I wonder if you noticed that there is something odd about the conversation between God and Moses which is reported in the Thirty-second Chapter of the Book of Exodus.  It is simply not the sort of exchange that I, at least, would expect to hear between The One True God, Omnipotent and Almighty, . . . and His creature servant.  I would expect God to address Moses in a more measured, formal, dispassionate, and juridical way, . . . and I would expect Moses’ reply to be more subservient and contrite.  But in the portion of the Book of Exodus appointed for today God and Moses are arguing!  . . . And the argument sounds so . . . domestic(!); . . . the argument sounds as if a wife and her husband are having a spat!

    The problem, you see, is that God is quite put out by the misbehavior of Israel’s children.  Here they are, given the promise of a wonderful thing to come to them from God at Mount Sinai, . . . and they can’t even sit still for forty days without getting into trouble -- without fashioning a golden calf and bowing down to worship it, of all things.  The ingratitude is just too much, . . . and so, the Lord God says to Moses,

Go down; for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves . . .

The Lord God Almighty, like an irate wife, makes reference to Her children as if they were not:  “your people whom you brought”; . . . as if Moses were the one who brought these fractious children to the marriage and inflicted God with their unruliness.  . . . In response to which the injured Moses sets the record straight,

O Lord, why does thy wrath burn hot against thy people, whom thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?

As if to say, “Hey, wait a minute, Lord.  I was minding my own business watching my father-in-law’s sheep.  This marriage was your idea; . . . you came up with that burning bush and those seven plagues!”

    Now, . . . this account of the conversation between God and Moses over the apostasy of Israel at Mount Sinai is presented to us like a domestic squabble between husband and wife not because the ancient Hebrew people were primitive and unsophisticated.  The apostasy of Israel at Mount Sinai is reported in this way because of the astonishingly domestic nature of God’s self-revelation which came about as a result of this thing.

    First, the Hebrew text wants us to understand that the terrible thing about sin is not that it is cleverly wicked.  . . . The great evil of sin is that it is absurdly stupid!  Sin is childish.  Sin is childish, and it annoys God.  And when you have been told what annoys God and you still do it, . . . well, that’s simply aggravating.  Sin is so stupid . . . that it aggravates God.  It is aggravating enough to evoke God’s wrath.

    And what is God’s wrath?  Well, that’s the second thing the Hebrew text tells us we must learn from Israel’s apostasy.  “Divine Wrath” is not some great, irresistible fire which melts the flesh of apostate and unbeliever alike, conjured up by a vengeful God Who cannot tolerate vice.  The wrath of God simply describes the point at which God becomes so aggravated by morons who make claims upon Him, but haven’t enough maturity to not wreck the household with unruly behavior; . . . haven’t enough intelligence to put two reasonable ideas together in order to make some good; . . . God becomes so aggravated . . . that He abandons intractable sinners to their own devices.  . . . He sends unruly sinners to their room.  . . . But, you see, if everything that is  . . . is the consequence of God’s holy will -- the consequence of God’s holy attention -- then to be sent to your room by God is to be cast out of God’s presence; . . . it is to become lost to God.  And to be lost to God is to be obliterated:  it is to be no more.  . . . So when the Lord God tells Moses to leave Him be in order that His wrath burn hot against Israel so that He might consume them, . . . God’s intent is less like celestial fire and more like our Lord Jesus has taught us in the Twenty-fourth Chapter of Saint Matthew’s Gospel:

[at] the coming of the Son of man . . . two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left.  Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left.  . . . Therefore you . . . must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

At the unknown and unexpected moment of Time’s completion, Jesus says, the love of God shall claim the righteous, . . . while the wrath of God will leave the wicked be; . . . will abandon them to their waywardness . . . until they grow old and die and are no more.

    Which brings us to the final thing Israel’s apostasy at Sinai reveals to us:  that it is the work of righteousness to ever intercede for the unrighteous.  And so, when the Lord God Almighty declares to Moses that the children of Israel shall be consumed, “but of you I will make a great nation,” . . . the Lord God is measuring Moses’ metal.  . . . The Lord God is testing Moses’ Faith.  Does Moses remember God’s covenant with Abraham -- that all nations shall bless themselves by Abraham’s offspring?  Does Moses believe and trust that God is faithful and constant?  Or will Moses use God’s displeasure to his own advantage and profit?  And, it is not that God doesn’t know the stuff of which Moses is made.  God’s point is to test Moses so that Moses will know the stuff of which he is made, . . . and so that we will see it and be like Moses.  Because Moses answers God wisely and is faithful to God’s Covenant with Abraham.  He says, in effect, that his offspring will be no different from Jacob’s; moreover, all the ungodly are watching, and they should not have occasion to slander the Lord God because His people become accursed . . . even if they deserve it.  As the faith of Abraham believed that the Lord God would fulfill His promise, so the faith of Moses believes that God’s patience is greater than sin.  And by this faith Moses makes intercession for God’s people.  . . .  So, where the text reads, “And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people” . . . it is saying that the Lord God Almighty, seeing that the righteousness of Abraham continues in Moses, . . . the Lord God does not abandon a people whom Faith has not abandoned.

    And, you see, the Good News of God in Christ is that all of us are inheritors of Moses’ intercession.  God’s wrath has not only been put away, but God Himself, in the person of His Son -- Jesus -- . . . God Himself has come out to both the apostate and the ungodly so that none who are capable of Faith may be lost.  Hence, when Jesus asks, “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost” . . . a wise man of business would say, “No one!”  For, indeed, while you’re off searching for the one . . . when you get back with it . . . you will have lost twenty-five others.  . . . But God is not a savvy businessman.  The ninety-nine righteous have the Law and the Prophets to guide them, . . . and so God goes off to find the one who, by reason of its foolishness, has lost its way.  . . . And when Jesus asks, “what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it?” . . . my mother would say, “a really silly one.”  Because, when my mother lost something, she would say “Let the devil have it for awhile”, because there were meals to prepare, washing to be done, and mending as well.  She couldn’t waste her day on one little thing when the demands of subsistence were greater.  . . . But our God is not an efficient housewife.  He would rather go hungry than allow one of you to continue in your childishness.  . . . He would rather wear ragged, dirty clothing than allow someone who is not here today to remain a stranger to His Word and Sacraments for another Sunday.

    And so, Jesus has sought each one of you out . . . and brought you here.  You are in Church today because Jesus went looking for you.  And then, having given you the joy of knowing Him -- having blessed your life with His Presence -- Jesus has made each of you an Intercessor.  Jesus does not counsel us to be cagey businessmen or shrewd housewives.  Jesus has not called us to make a profit of our Christianity, nor to make this Parish a successful enterprise.  Jesus has called each one of you to a domestic faith.  Jesus has called you to be an holy family.  Jesus has called you to believe that God’s patience is stronger than sin, and He wants you, like Moses, to be an intercessor.  Jesus wants you to pray for the men and women and children you might know who do not regularly go to church.  Jesus wants you to pray for anyone who does not know the comfort of God’s Word, the blessing of His Presence, and the strength of a Family in Christ to stand by them.  . . . And then Jesus wants you to help Him transform their lives by inviting them to church.  . . . Jesus has made you His Intercessors . . . to seek sheep who have become lost to God; . . . Jesus has made you His Intercessors so that He can restore God’s precious coins to their rightful place.  Jesus has made you His Intercessors so that His righteousness might continue in you; . . . so that the lost and unruly might be brought here . . . to Jesus.  . . . That is the meaning of God’s domestic nature shown to us in Scripture today; it is the meaning of the parables Jesus tells to the Pharisees and scribes; . . . it explains why we are Christ’s Body and your duty as Christ’s Church.