MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 32:21-25
SHIFTING RESPONSIBILITY
“And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it to me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.”
Aaron has acted a very sorry part at a great crisis, and his conduct, and the apology he made for it, are worthy of being attentively considered by us, as we are very apt to fall into similar errors. Being charged with the great sin of which he was guilty, Aaron sought to shift the responsibility, and rest the blame elsewhere.
I. He blamed society. “And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people that they are set on mischief,” Exodus 32:22. “So they gave it me,” Exodus 32:24.
Thus is it with men now. Yielding to the pressure of society, we do not live out our highest convictions. We defer to public opinion. Great is the tyranny of public opinion, and many dare not brave it. Aaron dare not in the text, and thousands still are overawed by it. We like to be talked about, but not against. We stay short of being what we ought to be, of doing what we ought to do, for fear of the adverse criticism of our neighbours, work-fellows, countrymen. We defer to public custom. The Jewish rabble wanted images, such as were in Egypt, and Aaron had not courage to resist the demand. So we often bow to the questionable customs of society. Our convictions are otherwise, but we have not the bravery to be singular—we cast a grain of incense on the world’s altar when we ought to hurl a stone at its gods. We defer to public violence. “They gathered themselves together unto,” Exodus 32:1—rather “against”—Aaron in a tumultuous manner, to compel him to do what they wished. And Aaron was coerced by them. So we often fear the anger, menace, violence of those around us, and act a consciously unworthy part. Aaron in the text blaming “the people” is a picture of thousands of us to-day! We do not wish to act thus and thus, but we are the victims of our social surroundings. It is not I, but the people. We, none of us, are guilty, it is the crowd behind which pushes us.
II. He blamed nature. “I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.” As if it were not his fault, but nature’s. He says nothing about the mould that he made; nothing about the graving tool that he used, Exodus 32:4; but nature has done it—it has done itself. So do we reason still.
1. We blame nature for our sins. We cannot hold ourselves responsible for various sins; we look upon them as springing from nature, and as not being amenable to control. We ignore the fact that we failed to interpose our will; that we fed the fires of passion; that in making preparation for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof, we constructed the mould.
2. We blame nature for our miseries. Aaron seems to represent himself as an ill-used man—one to whom nature has been unkind. His miseries were selfcreated, but he fumbles about to represent them as an unfortunate outcome of nature. So do we act still. The other night we heard a man the worse for liquor, abusing a telegraph pole against which he had bruised his face. The spectators smiled; but they might have seen in the complaining sot a striking picture of poor foolish human nature in general. We foolishly, wilfully dash ourselves against the great laws of the creation, and then, bruised and weeping, rail against that creation, all of whose laws are pure and sublime. We transgress the physical laws on which health depends, and there comes out the sickly calf; we transgress the moral laws on which happiness depends, and there comes out the wretched calf; we transgress the intellectual laws on which knowledge depends, and there comes out the stupid calf; we transgress the social and political laws on which national prosperity depends, and there comes out the bloody calves of civil strife and revolution; we transgress the economical laws on which wealth depends, and there comes out the lean and ill-favoured calf of poverty. We blame nature for a score of ugly things by which we are plagued when they are simply the consequences of our own folly.
A word—
1. As to the childishness of this method of shifting responsibility. They did it; is did it. How childish! The little children say, “It did it—it fell—it broke,” and their seniors smile at the transparent sophistry. But do not the seniors also the same? Blaming society, their body, nature? “The calf came out!” He was the calf, and we all feel that he was, and we are also when we shirk responsibility, and speak of it and them. We are men, gifted with the power of self-determination, and it is supremely ignoble and childish to attempt to rest the onus of our conduct on the laws of nature or the exactions of society.
2. The foolishness of it. Sin not only makes cowards of us all, but fools also. They did it; it did it. What shuffling and foolish excuses! How irrational! “Aaron’s reply to the reproachful question of Moses is designedly obscure and confused, because he was himself conscious of the great crime which his fatal want of moral courage had abetted.”—Kalisch (in loco). The reason is confused before we sin, and sinning confuses it all the more, and we awkwardly seek to veil our sin and shame by the most unmanly and illogical vindications.
3. The uselessness of it. Aaron is severely blamed and censured. Moses gives no reply to the childish apology, but directly charges the crime home upon Aaron. “Thou hast brought so great sin upon them,” Exodus 32:21. “Aaron had made them naked,” Exodus 32:25. See also Deuteronomy 9:20. So will it be with us all in the great day of judgment and retribution; our personal responsibility will be insisted upon, and the flimsy reasonings by which we sought to evade that responsibility will be scattered to the winds.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON
Idol-Idiosyncrasy. Exodus 32:1-35.
(1.) Material idolatry has passed away among civilised nations in its literal import. As Macmillan says, the old worship of stocks and stones is now impossible among a professedly Christian people. But although the outward mode has passed away, the essence of the temptation remains the same. Human society is changed, but human nature is unchanged. The impulse which led Israel to seek the golden calf is as strong as ever, and images are set up and worshipped now as fantastic as any pagan fetish or joss. For what is idolatry! Is it not in its essence the lowering of the idea of God and of God’s nature, and the exaltation of a dead image above a man’s own living spirit! Is not an idol whatever is loved more than God, whatever is depended upon for happiness and help independent of God?
(2.) Sooner or later, as Moses pounded the calf and gave the Israelites the dust to drink in punishment of their idolatry, will all such moral idolaters have to drink the dust of their idols. Our sin will become our punishment, our idols our scourges. God is a jealous God, and every soul that turns aside from His love to the lying vanities of the world must drink the bitter water of jealousy, filled with the dust of the bruised and mutilated idols of spiritual idolatry: “This shall ye have at My hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow.”
“Thou art the man within whose heart’s deep cell
All evil sleeping lies;
Lust, in a dark hour waking, breaks the spell,
And straightway there arise
Monsters of evil thoughts and base desire.”
—Greok.
Responsibility! Exodus 32:21-24. Aaron sought to shift the responsibility of this apostacy from his own shoulders to those of others.
1. He blamed the people (Exodus 32:22) for
(1) desiring, and
(2) demanding.
2. He blamed the furnace (Exodus 32:24) for
(1) protecting, and
(2) producing. Kalisch says that Aaron’s reply to the reproachful question of Moses is designedly obscure and confused, because he was himself conscious of the great crime which his fatal want of moral courage had abetted. A crazy house is propped up by one support; but conscious of its insecurity, the owner places a second to keep up the structure. Aaron was sensible of the flimsiness of his defence, and he must need prop it up with two supports, which, after all, disclosed its insecurity.
“Sin and shame are ever tied together
With Gordian knots, of such a strong thread spun,
They cannot without violence be undone.”
Personal Responsibility! Exodus 32:23. That puckered mouth had once known smiles! Those withered, parchment-like cheeks had once worn the rose bloom! Those hungry eyes had once been like those of doves, washed with milk and fitly set! Those lean, clutching hands had once tenderly embraced a fair and loved form! And that heart, dry and worthless as a decayed nut-kernel, had once been soft and gushing with love and sympathy! Now he was a miser, smiling only as he saw the yellow dross and clutched the golden coins. To bleed a stone were easier than to find pity and unselfish sympathy for the woes and wants of others. He was a miser; yet he had his moments when conscience, like a second Moses to Aaron, would ask, “What is this that thou hast done!” Adam-like, Aaron-like, Saul-like, aye, man-like, he would reply to himself, “She made me what I am.” He had loved, and his love had proved faithless—had, on the very morning of their intended marriage, been wedded to another. She had made him love gold, become selfish and avaricious, live a hard and unsympathetic life. “She made me!” “No, Aaron, death before dishonour.” Fearing the anger, menace, and violence of the Israelites, he acted a consciously unworthy part, and all the more because he was their leader pro tempore. We are what we make ourselves, not what others make us—the victims of our fears or follies, our lusts or lingerings after evil.
“Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.”
—Beaumont.