February 20: Our dynamic God

By Arden Ratcliff

DEUTERONOMY 9:13-21

13Furthermore the LORD said to me, “I have seen that this people is indeed a stubborn people. 14Let me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and more numerous than they.”

15So I turned and went down from the mountain, while the mountain was ablaze; the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16Then 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. 17So I took hold of the two tablets and flung them from my two hands, smashing them before your eyes. 18Then 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. 19For 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. 20The 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. 21Then 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.

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In this passage, Moses recounts to the Israelite people God’s reaction to their creation of an idolatrous golden calf to worship, originally told in Exodus 32-33 (and always referred to in my Old Testament class in seminary as “Calf-gate”). 

What I find notable about this version of the story is how it emphasizes that Moses’ actions caused God to change God’s mind.   Just as God initially caused a flood to wipe out the entire population except for Noah and his family, and then sent a rainbow to promise never to do it again, so again in this story God is fixed on anger and destruction but then turns against it.

This story reminds us that our journey with God is not a one-way street.  We often think of God as an unchangeable force, a steadfast, immovable constant.  But while God can be all those things, God can also be so much more.  It’s important to remember that God can be just as dynamic and interactive as you or me.  And so, our relationships with God should be two-sided.  Just as we learn and grow as we continue on our spiritual journeys, so God grows throughout the divine’s interactions with humanity throughout history. 

After all, why would we want to pray to a God who didn’t actively listen to us and wasn’t open to the possibility that our thoughts might affect the divine will?   

So as you continue on your Lenten journey, I ask you: how is God affecting you?  How are you affecting God?