Complaints and Miracles [Proper 21B]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29
Complaints and Miracles
I know this is more of a rock
concert thing than a Sunday morning pulpit thing, but I want to dedicate this sermon
to our Bible Study groups – groups that are this week wrapping up a ten-week
study of the book of Numbers. It has
been quite a ride. We've witnessed the
liberated slaves, the Israelites, come to the edge of the promised land. As they journeyed through the desert an
entire generation died – some from disease, some in battle, some were killed by
snakes, some were swallowed by the ground and others consumed by fire. The bodies really pile up in Numbers. We heard divine instructions come from the
mouth of a donkey and a pagan. We've
read stories both enlightening and terrible.
And, we have heard many, many, many
complaints; I should be clear, many complaints from the people in Numbers not
from members of the parish – at least not during Bible Study. So many complaints – complaints like the ones
in our Old Testament lesson today. To
give you an idea of how prevalent and unrelenting are the complaints in
Numbers: in the few verses preceding today's reading, some grumblers are
consumed by fire. But that in no way
deters the rabble, the riffraff, these troublemakers from piling on, even as
the smoke from the bodies still wafts through the camp.
It is actually a strange complaint
too, this one at the beginning of today's lesson. The people are longing for the good old days
– the good old days of forced labor and slavery. They remember the cucumbers and conveniently
forget the infanticide. They recall that
the food was free. And technically that
is true. Their slave-masters did feed
them – so that the people had enough strength to be slaves.
The people complain to, and
against, Moses. As is the case in so much of the book of Numbers, Moses, the
leader, is the object of the nation's scorn. He left the royal palace to lead
this group out of Egypt. He stood before them as prophet, priest, and king. And
they blame him for everything that goes wrong.
And he is sick of it. So Moses turns around and complains to, and
against, God.
For the record, Moses is not happy
with anyone. As far as he can tell, no
one is carrying their weight; the entire burden is on his back, or maybe in his
bosom. Moses is a creative
complainer. Anyway, the people just
complain; they expect him to do everything – right down to water and meat
provision. And God, who supposedly chose
this people, and then asked Moses to lead them out of slavery, seems to not be
taking responsibility either. And so
Moses, sick of hearing their wailing, sick of bearing the burden, wishes he was
dead. He seems stressed.
God responds – mostly very
generously. God crafts a plan for shared
leadership that lightens Moses' burden.
And I say mostly, because while God does give the people the meat that
they crave, God does promise to give them so much meat, and I quote, “it comes
out of your noses and becomes a loathsome thing to you.” So mostly generously.
God's plan to help Moses and the
people is to raise up a leadership team around Moses. God does this is by taking some of the spirit
that is on Moses and blessing seventy others with that same spirit. Moses had been the only oracle in the camp,
the sole conveyor of God's words. But on
that day, in the holy place, there would be not one, but seventy-one prophets,
giving advice, mediating conflict, responding to complaints, speaking the word
of God into the community.
It was a good plan. And mostly it worked. But there were a couple of guys who did not
follow the instructions. Of course.
Two of the seventy elders, for some
unknown reason, never made it to the tabernacle, to the holy place. They
remained in the camp. However, God proceeded with the original plan. Some of
that prophetic spirit got a little out of control and splashed into the
neighborhood and Eldad and Medad started prophesying.
And, get ready for it, someone
complained. To Moses. Poor Moses not even God can stop the grumbling. And it
seemed like such a good plan. Now, to the young man's credit, and to Joshua's
credit, they complained because they were trying to protect Moses, to protect
his leadership, his control, his position, his authority.
The sixty-eight elders who did as
they were told, were with Moses; he could hear them and see them. There was no risk of this thing careening out
of control. But a prophetic outbreak in
the camp was another story. And Moses'
supporters knew that. Robert Alter
notes, “[T]he manifestation of prophesy in the midst of the camp...could turn
into a dangerously contagious threat to Moses' leadership.”[1] So you can see, it was a legitimate
complaint.
But the biggest problem with
complaints is never whether or not they are legitimate. One can argue that every complaint in today's
text was perfectly legitimate. The
hyperbole was a little over-the-top, but the basis of the complaints are understandable. As a meal manna sounds a little
light-weight. And manna was all the
people had. If given the choice, one
might not choose manna for every meal of every day.
Moses had reason to complain. He was clearly overextended. He was responsible for too much – too many
people, too many roles. It was stressing
him out. His burden was exceedingly
heavy. Moses was human, after all. He had his limits – and those limits were far
in his rear-view mirror.
The biggest problem with complaints
is never whether or not they are legitimate.
The biggest problem in today's text is that everyone was so busy
complaining that they missed all of the miracles. They complained about the manna, but that
manna was a miracle. It was bread from
the heavens. When they were starving in
the desert, manna was the only thing that kept them alive. And God did that – for them.
Moses complained about the people,
but that community was a miracle. Sure
they could be difficult and annoying, they were people, after all, but also
were made in the image of God. They
walked out of Egypt and through a sea together.
Their story was a salvation story – a salvation story we still
tell. Through them the world received
the Ten Commandments, and the Bible, and the Savior of the world. They would, despite their flaws, become a
light to all the nations. They were
difficult and annoying, but also they were God's heart and God trusted them to
Moses' care. It was an honor – an
exhausting honor, but an honor nonetheless.
Moses' supporters complained that
the spirit went too far, but that was a miracle too. That Spirit keeps pushing the boundaries –
getting into the camp, into the people.
It started with Eldad and Medad but it keeps happening. On the Prophets, in the Church: that same
Spirit is still active, still splashing all over our lives – in disruptive and
amazing ways. We are here because the
Spirit gets a little out of control sometimes.
And that can be scary – especially for those of us in positions of
religious leadership. But just imagine
what this world would look like if God's Spirit fell on all of the people!
There are miracles all around
us. God's spirit is too active, too
adventurous, too absolutely in love for that not to be true. The only thing that prevents us from seeing
them is when we decide God's miracles are too small, too insufficient, too
common. When we make that decision, when
we stop seeing the miracles, we lose the language of gratitude and are left
only with complaints – soul-crushing, spirit-deflating, joy-draining complaints.
So look around; choose to see the
miracles. Don't miss them. Don't take them for granted. There really are miracles happening all
around us. On the altar: where a little
piece of bread becomes a taste of heaven.
In the font: where a small splash of water holds eternal life. In the pews: where God makes strangers into
family; where God takes fragile, flawed people and sends us out as saints, holy
women and holy men, the body of Christ in a broken world. And in Toledo, Ohio, at the corner of
Chollett and Central Avenue: where the Spirit keeps showing up. God is doing miracles. Just look around.
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