Much has been written about the new Left Behind movie coming out. I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon because, why not?
Moses
The Old Testament lectionary text this coming Sunday is Exodus 32:1-14, which tells the story of the golden calf. God had dramatically delivered the Israelites from Egypt. There were plagues. There was that time when the Red Sea was parted and the Israelites walked through on dry ground while Pharaoh's army drowned behind them. Then there was water from the rock and manna from heaven. The Israelites were on one wild ride.
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| Picture of the *actual* Moses |
And then Moses went up on the mountain. For a really long time. Forty days and forty nights. (That doesn't seem that long to me, but I guess it was to the Israelites.)
Anyway, so Aaron made them a golden calf, and they worshiped it.
Well, God wasn't too happy with this turn of events and told Moses, "I see that this is a stiffnecked people. Now, let Me be that My anger may blaze forth against them and that I may destroy them, and make of you a great nation."
Moses responded, "Let not Your anger, O Lord, blaze forth against Your people, whom You delivered from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand. ... Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, how You swore to them by Your Self and said to them: 'I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and I will give to your offspring this whole land of which I spoke to possess forever.'"
According to the Bible, "the Lord renounced the punishment He had planned to bring upon His people," and the Israelites were not destroyed.
Noah
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| And the *actual* Noah |
And Noah said, "Okay."
And every living thing on the earth was destroyed.
Favor
Moses and Noah are the only two people in the Old Testament who "found favor with God." However, something changed between the time of Noah and the time of Moses. Apparently for Noah, it was okay to just watch the world around him be destroyed while his family camped out in the ark. However, by the time of Moses, it wasn't okay anymore to be content with saving himself while all those around him were destroyed. In chapter 33 of Exodus, one of the most significant events happened: God passed before Moses in all His glory. Clearly, Moses had done something right in chapter 32.
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| The *actual* Kirk Cameron |
This may be a stretch (thus the "wild speculation"), but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it still isn't okay for Christians to revel in their own salvation at the expense of the world around them. I don't think that's the point of the Left Behind movie/books/empire, but I think it may be one reason why Christians like them so much. "Relief" is the word that comes to mind. It's easy to watch those movies and feel relief that we, as Christians, won't ever have to go through all the craziness that poor Kirk Cameron and Nicolas Cage have to endure. Relief that we will be able to escape. Relief that it's "them" and not "us."
But I'm pretty sure that the days of Noah are long past. The days of Moses are, of course, pretty far behind us too, but the exodus narrative is the single most revisited narrative throughout the Bible; it is central to our understanding of God's formation of his people. And Moses' response to God's anger about the whole golden calf thing is one part of that narrative that I think is worth revisiting.
I'm not so sure that God is actually interested nowadays in whisking away his people in an ark or teleporter or some other such people-moving mechanism and then pouring out destruction on everyone else. I think Moses might be a better example for us to follow than Noah.
Tikkun Olam
According to Wikipedia (which I read recently may not actually be the best source for all things academic, but that's beside the point), the Hebrew phrase tikkun olam means "repairing the world" (or "healing the world"), which "suggests humanity's shared responsibility to heal, repair and transform the world."
I like that. I like the hope that comes with that. What if we can actually make the world better? What if we don't have to sit back and watch the world around us be destroyed? What if we can partner with God to bring healing and transformation in relationships, economic systems, governments, agriculture, neighborhoods, cities, families, and countries? What if we can stand defiantly in the face of an impending disaster, whether an "act of God" or otherwise and say, "This will not destroy us"? What if we can stand up for the people among us who are weak and helpless?
What if we accept our responsibility to participate in the healing and transformation of the whole world and not just the rescue of our own? What if Noah isn't such a great example after all?
