Village Shepherd

As churches which enter interregnum know, there can be an uncertainty when organizations are without a leader for any length of time. Initially it may be good, for at last the people can do what they want to do without any interference from anyone in authority, and this is especially true if the previous vicar has been unpopular. But before long there is often a feeling of being rudderless, of marking time until the next vicar is appointed. And sometimes during an interregnum, one or two people take for themselves a monopoly of power, with a resultant break-down in communications and a real sense of unease in the parish. It's a bit like a class of school children, who can't wait for the teacher to leave the room before getting up to mischief. But although that mischief is fun in the early stages, for most children it can turn sour quite quickly because the instigators have power and are feared. And then the children long for the teacher's return, even though they know that there will be trouble upon the teacher's return.

Perhaps that is something of how the Ancient Israelites felt when Moses set off on his long trek up the mountain for a sort of private retreat. Clearly he was absent for a very long time, maybe months, and the people probably thought he had died, up there on the mountain alone without food or drink and at the mercy of the elements and any wild animals.

It was only after they thought that Moses might not return at all that they looked around for another leader and lit upon Moses' second-in-command, his brother Aaron. "Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him," the people said to Aaron.

Aaron wasn't the born leader that Moses was. Aaron did not have Moses' education, for he had grown up as a Hebrew slave. He was probably as worried and as restless as the people, with the added disadvantage of perhaps mourning for his lost brother. Aaron wasn't in a fit condition to become a strong leader. So he acquiesced with the people's wishes.

They had come from Egypt, a land where many gods were worshipped. They were not yet a monotheistic people, for although Almighty God had led them out of Egypt, as far as they knew at this stage, Almighty God was just one deity amongst many. Besides, Moses was their link with God. Without Moses, they had no way of communicating with God. So they decided to build a god which they could see and worship.

Why a golden calf? Perhaps this is a link with the later story of Jeroboam, king of the Northern Kingdom in the years after David, who used two golden calves at his break-away hill shrines of Dan and Bethel (1 Kings 12:28-30). The Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah had been united under David, but soon divided again after David's death.

Jeroboam, king of the Northern Kingdom, feared losing his throne through reunification of the divided kingdom via worship in the single temple in Jerusalem which was in the South. To prevent this, Jeroboam encouraged shrines on the high places, and appointed false priests to supplement the Levite priests. The golden bullocks he installed may have been intended as bearers of the invisible Divine Majesty, but they quickly became worshipped in their own right as idols.

Aaron too may have intended his golden calf to be a bearer of the invisible majesty of God rather than a god in its own right, for he said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" But God immediately saw the danger in such a move and sent Moses post-haste down the mountain back to people as a sort of messenger of God's fury.

But Moses understood where the people were coming from and interceded with God on their behalf, pleading with God not to "consume" all the people in his wrath. God heard and responded to Moses' prayer, although we later read that some of the people - presumably the ring-leaders - were executed, and that God sent a plague on all the people as a punishment for their sin.

Without a leader it's easy to be swayed by powerful voices which seem to speak a lot of practical sense. But the litmus test is to ask whether what is being proposed is in line with God's will? In this case, God had expressly forbidden the making of any images of God, even images designed, perhaps, to carry the divine majesty.

Perhaps today we need to be clear as to whether any proposed actions have the love of Christ at their root. If they do, they're probably a great way forward. But if they don't, they are leading us astray, no matter how attractive and sensible they may appear to be.

With Jesus at the centre we can't go wrong. But let us resolve always to keep our eyes upon Jesus so that we may stay on the narrow path and not incur God's wrath.