Saint Scholastica

March 10, 2005

A Stiff Necked People Ex 32:7-14

The LORD said to Moses, "Go down at once to your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved. They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them, making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it, sacrificing to it and crying out, ‘This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!' The LORD said to Moses, "I see how stiff-necked this people is. Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them. Then I will make of you a great nation."

But Moses implored the LORD, his God, saying, "Why, O LORD, should your wrath blaze up against your own people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with so strong a hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent he brought them out,
that he might kill them in the mountains and exterminate them from the face of the earth'? Let your blazing wrath die down; relent in punishing your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, and how you swore to them by your own self, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky; and all this land that I promised, I will give your descendants as their perpetual heritage.'" So the LORD relented in the punishment
he had threatened to inflict on his people.

These are a stiff necked people God said of the people of Israel. I suppose it is still true after all the trials and acts of mercy we are a stiff necked people. Moses plead to God for mercy on behalf of the people and reminded God of the covenant with the people. It is one of the things that is, I believe human nature that we are saved from harm and soon forget the gifts we have receieved and plunge right back into ways that are not God's ways without even realizing at times. At other times, we know it is wrong but sticking to our own ways in a stiff necked stance. To me it is key to be able to lose the "me first" mentality and offer myself to God first the attitude and living of this removes much of the foolish stiff necked ways. It is a daily act of conversion to put aside the self and put God first as a repeated conscious decision.