Not Recommended

Don’t read The Rest of the Story

In church yesterday (Proper 23A, Lectionary Track One) we read Exodus 32:1-14. Moses was up on the mountain for so long that the people whined again. Aaron took their rings and necklaces, bracelets and earrings, and made a golden calf for them to worship instead of the Lord. The Lord was furious and determined to burn hot and incinerate them, but Moses talked him out of it. 

Needless to say, that wasn’t the whole story. Arriving back at the Israelite camp carrying the two tablets upon which the Lord had written the commandments, Moses saw what was going on, and in his rage smashed the tablets to the ground and destroyed them. Then followed terrible punishment of the people (Exodus 32:15-35) in Old Testament fashion.

We skip a bit and continue this coming Sunday with Exodus 33:12-23, the PG (Parental Guidance - brief nudity) story in which God exposes his backside to Moses. To know what’s going on historically though, one would have to read the part that our Lectionary discretely chooses to omit (Exodus 32:15-35 through 33:1-11). In book form it’s not that bad really, as a film, PG-13 (Parental Guidance suggested - violence). It's no more violent than Tolkien's PG-13 Lord Of The Rings trilogy that my HNES Middle School religion & ethics classes watched and discussed years ago -- for which we did get parental permission, by the way. Although as a movie, Hollywood could get an R for it, perhaps with the extreme violence, but certainly with the partying that Moses caught going on when he came down from the mountain. That was a disgusting scene, even in Cecil B. DeMille's 1923 film The Ten Commandments.

Not an NC-17 rating though. The partying is not that purient, nor is the slaughter that violent or aberrational.

Nevertheless, not recommended. 

That’s Exodus chapters 32 and 33.

Monday. Peace.

TW+