Reading Exodus 30-32 is interesting. Specifically the contrast between Ex. 30-31 and Ex. 32 is intriguing. Ex. 30-31 (and maybe the chapter/s before) are all about setting apart STUFF and PEOPLE as holy and consecrated. The stuff the priests wore was consecrated and holy. The oil used for anointing was holy. The priests were set apart and holy. So there’s this sense of ‘set apartness’ about being God’s people.
But then Ex. 32 is the story of Aaron and the golden calf. This is almost the opposite of holy. It reads a bit like some of the pictures of riots and demonstrations that have taken up too much air on news channels in recent years. The people throw all their valuables into the fire for the sake of creating something they could worship. In an effort to touch something holy, they forget that THEY are the ones who are set apart. THEY are the ones who are holy…not because of their work, but because God set them apart.
It makes me wonder how we do this today. Where do we lose sight of the set-apartness of PEOPLE and TIME, for instance, and instead throw what we can find into constructing some THING we can see and touch that we call holy?
The church does this all the time.
We ask folks to throw in all their valuables so that we can SEE this thing WE want to call holy. We spent an incredible amount of time and resources wondering how to construct something that we can see/touch, that we can be proud to set apart and call holy.
But we forget that the set-apartness is not something WE DO. It’s something WE ARE.
Dear God, forgive me for the ways that I miss the value of what YOU have made holy in my own effort to “holy-fy” stuff I can touch. Remind me of ways YOU set apart time and people…and even stuff…for special purposes.