Exodus 32:7-14
Revised Common Lectionary
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 14, 2025
An incomplete list of things a human may do from the moment of conception:
- make their mother nauseous
- alter their mother’s diet
- alter their mother’s wardrobe needs
- disrupt their mother’s sleep
- kick their mother … from the inside
- tear out of their mother
And that’s what they do to the one to whom they are completely reliant for all vital necessities. The psalmist states a universal truth of being a child, “Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5).
An incomplete list of things the Hebrew people did between the moment of their liberation and arriving at Mount Sinai:
- complained about bitter water (Exodus 15:24)
- cried about how they wished they died in Egypt (16:3)
- responded to the food God put in front of them by saying, “What is it?” (16:15)
- after being told not to take more than a day’s ration of manna, they immediately proceeded to take more manna than needed (16:20)
- questioned if God was even with them (17:7)
And that’s what they did to the one to whom they were completely reliant for all vital necessities. In other words, the people behaved as God’s children. The metaphor of God as a divine parent who births, creates, and protects translates the concept of an infinite divine creator into something a finite creature can understand and process: God is a parent who loves God’s children, and I am a child of God.
The metaphor of God as a divine parent who births, creates, and protects translates the concept of an infinite divine creator into something a finite creature can understand and process.
In Exodus 32, the infinite divine is described in the role of a parent. The story depicts God Almighty focusing on a particularly needy child named Moses, who has so much potential but also seems to need his hand held through most problems. God’s trying to help Moses out by providing a few pointers on social organization, tabernacle construction, and priestly fashion selections. After handwriting some basic notes from the conversation on rock tablets, God looks over and notices that all the rest of the children have started finite-ing God’s infinite-ness by building a golden calf and saying that the statue is the Lord their God.
In response to the golden calf, God does a thing that parents sometimes do (not exactly best practice parenting, but it happens): God unloads on Moses. “Your people, who followed you into the wild, have acted perversely. They’ve been quick to turn aside my instruction for a way of life. They’ve cast an image of a calf, worshiped it, sacrificed to it, and have given it credit for my work. Moses, your siblings are stiff-necked. I made a mistake. Stand back, my wrath is going to burn, and you may be about to become an only child.” Yes, God is a parent. That metaphor checks out.
Given the character of God presented in Exodus, it would be strange if God wasn’t offended by the Hebrew people sculpting and worshiping an idol in God’s name. The rationale behind the command not to bow down to or worship an idol is that the Lord your God is a jealous God. God shared divine intimacy and identity with the people, and they responded by lessening that identity and creating a barrier between that intimacy. After everything God and the people had gone through together, and the passion God felt for the people as a nation of God’s children, God would appear cold and uncaring if God did not express some sort of wrathful emotion. God cares deeply about the people and is genuinely hurt by their inability to accept the wonderful joy of embracing the Lord God’s unique godliness.
Sometimes the evidence of grace is the persistence of life, and that’s enough.
Parenting is often the process of managing hurt feelings and allowing deep love to surface even in the most stressful and hurtful situations. It’s not a pleasant feeling to witness someone you deeply love do something that insults your core being (regardless of their intentions). It hurts to have someone to whom you have revealed your true self respond to that revelation by turning your identity into a mockery of your self-understanding. Where human parents sometimes fail in this management, deep love always prevails within God. It is God’s character that God’s mind will always be changed to grace-filled forgiveness. Moses reminds God who God is, and God responds.
In Exodus 32, God’s grace feels like parenting. It isn’t some profound feel-good moment full of daisies and rainbows, but simply the exhale after a kid realizes that their parent isn’t going to kill them for being the absolute idiot they can’t help but be. Sometimes the evidence of grace is the persistence of life, and that’s enough.
Questions for reflection on Jeremiah 18:1-11
- What are some of the ways that you relate to God as a child relates to a parent?
- Is the parent metaphor helpful for your understanding of the divine? How does the metaphor fall short? How is the metaphor most helpful?
- If you are reading this, it probably means that you are alive. How do you celebrate your life? What are some of the ways that your faith celebrates your life? How do you thank God for the persistence of your life and others’ lives?
