Wednesday, August 2, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
The sunburned prophet
As Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the commandments in his hands, he did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant while he conversed with the Lord.
Moses the prophet, Aaron the priest, and Yahweh the king – the Lord, God of all gods, those three more than holding their own while surrounded by thousands of Israelites, the men, women and children, God’s promise to Abraham:
I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendant for the generations to come, to be your God …
And to Isaac.
Dwell in this land, and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father.
And then to Jacob:
I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants.
God also promised to punish the wicked, unto the third and fourth generations, and so this group of Israelites would wander in the desert for as many years as it took for all these people to pass away, suffering one calamity after another all along the way. But for now, everybody was learning the ropes.
When Aaron saw Moses and noticed how radiant his skin had become, he was afraid to come near him. But Moses called Aaron and the rulers of the community to come back to him, and then he spoke to them. Later all the children of Israel came up to him, and when he finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face.
Henri Nouwen speaks of a place of solitude, a “quiet place.” Jesus found a “lonely place to pray.” Accompanied by Yahweh in his silence, Moses surely had a place like this.
Whenever Moses entered the presence of the Lord to converse with him, he removed the veil until he came out again, when He told the children of Israel all that had been commanded.
Moses was not always popular; his words and commands sometimes went wrong. Did he feel guilty sometimes, inadequate sometimes, wrong, ashamed? Certainly he must have. But he continued to re-enter his tent with Yahweh, and Nouwen’s insights about solitude might explain how God rescued Moses, over and over.
A life without a lonely place, that is, a life without a quiet center, easily becomes destructive. When we cling to the results of our actions as our only way of self-identification, then we become possessive and defensive and tend to look at our fellow human beings more as enemies to be kept at a distance than as friends with whom we share the gifts of life.
In solitude we can slowly unmask the illusion of our possessiveness and discover in the center of our own self that we are not what we can conquer, but what is given to us. In solitude we can listen to the voice of him who spoke to us before we could speak a word, who healed us before we could make any gesture to help, who set us free long before we could free others, and who loved us long before we could give love to anyone. It is in this solitude that we discover that being is more important than having, and that we are worth more than the results of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended, but a gift to be shared. It’s there we recognize that the healing words we speak are not just our own, but are given to us.
Moses might have said the very words that Jesus spoke to his disciples in the Upper Room:
I call you my friends, for I have made known to you all that the Father has told me.
(Exodus 34, Psalm 99, John 15, Matthew 13)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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