful God as being like someone who is going to be convinced to change his mind. It’s probably fair to say that the Israelites didn’t think in those terms either – after all there are plenty of places where they note how far above and different their God is. “My thoughts are high above your thoughts” (Isa 55:9)
So if these stories are not really about God changing his mind when presented with a really good argument, what are they telling us. Firstly that God is fundamentally merciful – He is not looking for reasons to condemn, quite the opposite. He is looking for reasons to forgive, to reach out as a protective parent does. Jesus understood this more deeply than anyone, than anyone else possibly could, because he was the embodiment of God’s desire to show mercy to His people.
Second, if we read the whole section of Exodus which tells of the golden calf, we see that the story is more complicated than Moses pushing back on God. The following part (Ex 32:15-35) tells how Moses himself gets angry about what the people have done and provokes the Levites, his religious followers, to go out and kill 3000 of their “brothers, friends and neighbors” – in the hope this will assuage God’s anger. So clearly for the early Israelites there was considerable doubt about who was angry and what to do about it.
That confusion was apparent still in Jesus time. The idea of an aggressive, domineering and harsh God was widespread. Jesus taught clearly and ultimately demonstrated, by his death, that God was merciful and wanted to show love to his people. However, in times since, many Christians have fallen into the trap of thinking that God was out to punish them. Some Christian leaders have taken it upon themselves to punish or attack others in God’s name, following the example of Moses in the second part of today’s story. We should also note there are many examples of prophets, ancient and recent, that have stood out against these errors, sometimes by their words and often by their actions of selfless love. Moses is an example of this in the first part of the story!
We don’t need to argue with God that he should be merciful. We may need to argue with those who use their faith as a means to control or condemn others. We may need to argue with ourselves when we feel unworthy and inadequate. Ultimately we need to listen to the clear message of Jesus that the Father loves us and will do whatever he can to build us up and protect us, even from our own foolishness. However lost we have been, however badly we have messed up, there is always a way back. Our Father will be rushing out to meet us as soon as we are within sight.