About Moses
Posted by: Janet on: September 16, 2007
- In: Bible| Church| Nonfiction
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Messengers of God is giving me much food for thought in its chapter about Moses. Wiesel draws from other texts besides our Bible, texts like the Midrash and the Talmud that I’m unsure how to evaluate. But the resulting insight into Moses squares with such scripture as I have read–and been puzzled by.
Moses’s anger has bugged me. This is something I’ve noticed lately in some supposedly anointed church leaders: they (seem to) get mad at their sheep, instead of tending and feeding them gently. As I try to understand and work through my own–paralysis? lack of desire to do anything more than sit in a pew?–in my search for a church, this “Mosaic anger” is something I’m trying to understand. Moses lost his temper early on, when he killed the Egyptian. Then he threw a fit when he came down from the mountain, and broke the Ten Commandments. Then he hit the rock with his staff, and God finally disciplined him. When it came, the discipline was severe: “You shall not see the Promised Land.” That’s not a slap on the hand. It’s almost the equivalent of stripping Moses of his leadership role. Moses had hung onto anger as a lens for seeing life, and as a way of making others do what he wanted (via theatrical displays), for too long. He’d unfit himself as the leader into a new phase.
But… why was this root allowed in Moses for so long? I’m not throwing stones; I understand it takes a long time to work through our fleshly “nervous system.” But there is a side of me (a big side) that thinks a leader, especially one as significant as Moses, should be called to a higher standard, a steeper learning curve, something. What about the sheep? While the shepherd is working his way through his issues, the effect can be severe.
Anyway, in Messengers of God Wiesel looks squarely at this anger in Moses and helps me to flesh him out as a human being. He points out that after Moses risks everything to identify with his Jewishness as a young man, he (schizophrenically) leaves Egypt and is quite content to forget the Jews as he marries and raises a family. He totally leaves behind his inner social avenger. He sheds his concern with the Jews’ enslavement, marries the daughter of a pagan minister, and enters a totally separate life…. till God calls him (at which point he resists strenuously, not wanting to go back).
Wiesel suggests that this is because “Moses was disappointed in his Jews, and on several levels. They had not resisted, nor had they agreed to rebel… He may have resented their inability to overcome their internal differences and unite against a common enemy; there was too much pettiness, too much envy, too much selfishness. And then, too, they had betrayed him, their benefactor; for that there had been a betrayal, he had no doubt. But who had been the informer? Well, let us see. When Moses had killed the Egyptian overseer, who else had been present? Only one man: the very Jew whom Moses had saved.”
I can relate to this. He had thrown his whole heart into something unselfish, and it hadn’t even registered with the people he was trying to help. They’d even betrayed him. Ouch.
So now I can understand better how that anger in Moses fits into the texture of his relationship with God and his calling as a leader. But lest I sound too hard on the Jews, I have to say that I understand how they feel too. I’m sure there was damage done to them by Moses’s character, and that injury is part of what made God yearn for Moses to change for so long. Speaking as a “sheep” myself, I’ve recently had the experience of trying to survive and grow in a church where I felt I had to protect myself from leadership, and the effect was that I grew a tough protective crust that had nearly cut off my supply of spiritual light and air by the time I got out of there. So how do I “marry” the two viewpoints–Moses’s and the Jews’? Where do I carve a path between both sides’ justifiable sense of injury?
2 Responses to "About Moses"
March 12, 2009 at 7:27 pm
I’ve actually chuckled before about that Numbers verse. My translation uses “humble” instead of “meek.” It seems like a decidedly un-humble thing for Moses to write about himself!
We can agree to disagree about how big of a problem Moses’s anger was… I think we’re agreed in seeing that God’s severe discipline reflects his desire for a different model of authority.
That’s a tough situation you’re working through right now. Prayers for you and your family for clear guidance.
March 12, 2009 at 6:45 pm
I haven’t thought of Moses as a generally angry person. Numbers 12:2 says, “Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” There were only those three times when his anger was mentioned, and each time there was provocation that would have sent anyone else over the edge long before, though he overreacted each time. In Egypt, someone was attacking one of his countrymen — surely He had seen the oppression they were under, and thought this was going too far, and wanted to defend him — but killing was going too far. Then when he was coming down from the Mount, at the very time he was receiving instruction from God, the people were engaging in idolatry and wantonness. I can’t say for sure but I don’t remember that God rebuked him for his reaction there. Another time, remember, God wanted to wipe all of Israel out, and Moses interceded for them and prayed that God would wipe him out instead (Exodus 32).
In this instance with striking the rock, it was about 6 months before they entered the promised land, so Moses had endured 39 1/2 years of their complaining, whining, blaming him (have you brought us out here to die?), wishing to go back, failure to remember God’s deliverance of them in the past and to exercise faith for current needs. The last time they were without water, they wanted to stone him, so there may have been fear. Plus the beginning of the chapter that deals with this says they had lost Miriam, so he may have still been grieving. I would have lost patience with those folks long, long ago. Though he is still not justified for his reaction, I can understand it.
I think the fact that Moses got such severe punishment did indicate that he was held to a higher standard because he was the leader.
But I really don’t think “Moses had hung onto anger as a lens for seeing life, and as a way of making others do what he wanted (via theatrical displays), for too long.” is an accurate description of him. As I said, he was also described as the meekest man on the earth, and his anger was mentioned only those three times– it doesn’t seem it was a general way of life.
On the other hand…I’ve just been thinking today about II Timothy 2:24-26: “And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.” In the case of Moses, I do see this lived out in him many times over the course of his time with the Israelites.I’ve really been wrestling with this lately because we have an evangelist in our church this week who seems to be more harsh than meek, who uses ridicule instead of patient instruction. He’s been here before, he is highly regarded around these parts, and my husband and I wonder, “How can anyone else not have a problem with this??” Yet we can’t really go around asking that. We don’t want to stir up strife. (Actually, on an online Christian forum, there are a lot of people who have problems with this man’s methods. His response to such criticism? “They can stick it up their noses.”) Evidently his style appeals to some people. I remind myself that in the letters to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, most of them had a mixture of good and bad characteristics, that none of us will be perfect until we get to heaven.
My oldest son is not at the place where I’d like him to be spiritually, and this kind of preaching really rubs him the wrong way. He missed the last two nights for different reasons, and last night especially, I was almost glad. Yet this man would think that anyone’s taking offense would be because the offense of the gospel rather than his abrasive style.
My husband and I have discussed privately many times whether it is time to move on, because the leaders of our church seem to like this type of preaching, and a cocky, scolding, put-down style seems to be increasing more and more. If it was just the two of us, I think we would. But we wrestle with uprooting the kids out at this stage of life — whether it would be better to do that with all of the stress and trouble that would cause.
The thing is, our leaders are basically good people. When you talk to them one on one, you sense that their hearts are in the same place as ours as far as what we believe and how we believe the Lord wants us to conduct ourselves. But there seems to be this disconnect with preaching and teaching style and general life.
There is also kind of an anti-intellectualism. Not that they don’t believe in study and education, but, for instance, last night the evangelist was talking about certain aspects of the crucifixion, and mentioned some specifics that scholars argue about, then said in a disgusted tone, “Arguing is about all they’re good for.” He talked a bit about evolutionists, but there was no wise discerning refutation of their assertions — it was just sarcastic put-down.
Anyway — I don’t know why I am rattling on except I am really grieved about this right now and don’t know what to do except pray that somehow God would open their eyes. But I do know what you mean about leadership that handles itself abrasively.