Two Leaders

OT Lesson: Exodus 32:1-14 (CEB)

The people saw that Moses was taking a long time to come down from the mountain. They gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Come on! Make us gods who can lead us. As for this man Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t have a clue what has happened to him.”

Aaron said to them, “All right, take out the gold rings from the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took out the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. He collected them and tied them up in a cloth. Then he made a metal image of a bull calf, and the people declared, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf. Then Aaron announced, “Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord!” They got up early the next day and offered up entirely burned offerings and brought well-being sacrifices. The people sat down to eat and drink and then got up to celebrate.

The Lord spoke to Moses: “Hurry up and go down! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, are ruining everything! They’ve already abandoned the path that I commanded. They have made a metal bull calf for themselves. They’ve bowed down to it and offered sacrifices to it and declared, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” The Lord said to Moses, “I’ve been watching these people, and I’ve seen how stubborn they are. Now leave me alone! Let my fury burn and devour them. Then I’ll make a great nation out of you.”

But Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, “Lord, why does Your fury burn against Your own people, whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and amazing force? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘He had an evil plan to take the people out and kill them in the mountains and so wipe them off the earth’? Calm down Your fierce anger. Change Your mind about doing terrible things to Your own people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, whom You Yourself promised, ‘I’ll make your descendants as many as the stars in the sky. And I’ve promised to give your descendants this whole land to possess for all time.’” Then the Lord changed His mind about the terrible things He said He would do to His people.

NT Lesson: Matthew 22:1-14 (NRSV)

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.” But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, maltreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

‘But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” For many are called, but few are chosen.’

Sermon

Introduction

Good morning. Honestly I was very depressed a lot last week. I am still depressed. I try to be upbeat and happy, but I could not help. It is not a personal thing but because of the things happening in Israel in Gaza for the last week. The terrorism attack by surprise targetting intentionally innocent civilians by Hamas and their cruelty and ruthlessness even towards infants and toddlers were beyond words. And now Israel’s counter attack is causing another civilian casualties. This reality drags me down and down, and I cried almost every night. I am not here to side one and condemn the other. And I am not here to give you a history lecture. But I am here to urge you to pray for the peace in the holy land, and for the healing in the promised land. In reality, not having any actual influence over the Israel government nor Hamas, there is nothing we can do about it but to pray. 

But thankfully, my week was not entirely horrible. We had our first BYOB—Bring Your Own Burger. And my Chevy was repaired. My car recently sometimes by half and half chance did not shut off when I pressed the power button. It was spitting the message of “Shift to Park” when it was already in Park. It was persistent and I struggled to shut it off sometimes for over twenty minutes pressing the power button hundreds of times. The thing is, I had the same issue three years ago and I repaired it. This same problem keeps coming back every three years. I am losing my faith on Chevy, and there is a big chance that my next car may not be Chevy. I met Nancy Turner at Bill Estes, and she told me that not shutting off was actually the problem of Fords. Obviously an engineer moved from Ford to Chevy. Anyway, the manger at the Bill Estes told me that they need to replace a few parts which they do not have, nobody knows when they can get them because of the union’s strike. I was very much disappointed, but later of the day, he called me that they found the parts in their storage. They must have fallen back of the shelf or something like that. So I got the car back the next day. That made me happy. I paid almost six hundred dollars but my car will work at least next three years. We will see. Because I had one good thing, I will give you good news too, not the gospel. I am going to make today’s sermon short, and we have fried chickens after the service.

Moses Received the Ten Commandments

Today’s OT lesson is from Exodus, so the Israelites were on the journey from Egypt to the promised land. So they were somewhere in between, and it was near mount Sinai. Now Moses went up to the mountain by himself to receive the Ten Commandments. On the mountain he fasted forty days and forty nights. Several thousand years later, Jesus did the same thing on a different mountain. After fasting forty days and nights, the Ten Commandments, which is the Word of God came down from heaven onto earth. Likewise after fasting forty days and nights, Jesus, who is the Word of God, and who came down from heaven, began His ministry on earth. And the Bible also tells us that the law was given through Moses but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. When you read the gospel of Matthew, you can find so many similar or common things between Moses and Jesus.

Anyway, Moses went up to the mountain and did not came down at all for forty days and nights. He went up without any food. Normally if you do not eat that long, you die. So the Israelites might have been worried about it. The Israelites went to Aaron, a brother of Moses as well as the spokesman of Moses, and they asked him to make a god for them. And he gathered lots of gold and made a golden calf. They had a festival. Then God was offended and sent Moses down with two tablets. Moses saw it and he got upset because they were partying and having fun without him. In his anger, Moses shattered the tablets. He was able to do that because of the Apple Care. Sure enough Moses later got the refurbished tablets. So this is the basic story, and here we see two different leaders.

Moses as Leader

First we see famous Moses, who is the holy man of God. The Bible affirms that he was the greatest servant of God. He was educated as a prince of Egypt, which was the most powerful country and advanced civilisation in the world. So he was raised to be a leader. Then he was exiled for forty years and became a shepherd. Through his experience, Moses understands the life of the ordinary common people, which is another important thing to be a leader. And then he performed so many wonderful miracles—splitting the sea water was merely one of them. But Moses was not a perfect leader. He came with some defects. Because he was raised in Egypt, he barely speaks Hebrew. Imagine that the President of the United States does not speak nor understand English, but only French. Moses also had some bad temper. He shattered the two tablets which God prepared and wrote with His own fingers. When the Israelites asked for water in the middle of a desert, Moses got mad and hit a rock with his staff. Later because of his this anger and temper, God banned Moses from the promised land. And above all, Moses is no fun. He always say no to this, no to that, don’t do this, don’t do that, etc. Moses had no flexibility and no compromising. He was always like ‘I die or you die.’

Aaron as Leader

Meanwhile, Aaron was a bit different kind of leader. Aaron was second powerful person in Israel, not because he was a brother of Moses, but because he was the spokesman. He speaks very well and even God admits that he is a good talker. When even God says he speaks well, I cannot imagine how well he speaks. In the entire Bible, there is no other guy that God says, ‘Oh you speak well.’ But to Aaron, God said not just well, but very well. But Aaron was not just a spokesman, but was more like a translator. Other thing we need to know and understand is that this Bible portion is the record by Moses and Aaron, not by the people who were killed by Aaron and the Levites after Moses shattered the tablets. So what we have is just one side story. We don’t have the story from the other side. And people can lie more boldly when they know that there will be no the other side story. Even in this Bible story, when Moses asked Aaron why he made the idol of the golden calf, he answered, “I didn’t make it. I just threw lots of gold into the fire, and suddenly this golden calf popped out in this exact shape you see it.” So definitely Aaron was lying. And all we have is the story from Aaron. But situationally it is kind of unlikely that people went to Aaron first and threatened him. I mean, think about, how many of you can go to the Vice President and threaten her just because you are not happy? It is possibly more likely the other way around. Aaron was the second most powerful politician back then, and he was even a high priest. So he was like a Vice President. Aaron, seeing Moses not coming down for forty days, he thought it was his chance to seize the power. To gain the power and to secure it, he needed the love of the people. And he saw that people were getting anxious and worried about their future, because they were left out in the middle of a desert without the leader who got them out of Egypt in the first place. Aaron spoke sweet words to them, “Bring me your gold and money, I will show you the bright future.” Because he was s good talker, all the people were enchanted. Not like Moses, Aaron was a fun guy. He knew how to throw a fun party. It was the best party they’ve ever had.

Different End

But when Moses came down back to the camp, the party was over. So I guess I am much like Moses. Whenever I go to a party, then suddenly the party is over. Those people who followed Aaron as their leader were killed but those people who followed Moses as their leader stayed alive. The consequences of following leaders were the opposite. In Jesus parable from today’s NT lesson, a king sent his messengers to a community with the wedding invitations. But the Home Owners Association seized them, maltreated them, and killed them. If those people acted together as one group, there must be a leader. Those home owners elected a wrong person as their leader or chair, and as the consequence, the angry king sent his army, destroyed all the home owners and buried their houses. 

Some of us are leaders or will be. Then we need to think what kind of leader we should be. Are we going to be the leaders leading people to the right path even if people think we are no fun, or are we going to be the leaders leading people to the wrong way seeking their instant approval and popularity? Or on the other hand, many times, we will choose our leaders. For example we have elections next year. Then we need to think carefully which leaders we need to choose because the result may be very different. For example, in Israel, what kind of leader do they have? In Gaza strip, what kind of leader do they have? In a much smaller scale, what kind of leader do we have in this town or in this county? Choosing our leader is not a small thing. But please don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating one political party over the other. I will never do that. I am simply stating the fact that choosing our leader is very important.

Conclusion

And it is needless to say that choosing our spiritual leader is also very important. Moses and Aaron were not only the political leaders but also spiritual and religious leaders. Both of them claimed that they are leading people to YHWH. Aaron said to the people, “Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord!” This all capital Lord is YHWH in Hebrew in everywhere in the English Bibles. But in the end, Moses led people to the promised land, but Aaron instantly pushed people into destruction. There are so many religious leaders, including myself. And all of them claim that they are guiding us to Jesus. Some of them are true disciples of Jesus who can lead us to Jesus. Sadly others are false prophets, leading us to the opposite way. Then how can we tell one from the other? The easiest answer is love. Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is not my word but the word from the very mouth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ himself. Jesus said that by love everyone will know that you are my disciples. Therefore, whoever encourages the love, they are the true disciple of Jesus who can lead us to our beloved Saviour. But whoever promotes the hatred for any reason or for any logic, I am sorry, but they are the false prophets who will eventually drag us to the death, not matter how sweet they speak.

Friends, let us choose love and let us choose life because the love is our ultimate spiritual leader which will surely guide us and lead us to the God of love in heaven where we will live forever happily ever after for there the Lord commanded the blessing, a life for evermore. Amen.