by Susan Trollinger
Reading Exodus 32:9-10 always gives me pause.
According to this text, God would nurture a wrath so great that He would say the following: “I see how stiff-necked this people is. Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them.”
Am I supposed to worship that God?
Where is the grace? Where is the mercy? Where is the love?
But then the story takes a turn. Moses makes three powerful arguments that challenge God’s logic and plan.
So, let me see if I have this right, Moses says. You brought your people out of the land of Egypt and slavery only so that you would now slaughter them? Does that make sense, God?
Then, second: So, what do you think the Egyptians are going to say about you if you do this horrible thing, God? You’re a hypocrite, perhaps? These are supposed to be your chosen people. And you’re ticked off because they aren’t perfect. They’re human, so of course they aren’t perfect. Now, you want to exterminate them? What do you think your reputation is going to be in Egypt?
And then the third one: Remember your promises, God. To Abraham—that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars. Extermination doesn’t seem like a plan to make good on that promise. Are you going to keep your promises? Or just enjoy your wrath?
And God listens to Moses and changes His mind.
Now, that’s a God I can worship. Moreover, Moses is a biblical figure I can admire! To be sure, it would be a very scary thing to make not one, not two, but three arguments that directly challenge God’s thinking. Moses didn’t know how that was going to go. But he did it anyway. He was truly brave!
This story in Exodus brings to mind the story of Noah in Genesis. God tells Noah that he’s got to build an Ark. He’s got to get his family on it. They are, according to God, the only righteous people on the planet. And then Noah has to get two of every kind of land creature on it. And then God instructs Noah that He is going to bring a great flood that is going to drown every person and every land creature that is not on the Ark because they were just so unforgivably sinful. God just couldn’t take their sin anymore.
Really?
Does God’s wrath in this story make any sense? He was so ticked off at, what, elephants, rabbits, and giraffes, not to mention toddlers, babies, and the unborn, that he felt obliged to drown them?
What I love about the story in Exodus is that Moses doesn’t let God off the hook. He basically says to God: You want to exterminate your own people because you’re having a bad day? Really? That’s the kind of God you are?
And God relents. He, thankfully, listens to Moses.
But what about Noah? According to the account in Genesis, Noah just goes with God’s genocidal plan. He builds the Ark. Gets his family on board. Gets two of every kind on board. Never mind the rest of humanity or the rest of land animals. No need to worry about them. They’re apparently not righteous. So, if this is the deal, why do fish get a pass? So, tortoises deserve to die but Walleye don’t?
To repeat. I can worship the God that Moses engages. That’s a God who listens to reason and later sends his only son to save all us sinners who don’t deserve grace but, to quote singer and songwriter Mary Gauthier, “need it anyhow.”
To return to where I began this reflection—I love the story of Moses making his case to God in Exodus because it tells us of a brave man who challenged God’s very bad idea, and it tells of a God that can change His mind when he should. That’s a God we can engage. A God who listens. And while God might get pretty frustrated with us now and again, and for good reason, He’s still the God who became man and dined with prostitutes and tax collectors.
What this story from Exodus teaches me is that we can mobilize our own moral reasoning as we engage God. We can find our way with God to mercy, grace, and love.
As I think we’ve discussed before, and you mention in your book, the Creation Museum lies about this big time. It tells us that Noah tried to warn the people, whereas Matthew 24:38-39 tells us plainly that “they knew not until the flood came, and took them all away.”
We can compare Moses here with Abraham, who used salami tactics to bid God down from a promise to spare the Cities of the Plain if they had a hundred righteous people, to promise to spare them if there were ten.
But we can imagine what today’s Righteous would say about the very idea of arguing with God.
Thank you for reminding us of Abraham’s intervention, Paul. Stories like the one I highlighted and that you did challenge us to see God as a complicated figure–one who struggles with us humans sometimes to the point of just wanting to be done with us but also one who can be persuaded that we are worthy of another chance. And that, of course, is fully consistent with the fact that He saw fit to send His only son to save us! Thanks so much for your comment! Sue
I think you may be cherry-picking your Bible verses. What about the God that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, except for a handful of people? Can you worship that God too?
I’m not sure what your point is, Matt, as your comment is a bit cryptic. Is the idea that I need to worship a slaughtering God? Or am I missing your point? Sue
Well, I confess to having been a little cryptic, so to spell it out: You write, “To repeat. I can worship the God that Moses engages. That’s a God who listens to reason ….”
Abraham also engaged God, but in the end God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and even Lot’s wife for the “sin” of looking back. I suppose you could say that God listened to reason when Abraham engaged him, but he certainly did not respond mercifully.
Now that is presumably the same God who listened to Moses; can you worship him anyway? Or, bluntly, do you choose the Bible verses that you like and ignore or reject the others? I do not mean that question as a “gotcha,” but as a serious question: How can anyone worship the God that wipes out Sodom and Gomorrah in the first place, and later wipes out all of humanity, except for a handful of people?
That God did not kill the Israelites when Moses intervened is laudable, but is it enough? I think not, and if I thought the story of the Flood (including God’s role in it) was historically accurate I would blame God for inflicting it on us.
I take your point. And it is an important one. It’s akin to the question as to why God did not intervene in the Holocaust. I have no answer for that. This is why I lean on Jesus. He said that he wasn’t undermining the Law but, instead, fulfilling it. And I believe him. He made the case for mercy, nonviolence, and even dining with sinners (like myself). Jesus is the manifestation of God who has no interest in slaughtering us. Fundamentalists say we deserve to be slaughtered. What I can’t stand is that they seem to take pleasure in imagining such slaughter. To be clear, my post is about the ways in which Moses and Noah are represented in the Old Testament. And the way that Noah, in particular, gets used by folks like Answers in Genesis. For them, Noah was righteous. And I am asking the question, was he? And what sort of God was he worshipping? Is that the kind of God we should worship, if we do worship God? I think these are important questions to ask. Obedience to a wrathful and violent God doesn’t square with Jesus. Folks who obsess about Genesis need to think about that, in my opinion. Reading the Sermon on the Mount as if Jesus is talking to us (which I think he is) might be helpful. Thanks so much for helping me to understand your question better!