People of God: The Future.

When I studied the text for today, I was surprised that "The future" is not a return to innocence.

The people of God have taken a wrong turn and I expect another Noah’s Ark or Tower of Babel story.  The people of God have created a Calf and chose to worship it instead of waiting for God who had delivered them from Egypt through the Red Sea.  So I expect God to hit the cosmic reset button again.  Yet after the calf, God does not rewind the story.

Israel does not get to return to Exodus 19 and pretend Exodus 32 never happened.  The first tablets remain shattered.

There will be second tablets, but they are second tablets.  There will be a tabernacle. There will be God’s presence. There will be a journey toward the promised land.  But the people of God now know themselves differently. They know what they are capable of. They know how quickly fear can turn into idolatry. They know how fragile covenant community can be.

And most importantly, they now know something about God they did not know in quite the same way before:  They know what it is like to fail God and still discover God waiting for them on the other side of the failure.

Even in their failure, God’s steadfast love endures forever.  That is grace. Grace isn’t pretending the calf never happened. Grace is God saying, "The calf will not get the last word about who you are."

In our denomination as United Methodists, we are not going back to the United Methodist Church of 2018 before the disaffiliation process. Or even the church of 1968 to clarify firm convictions that were overlooked.  We couldn’t if we wanted to (I don't).

Congregations have left. Friendships have been wounded. Clergy relationships have changed. Conferences have changed. Communities have lost members and property and resources. And most unfortunately, LGBTQ United Methodists carry memories of years of painful debate and exclusion.

There is no innocence to recover.  And the line between innocence and blindness was thin and the tension and harm of that time greater than what we often remember.  But there is a future to receive.  And that future is different from institutional survival.   

Have you ever read the offer God makes Moses earlier in this chapter?  It happens just before today’s passage in Exodus 33:1-3.

God’s offer goes like this,  “I’ll give you the land. I’ll send an angel. You can have the future you were promised.”  But Moses essentially says:  “That’s not enough. If you don’t go with us, we aren’t going.”

That’s an extraordinary word for the United Methodist Church today.

Our future cannot simply be: We survived disaffiliation.That’s not much of a gospel.

Nor can it be: We won. That’s even worse.  I lived through it and if this is winning, the cost was too great.

The question for the People of God remains from the time of Moses for us even today.  Is God among us? And if God is among us, where is God calling us to go?

Our conversation needs to shift from survival to mission.  In my own reflection on the pain of this period, I am discovering that with some of the institutional struggle behind us, we can hear the mission again.

The official denomination continues to state our mission plainly: making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. And that vision is even being sharpened as United Methodists are called by our bishops to—love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously.

Are our second tablets taking shape?  The second tablets are not evidence that nothing happened. They are evidence that what happened is not final.  They provide the People of God an open-eyed future.

The second tablets say:

There was failure, but there is still covenant.

There was betrayal, but there is still relationship.

There was judgment, but there is still mercy.

There was rupture, but there is still a people of God.

There was a past we cannot recover, but there is still a future God is giving us.

That is quite different from saying, “Everything worked out.”  Everything did not work out.

Israel carries the memory of the calf forever.  And United Methodism will carry the memory of disaffiliation for generations.  

Grace doesn’t erase memory. Grace redeems memory by refusing to let the worst chapter become the final chapter.  And something has changed in Israel after the calf.  The people after Exodus 32 have learned that God’s presence cannot simply be taken for granted.  Before the calf, perhaps the presence of God could almost become part of the scenery with persistent cloud, fire, mountain, miracle.

Afterward Moses pleads: “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here.”

Now the People of God understand.  The land isn’t the point.  Their prosperity isn’t the point.  Their institutional existence isn’t the point.  God is the point.  This is precisely the opportunity before our post-disaffiliation church.

For decades, enormous amounts of United Methodist energy went into fighting over what kind of denomination we would be. That struggle was real, and the differences underneath it were real. But a church can spend so much energy arguing about who belongs to the church that it loses sight of why the church exists.

Now comes the question of Moses in Exodus 33:  If God is still going with us, what are we going to do with the future God has given us?  Not protect the institution.  Not re-litigate the division.  Not spend the next generation talking about who left.

Make disciples.

Be a place for all people.

Feed people.

Teach children.

Visit the lonely.

Welcome the stranger.

Seek justice.

Proclaim Jesus Christ.

Love boldly.

Serve joyfully.

Lead courageously.

The future of the people of God is not found by recovering the wrongly remembered innocence of the past. It is found by receiving the grace of God in the present and following the presence of God into the future.

We have been through something.  Our denomination has been through something.  Our churches have been through something.

Some people we love are no longer walking this particular road with us. Some wounds remain. Some questions remain unanswered. We should neither celebrate the pain nor pretend it didn’t happen.  But here we are.

And perhaps the word of God to us is not: “Go back.”

Perhaps it is: “My presence will go with you.”

And our answer becomes Moses’ answer:  Then that is enough. If you are going with us, God, we will go.

Because this is the great grace revealed after the calf:  God does not give Israel its innocence back.  God gives Israel God’s presence back.

And presence is better than innocence. Innocence can be lost.  But Grace can carry us and is carrying us forward into a future given by God.

Reflections on Exodus 33:12-23.  Staff Chapel Tuesday, September 15, 2026.