Then, in chapter 32 we read that the people are thinking that Moses has abandoned them completely or been lost on the mountain and they ask his brother Aaron to make them gods with which they are familiar to lead them through the wilderness. We all want familiar gods, don’t we? He does and when Moses finally returns from meeting with God he sees them worshiping the Golden Calf and indulging in revelry. “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and have sacrificed to it and have said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt. I have seen these people, the Lord said to Moses, and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

I have to say that would have been tempting to me at times. God’s offer to get rid of all people problems and start over with just me alone. How could anyone refuse that? No more complainers and whiners and grumblers. No more rebellions and hostile dependents. No more people challenging authority or asking for special treatment.

And here is where we begin to understand the several roles Moses will play in the life of Israel. He is the prophet, the punisher, and the self-sacrificing protector. His first response is to punish the offenders.

“Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him. Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”

But, he is far more than that, isn’t he? Moses pleads for them even at the cost of his own life and being blotted out of God’s book. “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed. They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin – but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.” I will trade you my life for theirs – even though their sin is great. It is the same with Paul when he says in Romans 9. “I speak the truth in Christ – I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit -. I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer said the same thousands of years later when he faced turning on his vow of pacifism to join the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He said he was willing to risk being cut off from God to save the German people from such an evil. This is the essence of leadership, isn’t it? It’s not enough to risk this life for people but to offer up our eternal souls for them – to become sin in God’s eyes and be punished forever – that is more than sacrificial leadership. That is what Christ did for us. He became Sin that we might be forgiven. This is far different than “Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friend.” This is not only laying down this life but being willing to be considered cursed and separate from God for eternity. It’s not a temporary sacrifice or grand gesture.

But that’s not the lesson this morning. The lesson is about those who rallied around Moses – the Levites. What became of them and who are their heirs today?

All along we have read in Deuteronomy and Numbers that the Levites will not have an inheritance of land like the other tribes. Why not? It’s ironic because they were faithful when the Israelites were not. They were the men Moses called on to kill those who had worshipped the golden calf. “The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand people died. Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers and he has blessed you this day.” Moses prepares them for it but it is up to Joshua to actually implement it. 13:14, 33; 14:3-5; 18:7: “The Levites do not get a portion among you because the Lord is their inheritance.” Forever after, the Levites were dependent for their subsistence on a tithe paid by each tribe.

That might sound more like a disinheritance when you hear it at the reading of the will. “All this I give to your brothers and you get nothing but the opportunity to work for them and be dependent on them. I hope they have forgotten about that unfortunate incident in the wilderness when you killed 3,000 of them because of a little misunderstanding.”

But they do get something more than that. They were allotted 48 cities and pasturelands surrounding them out of the inheritance of the other tribes.

They were not given ownership of the cities. They were given the right to live there and use the land to provide a living for themselves. In this sense, they were bi-vocational. They worked in between the times they were serving in the Temple.

They belong to a particular place but they do not own that place. They are assigned to it but they still travel back and forth to serve their rotating shift in the Temple. There is no permanent staff. The earliest form of term limits. There is no permanent job for them. They have no seniority and no committee chairs. There is no career ladder. They have no official influence.

Instead, they are sprinkled throughout the other tribes and not concentrated in one place. There is no place they can call special or unique or God’s land. They are salt and light. One person has said “God set up a candle in every room of his house.” They were to be living examples of a holy life for the people to see – not a detached or reclusive monks concentrated in one place with their own special interests. There was no headquarters or convent or monastery. They lived and worked with the people they served and only spent the time necessary in Jerusalem.

They were not only limited in the time they spent in Jerusalem but limited in the years they could be active. They began working as a Levite at the age of 30 and there was a mandatory retirement at 50 – a very short career. After that, their responsibility was to assist the younger Levites in their work.

What is most interesting to me is what this produced.

1. The Levites had an interest in the prosperity of all the tribes and not just one. Because they received a tithe from each the economic health of the whole nation was important to them. They were not supported by just one or two tribes. There were no major donors. You could see it as the earliest example of “crowd funding” as everyone used part of their tithe to support the work of the Levites. But, it was not like the tax imposed on people in Israel today to support the Orthodox who do not work but only study. The Levites also made enormous contributions to Israel.

2. Because they were in the cities of every tribe and they were far more mobile than everyone else, they were connected to everything. They were like bumblebees moving around the nation. They would go to Jerusalem and then back to their cities. They were the newspapers of their day. They were like county extension agents picking up not only news but best practices to isolated and protective tribes.

3. They were involved in every aspect of the life of the nation.

• They were ordained to be teachers of the nation (Deuteronomy 24:8; 33:10; 2 Chronicles 35:3; Nehemiah 8:7).

• They also represented many of the judges of the land, and in the time of Ezra they were the sole members of the Sanhedrin — the Supreme Court of the nation (Deuteronomy 17:8–9; 21:5; 1 Chronicles 23:4; 2 Chronicles 19:8; Ezekiel 44:15, 24).

• Most medical services were in their care (Leviticus 13:2, 14:2; Luke 17:14).

• They were professional singers and musicians (1 Chronicles 25:1–31; 2 Chronicles 5:12; 34:12).

• Producers of books and librarians were almost exclusively Levites (2 Chronicles 34:13).

• It may appear strange to some but even law enforcement was in their care (1 Chronicles 23:4) — they were the “sheriffs” (Moffatt).

• Many of the Levites were architects and builders (2 Chronicles 34:8–13).

• Financial managers of David’s treasury.

They were the creative class/knowledge workers of the nation. It’s not how we think of them from the New Testament, is it? We see them as dry, colorless and lifeless lawyers who are only interested in picking apart Jesus. That was not their original purpose. They reduced themselves to that over time because, in John Gardner’s words in his book, “The Road To Self-Renewal”, they stopped renewing themselves.

“It is a puzzle why some men and women go to seed, while others remain vital to the very end of their days. And why some people stop learning and growing. One must be compassionate in assessing the reasons: Perhaps life just presented them with tougher problems than they could solve. Perhaps something inflicted a major wound on their confidence or their self-esteem. Perhaps they were pulled down by the hidden resentments and grievances that grow in adult life, sometimes so luxuriantly that, like tangled vines, they immobilize the victim.

I’m talking about people who – no matter how busy they seem to be – have stopped learning or trying. Many of them are just going through the motions. I don’t deride that. Life is hard. Just to keep on going is sometimes an act of courage. But I do worry about men and women at whatever age functioning below the level of their potential.

We can’t write off the danger of complacency, of growing rigidity or of imprisonment by our own comfortable habits and opinions. Look around you. How many people whom you know well – people even younger than yourselves – are already trapped in fixed attitudes and habits? The famous French literary historian Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve said, “There are people whose clocks stop at a certain point in their lives.”

When God relieved them of the responsibilities of working the land and protecting the interests of a particular tribe, he enabled them to become examples not just of a holy life but a creative and productive life filled with variety and learning. They were the first examples of what Jews have become everywhere they have gone – the leaders in culture, the arts, the professions and finance.

And what is their assignment when they are over 50? To assist the younger Levites. That is not limited to helping them with their Temple duties. It means helping them to become what God intended for the Levites – to be the creative class of the nation. I think that is why God retired them when they were still vital and learning. It means becoming mentors to the next generation of a whole tribe of connected, creative and competent people.

As we Boomers age there are more studies on the relationship between aging and creativity. It’s often said that we become less creative with age and that our best work is behind us. It’s not true.

Tara Barahmpour wrote in the Washington Post several years ago:

“Large creative breakthroughs are more likely to occur with younger scientists and mathematicians, and with lyric poets, than with individuals who create longer forms,” said Howard Gardner, professor of cognition and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

In fields like law, psychoanalysis and perhaps history and philosophy, on the other hand, “you need a much longer lead time, and so your best work is likely to occur in the latter years,” Gardner said.

There’s some truth to “You should start when you are young,” Gardner said. “But there is no reason whatsoever to assume that you will stop being creative just because you have gray hair.”

Isn’t that an irony? What seemed like God being unfair in depriving them of their fair share of land as an inheritance was His giving them a role they could never have played otherwise. They were dependent on the support of the other tribes and that made them free to become those with the most interesting work all at the same time.

But, they were never relieved of their other responsibility which defined them in the first place: rallying to Moses and the commandments when the people had become corrupt. That is the other side of the coin for pastors and teachers. It is easy to be a comforter for people but not easy at all when the people have given themselves over to corruption and the worship of false gods and golden calves. The Levites – then and now – are still called to do the hard things that no one wants to do. As James says, “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”

It’s a three-fold inheritance – just like the three-fold characteristic of true leadership. There is the responsibility to serve with no inheritance and being dependent on others but also the responsibility to call them to accountability when they have become corrupt and begun to worship other gods to lead them. Levites are never done. They never fade away. There is always a calling for them wherever they are.