Absence of Moses Is Understood as Absence of God!

July 28, 2025 Monday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Daily Readings: Exodus 32:15–24, 30–34; Matthew 13:31–35

There is a popular saying: “Man proposes, but God disposes.” However, in today's Scripture, we encounter a reversal God proposes, but man disposes. The Lord prepares the people of Israel for a sacred covenant. Moses climbs Mount Sinai to receive the tablets inscribed by God’s own hand a divine offering of law, guidance, and relationship.

But while Moses is away, the people grow impatient. His prolonged absence is misinterpreted as God’s abandonment. In their confusion and fear, they demand a visible god a golden calf and begin to worship what their own hands have crafted. Their singing and dancing around this idol mark a grave fall from faith. They equate Moses’ silence with God’s silence—and eventually, with God’s absence.

Moses descends the mountain, sees their apostasy, and is filled with righteous anger. In a dramatic gesture, he shatters the stone tablets, grinds the idol into powder, and makes the people drink it forcing them to confront the bitterness of their actions. Even Aaron, the priest, fails in leadership, blaming the people instead of owning his complicity. Moses’ grief and burden for his people go so deep that he offers himself as a sacrifice pleading with God, “Blot me out of the book You have written if You will not forgive them.” It is a leader’s heart laid bare.

In the Gospel, Jesus speaks of two parables: the Mustard Seed and the Leaven images that reflect the hidden, patient, and transformative nature of the Kingdom of God. The mustard seed is tiny yet becomes a great tree. The leaven is small but transforms the entire dough. These humble beginnings reveal that God works in silence and in secret—but with power and purpose. Transformation does not come instantly. It demands patience and trust.

St. Matthew notes that Jesus speaks in parables to fulfill Scripture as prophesied in Isaiah and the Psalms showing that Jesus is not merely a teacher, but the fulfillment of God’s promises.

Call to Action: Impatience leads to sin—anger, despair, idolatry. But transformation takes time. Patience may taste bitter, but its fruit is always sweet. So what do we choose today—the sweetness of trust or the bitterness of haste?