Exodus 32:1-14; Exodus 33:12-17

Before we begin let us consider what has happened before the stories we heard today. The Israelites have been slaves in Egypt until God, through Moses, launches a daring plague-based escape. They are now free! God has promised to take them to a land rich with milk and honey but at the moment they are waiting in the desert for a plan and a path. The only thing they have to eat is miraculous manna, which God provides each morning and they can’t stockpile beyond the day’s needs.

In the first reading today, Moses is away in discussion with God. While they were busy, the community crafts and then begins to worship a golden calf. In response, Moses destroys it, and has many of the men killed. Even more got sick. The relationship between the community, Moses, and God, is rocky to say the least.

By the time we get to the second story, things have calmed down a bit and God has given the go-ahead, has commanded that Moses to begin the trek to the promised land. So in our reading, Moses turns to God and says outright ‘go with us’.

We will come back to Moses. For now, let us sit with his community. It can be easy, for those of us who know how the story ends, to judge the Israelites for their golden calf. It can feel absurd that they, who through Moses have a direct phone line to God, would desire an idol.

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Letter writing and receiving letters has always been important to me. When I was a child in Primary School, I had a penfriend in rural NSW and we wrote to each other for decades, although we only met once. When I first left home to teach in the country and was homesick, letters between my mother and me really mattered. Letters between me and my future husband Ron, written over several years when we lived in different countries, changed the direction of our lives from friendship to a long marriage.

These days, fewer people write real letters, which I find quite sad. Text messages can be great, and I use them all the time, but they are limited. And as for a string of emojis, that is not the same!

In the years immediately after the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, the followers of Jesus were beginning to spread into scattered communities. As new groups of Christians were gathering in places distant from each other, letters became important. The apostle Paul wrote letters to a number of communities and we can still read them in our New Testament. As Paul travelled, he met little groups in places like Rome, so he wrote a letter to the Romans. He visited the Christians in Corinth and later wrote at least two letters to the Corinthians.

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Text: The idea of mindful noticing is in Jesus’ teaching on the Sermon on the Mount, “Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, and how they grow; they are neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.” (Matthew 6:28-29).

Principle:

Mindfulness is all about focus. Noticing. Duke Ellington said, “There are two kinds of music – good and bad. You can tell them apart by listening.” Listening in a focused way is another form of mindfulness.

To do: Stop and listen. What do you hear?

How to:

Mindfulness is simply paying attention, internally or externally, in an accepting way. It is characterized by attention with a gentle curiosity. You could mindfully count the bricks in a wall or books on a shelf.

Mindfulness is now big in psychological treatment with therapies such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The effectiveness has been shown through randomized controlled trials. Mindfulness can be helpful when our minds are full of ‘speeding thoughts’, we can become grounded and present and not tossed around by distracting or negative thoughts. 

For example, you could try being mindful in the shower. Simply notice the sensation of water hitting your body. No need to do anything extra, just notice. I walk Truff twice each day. He challenges me to be more mindful because he notices every smell, stopping to investigate and only reluctantly, with a pull of the leash, does he move on.

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Text: Matthew 5:33-37 Let your word be ‘yes, yes’ or ‘no, no.’

Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, said that the soul is died the colour of its leisure thoughts. We know that thoughts can torment or even persecute. They can race like a Porche 911 and become almost impossible to control.  Are we at the mercy of our thoughts or can we do something about them? To think or not to think, that is the question (sorry Shakespeare)

Principle: Thought diffusion is a psychological technique to objectify and displace or distance yourself from distressing thoughts.

How to:

Thought de-fusion is an important psychological technique. Thoughts and emotions are often closely linked. They can be ‘sticky’. TD is a way of separating or to de-fusing the thought from negative emotions. You might feel triggered by a distressing thought which spikes your anxiety or worsens your mood. An individual’s thoughts can be one-sided and lose perspective or become fixated. Or a person can become so preoccupied and not present to what’s happening in his or her life.

Negative thoughts can be emotionally bruising. This can happen when thoughts are taken too seriously.

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Matthew 18:21-35
Romans 14:1-12

Anyone who knows me knows that I am hopeless at maths. You will never find me as a volunteer at the sales point in the food pantry because it needs someone competent with adding up. I do less damage if I help in the Food Pantry Cafe where no money changes hands.

The Scripture for today uses the idea of numbers – numbers added or multiplied, enormous numbers or small numbers, numbers when you are keeping a score. It comes in a chapter that speaks of questions to Jesus about how to deal with conflict, particularly among followers of Jesus. What do we do when we disagree? How do we react when someone really hurts us, or offends us?

At some time or another, I expect that all of us have been hurt by someone. Perhaps a family member, a work colleague or neighbour. Maybe we have been cheated, or threatened, or abused, or insulted. Perhaps we have lived in danger in a war zone, or felt betrayed by a political party or by a partner. Sometimes we disagree with others about important issues, and things have turned nasty between us. Of course, there will be times when we have to admit that we have been the cause of the conflict, hurting others, and we are the ones who need forgiveness. Some of these are very great and troubling problems, and others are less so, but still painful.

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