Moses Persuades God

Num 14:13-24         11/15/2017

Moses persuaded the Lord not to destroy the Israelites, ostensibly so that the Egyptians wouldn’t get the wrong idea about Him.

It’s kind of silly – or so it seems; arguing with God about His reputation. But I suspect there’s more to this. Moses’ concern and his arguments haven’t so much changed the mind of God as they have pointed out the essential issue of love, and trust, and relationship.

The cosmic drama is love. By love, through the Word, everything is made. The cosmos, the galaxies, the solar systems, the planets, our planet, the days, the hours, the present; it’s all made as an outpouring from God into the abyss of nothingness.

And from this outpouring of total, creative, self-giving there is one only question. Will the thing created resemble the Creator? Will love produce beings that love?

You are the cosmic drama. A microcosm of the cosmic drama. It’s playing out in you. You didn’t ask for the part but you also can’t avoid it. So now the question is, will your microcosm, your drama, be a comedy or a tragedy?

“For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God” Rom 8:19

Joshua and Caleb

Num 14:3-12         11/14/2017

Joshua and Caleb looked to reassure the people who were frightened by the scouting report. However, their encouragements were met with scorn and the people threatened to kill them by stoning.

I suppose you’d have to say that Joshua and Caleb were counter-cultural.

Counter-culture.

I say I want to challenge contemporary culture. I say I want to offer an authentic alternative.

Following God is always counter-cultural. But the authentic challenge to synthetic culture isn’t debate. It isn’t persuasive language or pious judgements or even celebratory worship. It is in following God no matter what the personal cost.

This is more than a matter of personal choice in a given moment. It is the result of having formed a disposition to harmonize with the will of God. Beyond what’s in it for me; beyond indifference for what’s in it for me – it’s about the active desire to see His will be done. This alone rises to the stature of counter-culture, because anything less is mainstream. It’s what we all thoughtlessly do.

“Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done…”  Matt 6:10

Twelve Scouts

Num 13:9-24         11/12/2017

Moses selected one of the leaders from each of the twelve tribes to reconnoiter the promised land of Canaan. He sent them out with instructions to get certain, specific information.

Moses asked the team of scouts to search out the highlands and lowlands and the wilderness. He asked them to report on the condition of the land, the fortifications of the cities, and the numbers of the peoples.

Think of being one of the men selected to be a scout. What a strange and wonderful opportunity – to foretaste the promised land. To be the first to see the manifestation of a 500 year old promise; to anticipate the possessing of so many good things; to tangibly experience the faithfulness of God; the scouts were the first partakers of God’s goodness.

The foretaste is intended to whet the appetite.

The foretaste I have been given: Access to the glory of God the Father, through the Son and Holy Spirit; in the Word, in the Eucharist, in the fellowship of believers. This should whet my appetite for a life yet fully to live.

In the quiet of listening I find the kingdom of God.

“The kingdom of heaven is among you” Luke 17:20

Miriam’s Infection

Num 12:10-13:8         11/11/2017

Miriam and Aaron challenged Moses’ authority. As a result, God descended to the Tent of Meeting and rebuked them. He chastised Miriam with an infection from which she was healed seven days later at Moses’ intercession.

“Does God speak through Moses alone?” Miriam and Aaron asked the wrong question.

Miriam is the woman who, as a little girl, saved Moses by putting him into a basket. She floated him to the house of Pharaoh. Without her, he might have died. Aaron was the voice of Moses when Moses feared speaking before Pharaoh. They had both played instrumental roles in his life, and in his leadership of the people.

Leadership in the Authentic Community: Called, chosen, ordained.

God chose Moses.

With all of his failures, with all his well-documented faults, with all of his reluctance and misunderstandings…God chose Moses. He was the leader.

This distinction between my personal relationship with Jesus and the relationship between God and the Authentic Community is artificially imposed. God’s purpose is in both.

I have, you have, each of us has unmediated access to the God who dwells in us; in whom we live and move and have our being. In this respect, He is closer to us than we are to ourselves.

But community is more than a collection of Christian atoms. The community is organic and ordered for God’s purpose. He calls, He ordains, He predestines for particular roles within the body of believers. And, the community requires a leader.

That God speaks to me doesn’t make me leader, doesn’t make me rabbi, or pastor, or bishop or pope. My peace is in knowing how I fit.

My anxiety is in trying to force everything to fit around me.

“No one takes this honor upon himself but only when called by God, just as Aaron was” Heb 5:4

Quail and Plague

Num 11:32-12:9         11/10/2017

The children of Israel gorged themselves on quail from the Lord. The place was Kibreth-hattaavah: “It was there that the greedy people were buried.”

It’s the hanging on; the wanting to retain; the comparing ourselves with others; that drives us to greed. It is written of the Israelites, “Even the one who got the least gathered ten homers of them [quail]”.

A homer is a measure of volume. One homer is about the equivalent of a modern barrel.

So picture this: Men and women running around in the desert wasteland gathering more than 10 barrels of dead quail. No refrigeration.

What were they thinking? What were they going to do with all of this meat? I have 7 children – four boys – and my family couldn’t eat a single barrel of meat in a month.

It’s so easy to marvel at someone else’s obvious moral failing; obvious stupidity. How could anyone think that gathering 10 barrels of dead quail in the middle of the desert was a good idea?

But the likely truth is that if I was surrounded by thousands of people frantically gathering as much quail as they possibly could, even if I didn’t understand what they were doing, I’d join in. I wouldn’t want anyone to get more quail than me. I wouldn’t want to be that guy who missed out. I’d be afraid that if I didn’t get as much quail as I possibly could, that I’d regret it later; a month later; a year later. I’d vision myself and my family with nothing but manna to eat while everyone around me was eating their fill of delicious quail. I’d be out there gathering more than my neighbor – assuring myself that I wouldn’t get caught short.

I’d have the biggest pile of quail.

I’d be proud and self-assured. I’d count my quail often to make sure none was missing. I’d build a big cart so I could keep my quail with me. And this would be my destruction.

‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’ Luke 12:20

Moses and the Seventy

Num 11:21-31         11/9/2017

Seventy elders were each given a portion of Moses’ spirit to help Moses shoulder the burden of leadership. They began to prophecy. Joshua, Moses’ right-hand man, was worried that all these people prophesying might dilute Moses’ authority. Moses countered Joshua. His wish was that every Israelite was a prophet.

Joshua was jealous.

He had invested in Moses. He spent his time supporting Moses’ leadership. His role and his purpose were clearly defined with Moses as leader.

The seventy threatened the entire order. It’s not that Joshua was petty. It’s just that for him, things were clearer before. Multiple people prophesying; A council of men to work through; Men claiming the authority of God; it was all against what he thought he understood.

I am so like Joshua. I cling to my understanding of God no matter how much He wants to explode my parochial stereotypes.

It’s a fight to let God be big.

It’s a fight to let God be bigger than my conceptions and understandings – no matter how well, or right, or grand my understanding might be. This is what it means that God cannot be comprehended. No matter how much I think I understand, I cannot exhaust God entirely.

It’s both a relief and a frustration. A frustration in that I will never, in this world, know fully. A relief that I don’t have to know everything to know and love God.

For the simple, He is a constant surprise – And that’s OK.

John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.” Mark 9:38

Failure and Despair

Num 11:12-20         11/8/2017

Moses was desperate. The burden of leading Israel was too great. So God instructed him to assemble seventy elders around the Tent of Meeting. The Lord intended to share Moses’ burden with some of the other leaders from the tribes by sharing the spirit He had “put on” Moses. God also promised to give the people meat for a month – so much meat they would end up detesting it.

In his desperation Moses said to God, “If this is the way that you will deal with me, then please do me the favor of killing me at once.” He was done. He couldn’t take anymore.

It’s a desperate feeling whenever I come to the conclusion that I don’t have what it takes to complete an assignment – to do the work before me. The moment invariably pushes me back to the place of past failures. All I can remember are the times when I have failed.

“When haven’t I failed?”

Of course, it’s a cognitive error. It’s also the darkest of all temptations. I say again: To think this thought is the darkest of all temptations. It justifies everything. It paralyzes me. It destroys the possibility of every moment.

Knowing that I am going to fail, I resign myself to the inevitable. And in this resignation, failure looms unavoidably. Like a black cloud from the west, it’s only a matter of time. I want to die rather than taste this inevitable again.

“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?”

“What?”

Jesus’ disciples spoke a similar word. He wasn’t affected. He just blessed what He had, broke it, gave it – and it was enough. The miracle wasn’t obvious even as it happened. What was needed just showed up.

So God offers you a different possibility.

Trust.

You don’t have to carry this – you just have to do it.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life” Matt 6:25

Servant Leadership

Num 10:35-11:11         11/8/2017

The Israelites began to complain about the manna. Moses began to complain about the Israelites.

The great challenge of leadership within the Authentic Community is that the leader is servant. Leadership isn’t about self-service, self-aggrandizement, pride, wealth or any other kind of self-seeking. The model is service.

Moses’ heart was to serve the people.

But service isn’t easy. On the one hand, Moses hand to contend with the wants of an aimlessly wandering people whose principle concern was the satisfaction of their stomachs. On the other hand, there was the vision of God who intended to bring these same people into an unimaginable greatness. It’s a greatness they didn’t necessarily understand and might have actually rejected if they had realized all that was entailed.

A leader’s lament.

A prophet’s lament.

“This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?…From this time many disciples turned back and no longer followed him”.

A king’s lament.

So now I hear, “accept the refugee” and I say, “This is a hard teaching… It makes me feel vulnerable.

Will I accept it?

“Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” John 6:68

Journey Into Uncertainty

Num 10:21-34         11/6/2017

As the Israelites were departing from Mount Sinai, Moses pressed Hobab, his father-in-law, to come with them. The Israelites followed the pillar of cloud and fire as they began the journey toward the promised land.

The great challenge of trusting God unreservedly is the uncertainty. It’s not only the question of “Will He really do what He says?”, but also the sometimes bigger challenge of letting Him do what He said He would do – the way He sees best.

Moses wanted to hang onto his father-in-law because Hobab might prove to be helpful in making a successful journey. Moses wanted to keep him around as a hedge. He saw him as a means to an end – a backup plan.

It’s about expectation. As soon as I encounter God doing something in a way different than I might do it, I suspect He isn’t really doing anything – or that He’s doing it wrong – or that He’s not really in it.

It’s strange how much confidence I can have in my own way of doing things while simultaneously recognizing that I’m wholly inadequate for the journey by myself.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, on your own intelligence do not rely; In all your ways be mindful of him, and he will make straight your paths. Prov 3:5

Breaking Camp

Num 10:7-20         11/5/2017

The Israelites were directed to break camp and continue their journey on the twentieth day of the second month of the second year of the exodus.

The Israelites spent not quite a year at the foot of the mountain. They learned about God. They prepared the camp to receive God’s presence with them. They learned to live with the enduring power and presence of God. And with all this, they were prepared to go.

They were sent. They broke camp. They began a new journey.

No longer a desperate muddle fleeing Pharaoh: They had order. They had leadership. The God of all creation literally and visibly went before them.

They were chosen.

They knew they were chosen.

It’s a good feeling: The getting going. The consolation of God. The sense of preparedness for a journey. The anticipation of success – perhaps even triumph.

Yet the experience of every boy scout, no matter how much effort has gone into preparedness, is that the journey will bring unanticipated challenges. It will bring failures and heartbreaks and setbacks. You will sometimes feel discouraged, confused, afraid and perhaps even hopeless.

None of that matters at the sending. It’s time to go. You must go.

Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.  Psalm 119:105