Deuteronomy 9:15-24

So I turned and went down from the mountain, while the mountain was ablaze; the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. Then I saw that you had indeed sinned against the Lord your God, by casting for yourselves an image of a calf; you had been quick to turn from the way that the Lord had commanded you. So I took hold of the two tablets and flung them from my two hands, smashing them before your eyes. Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin you had committed, provoking the Lord by doing what was evil in his sight. For I was afraid that the anger that the Lord bore against you was so fierce that he would destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also. The Lord was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him, but I interceded also on behalf of Aaron at that same time. Then I took the sinful thing you had made, the calf, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it thoroughly, until it was reduced to dust; and I threw the dust of it into the stream that runs down the mountain. At Taberah also, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked the Lord to wrath. And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, “Go up and occupy the land that I have given you,” you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God, neither trusting him nor obeying him. You have been rebellious against the Lord as long as he has known you. 

Reflection by William C. Green

Have you ever known a religious person who, not wanting to seem pious, feigns irreverence? Or someone basically straitlaced who tries to live that down by coming across with abandon? Or someone who knows little about “the other side of the street” who uses street talk to show how much in-the-know they are?

Sometimes we’re drawn to rebellion because it seems more real and appealing than who we otherwise are. So Hazel Motes in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, rebelling against his religious upbringing, started a church called “The Church Without Christ.” But he could never get rid of what he rejected, hard though he tried, even blinding himself in a final effort at destroying what he could not accept.

It’s hard being something we’re not. Most can see through our pretense—as when a preacher exaggerates his or her stories, or when others try to impress us with their experiences.

And so with the Israelites in the wilderness. These were God’s people, stubborn in their ways of pretending otherwise, eventually wanting to attract as much attention as competing tribes with more colorful gods.

If like Hazel Motes we should rebel, we still need to watch out. In our rebellion we can become stubborn, disowning a lot of ourselves while remaining haunted by it. Like the people in Moses’ day, what we need to disown is any pretense that keeps us from remembering who we are.

Prayer

Merciful God, help me to be who I am and nothing I’m not. May this spirit grow among us. Amen.