Exodus 24.12-18
I seem to have been living in the book of Exodus for a number of months now. Last term, (in both Green Lane and Montalbo schools), Ana and I started to tell the children the story of Moses in Egypt. We stepped out of the story around Christmas time to focus on Jesus’ birth but, once we’d sent the wise men on their way at the beginning of January, we returned to Egypt and the Hebrews’ escape from Pharaoh. Over the last couple of weeks, we have told the story of how God fed His people in the wilderness and gave them water from the rock to drink. This week Moses, as in our Old Testament reading, has been on Mount Sinai receiving the law. Please disabuse anyone who says that children in school don’t know their bibles or read the bible story: this week’s Collective Worship has seen the children hearing and thinking about the ten commandments.
The meeting of God with Moses on the mountain doesn’t just happen. We are given just six verses from a description of the events at Sinai that cover 20 (and more) chapters of the Book of Exodus. I’ve spent a while looking through these chapters, reminding myself of this extra-ordinary event where God binds Himself to a people and makes a covenant with them.
We’re given the reading today for a number of reasons. Firstly, (for Christians about to mark the beginning of the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday) we have the occurrence of the number 40. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights, we are about to observe 40 days of waiting on God. Secondly, our Gospel reading shows us Jesus going up a mountain, just as Moses ascended a mountain. Finally, the gospel parallels the Old Testament reading both through mention of the cloud that descends upon Jesus and the disciples and through the voice of God being heard. For your homework you might compare and contrast the two readings.
But what has struck me this week is the time references in the Old Testament lesson. The six days mentioned in verse 16 (during which the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai). The Lord ‘calling to Moses’ and His revelation on the 7th day and then the 40 days and 40 nights mentioned at the end of our passage (it’s not clear whether this was an additional number or whether it included the first 7 days).
Last week Paula reminded us, in her reflections on the creation story, of how the Lord creates ‘time’. We heard how the 7 days of creation were marked out: but also, of how the stars, sun and moon regulate the seasons of the year. A few weeks ago, Ana spoke of the Presentation of Christ and asked how Simeon and the prophetess Anna knew (amongst thousands of babies) that Jesus was the Christ? She suggested that these older folks’ years of prayer and attention to God’s ways enabled them to be alert to the Spirit of God’s promptings. Here we have an affirmation of the 7th day: time set aside to hear God’s word (as we are doing now and as we do each week: God’s people, gathered to listen to Him.
Seven days. Forty days. Whichever it is, Faith needs Time. You can’t rush God. Or, as Phil Collins put it ‘You can’t hurry Love’. Faith is lived out in Time: If we wish to grow in faith we need Time. But we feel forever short of time. There is never enough Time, yet 40 days is 960 hours, it is 57,600 minutes. Perhaps our problem is not a shortage of time but rather a lack of desire to spend it wisely?
A while ago my bank started to send me a glossy brochure that told me how I had spent my money over the previous year. This was a short-lived venture on behalf of the Nat West: but the experience of seeing where the Vicarage family’s money was spent was salutary. (Banks don’t do this now but the ‘insights’ app on your phone will probably do something like it). There was no great science to it and the analysis was pretty basic. What I learned however was that Morrisons did quite well for our groceries. We could see that we spend quite a bit on our French holidays, our giving through the church was in the mix of larger items and I was surprised by the hefty amount spent on fuel for the car and utilities. I mention this breakdown of expenditure because, if it is possible to get even a rough idea of how someone spends their money it should also be possible to calculate how someone spends their time. The apostle Paul tells us to ‘make the most of the time’. We all know that it is possible to waste time but as we approach Lent how we spend our time is worth considering if we seek to be faithful disciples.
For we are about to be given a great wadge of time. From Ash Wednesday there are 46 days till Easter. The 40 weekdays of Lenten fasting almost get us there but to these we add the 6 Sundays of Lent (Sundays celebrate the resurrection so are always ‘feast days’ a momentary break from the Lenten Fast). However we count it, we have Time. But time for what?
From our lesson I think the answer has to be ‘Time for attention to God’. Moses gives Time to be with God on Mt Sinai and the result is the creation of a nation, a whole new way of living, a body of law that shaped not just ancient Israel but pretty well every modern democracy since. What might happen if we ‘gave time’ to God? This year, our Lent series of contemplative prayer is offered to help us with this. Julian Maddock (a newer member of our congregation) is an experienced leader of retreats and the like and he and Ana have put together some evenings to devote time to simply being with God. (There is a poster in the church porch: those evenings begin on Wednesday March 4th). I confess that offering this series (and it will continue beyond Easter) feels a little bit ‘brave’: will anybody turn up? Is contemplative prayer too much to ask of people, too hard a thing? In previous years we have held study series: nothing wrong with learning more about our faith. We’ve read a Lent book: nothing wrong with reading and discussing together. We have done some bible study: nothing at all wrong with studying the scriptures. But this year the offer is different. It steps out a little in faith and says ‘let’s simply devote Time to being in God’s presence. Who knows what will happen?
Something we should be aware of however is this: Looking back at the Old Testament lesson nothing happened, at least at first. Moses was on the mountain in the cloud for 6 days before anything happened. (Six whole days. Six days of waiting. Six days unsure as to whether he was wasting his time. Six days of giving attention: making himself available to hear God’s voice. Six days of not seeing clearly, lost in the cloud. But then, something moved, something changed. God does not work to our timetable. I have no idea how Moses ‘heard’ God’s voice: but this season of ‘giving attention’ to God resulted in God’s will being known. The Ten Commandments (yes) but then an explanation of them. God’s first principles set in stone but then examples of how to deal with hard cases. (the difference between murder and manslaughter and so on).
What I’ve also rediscovered through readings these chapters in the second half of Exodus is that Moses ascends and descends the mountain a number of times to get the people’ assent to the covenant requirements God lays upon the Israelites. ‘Whatever the Lord has spoken, we will do’ they say- not just once, not twice but three times. And then they fail catastrophically: by creating an idol (the Golden calf). Moses smashes the tablets with God’s words on them to pieces, God looks as if He has had enough and will walk away from His people, but Moses prays for them and the covenant is renewed. And then? Moses spends a second 40 days and nights on the mountain – this time receiving rules and regulations about how God is to be worshipped.
And out of all of this time come the rules that will unite this newborn nation. Out of this time with God comes guidance for the community: how it should live, respecting each and every individual, making room for strangers, protecting the weak. Moses receives a set of laws that were so very different to anything seen before in Egypt or in the great Empires of the day where individuals were expendable, the poor had no rights and the powerful ruled as they saw fit. Here Moses receives a law where right is might, not the other way round. And he is given guidance to the people as to how they should worship, instruction concerning the tabernacle, the ordering of worship and sacrifice.
These 20 chapters encapsulate the great commandment: the love of God and love of neighbour. And they ask ‘what have you planned to do with your time? …and what might God be able to do through you if you were to give Him Time and attend to Him in prayer over this next 40 days?’