The Rabble Among Us

 The Rabble Among Us 

Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29

The spirit is upon seventy elders 

 

11:4 The camp followers with them had a strong craving, and the Israelites also wept again and said, "If only we had meat to eat!

 

11:5 We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic,

 

11:6 but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at."

 

11:10 Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, all at the entrances of their tents. Then the LORD became very angry, and Moses was displeased.

 

11:11 So Moses said to the LORD, "Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me?

 

11:12 Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom as a wet nurse carries nursing a child,' to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors?

 

11:13 Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they come weeping to me, saying, 'Give us meat to eat!'

 

11:14 I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me.

 

11:15 If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once--if I have found favor in your sight--and do not let me see my misery."

 

11:16 So the LORD said to Moses, "Gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the tent of meeting and have them take their place there with you.”

 

11:24 So Moses went out and told the people the words of the LORD, and he gathered seventy of the elders of the people and placed them all around the tent.

 

11:25 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to him and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders, and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again.

 

11:26 Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, so they prophesied in the camp.

 

11:27 And a young man ran and told Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp."

 

11:28 And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, "My lord Moses, stop them!"

 

11:29 But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the LORD would put his spirit on them!"

 

Believe me, we preachers have all preached a plethora of sermons on the “griping people of God”! Why? Because the Bible is full of stories of them, AND the church can be full of them, too! It is part of human nature that nothing decided “in community” makes everyone happy. In fact, as good leaders know, a plurality of important, pivotable decisions will initially make hardly ANYONE happy. People don’t like to have their “sacred cows” gored, or their favorite memories carried off to the fellowship hall for the church rummage sale. Neither do they cotton to having their long-venerated theological views/prejudices tossed aside by an “educated” pastor. 

 

In this weekend’s lectionary passage from Numbers, Moses is upset with the “rabble” among the people of God who have loaded their “laundry list” with complaints, especially about the menu selection afforded them in the wilderness. God had provided the manna, which was a kind of crusty flatbread with a taste of honey. If God provided it, it was probably nutritious, but as those of us who like cake with buttercream frosting know, it does get old, day after day…well, maybe after a week or two? You get the idea. Other related Bible passages have the people “pining after the fleshpots of Egypt,” meaning they were missing the “meat pottage” they were fed as slaves. I’m sure it wasn’t “Zuppa Tuscana,” but it did have meat in it, and was probably really salty—everything the manna wasn’t. 

 

In this passage, we see that the people got angry with Moses, for he was “the pastor in charge,” Moses got angry with the people for their bitching (as any good pastor would), and then Moses got angry with God for “treating your servant (Moses) so badly” for answering the call to serve these contentious, ungrateful people. No one is really happy. Later in the passage, we even have the story of a dispute between Joshua and Moses over a couple of young prophets. It sure sounds like a modern church board meeting, doesn’t it? It’s this propensity for allowing disagreements to rise to the level of community dysfunction that I’d like to address, today. According to this passage, it comes from the “rabble among us,” which is a way of expressing not people, as much as personality conflicts and values.

 

As I studied this passage this week, I kept thinking about how Moses kind of reminded me of my late father. Bob Sterling was a master of turning simple phrases to capsulize more complex gripes, assessments, or situations. I don’t know where he got these “Sterling-isms,” but they have stuck with me. As Moses may have addressed the complaining people of Israel, my dad would proclaim to one of his bitching sons, “You’d cry if you were hung with a new rope.” I never really knew what that meant, but it caught me off guard when he used it, causing me to stop, ponder, and be ultimately stymied by my puzzlement. I’m guessing that is what he intended? Still, I got the message that complaints over more trivial matters might just derail needed conversation regarding serious matters before me. Maybe I should be questioning why I was being “hung,” rather than griping about the vintage of the rope? This curious statement could nicely summarize what Moses was feeling in hearing the gripes of the people of Israel. Thanks to God’s gift of the manna, they weren’t starving in the wilderness. And yet, they were setting aside gratitude for this profound fact in favor of complaining about the nature of the salvific food.

 

Like my dad, Moses also got tired of the “queuing” and one-upmanship that was going on among the people. We certainly see this in Joshua’s complaint about Eldad and Medad, and their prophesying. When Dad Sterling heard one of us “bragging” about some accomplishment as a solo achievement—and it was usually me—he would say, “Where did you get this LINDBERGH stuff?” Again, one simple statement that summarized a reality, and one which yours truly was ignoring in my braggadocio. Even as Charles Lindbergh had a “cast of thousands” that made his “solo” flight across the Atlantic possible, so no accomplishment on my part could be claimed as achievable apart from the “community” in which it happened. If it was something “great” I had achieved at school, there were teachers and peers involved, as well as the resources of the school district. And since most of my accolades came from my academics and the “arts” in which I participated in in school (not sports!), this critique was appropriate, and I’ll stop with this illustration! I got what he was saying: I will always be a part of something larger than myself, and what I accomplish will be at least partly aided if not wholly made possible by the contextual community in which it occurred. Further, he would suggest that any accomplishment that didn’t BENEFIT the broader community wasn’t something I should boast about, anyway. This lesson was not lost one me, either. 

 

Like Moses, Dad Sterling knew that little things could escalate quickly, especially when not dealt with at their earliest stage of “breakdown,” and occasionally even WHEN you were fixing them! (Pastors know this, too, but are often in denial of these facts, eschewing conflict.) I remember helping my father one Saturday with a toilet problem, when I was probably about 12 or 13. Mom had complained that the downstairs toilet was “not shutting off,” and I remember dad suggesting that it was just a bad “flapper,” which wasn’t closing off, meaning the toilet tank’s water level was leaking into the drain, and the fill system would just keep running, as a result. I watched as Dad took the lid off of the tank, and watched the mechanism as he flushed the beast. Sure enough, it would keep running long after the tank should have been filled, but he was puzzled by the flapper, which he had recently replaced. It WAS “seating,” as it should, but water was still getting by it, which kept the fill system running. He deduced the problem was that the “seat” against which the flapper was to seal had deteriorated, and needed to be replaced. Things were indeed escalating, as now he would have to drain the tank and removed it, in order to remove the tank drain. After trying to turn off the water feed to the tank, he soon realized that the shutoff valve below the tank was frozen by corrosion. This meant turning off the main water valve for the whole house, as there was no other “sub valve” feeding the cold water to the toilet. He warned my mom that he would have to do this, as now neither bathroom would have water, nor would the kitchen or the laundry. After turning off the water main valve just after the water meter in the basement, dad flushed the toilet tank and began sponging out the remaining water. Removing the tank turned out to be a chore, as the two bolts holding it to the toilet itself had badly corroded. Both broke off as he wrenched them, and with each new piece that would be needed to reassemble John Crapper’s invention, he added them to a written list for the hardware store. After removing the tank, he started trying to unscrew the very large “nut” that torqued down the drain seat, and since he didn’t have the proper “large mouthed” wrench for this job, he had jury-rigged a way to use a couple wrenches he DID have. All well and good, until he next discovered that this large joint was ALSO corroded. He squirted some penetrating oil on it, and we took a break. After allowing time for the oil to do its work, he tried again to unscrew the joint. It began to turn, which seemed like a victory. What he didn’t realize was that, inside the tank, the whole assembly was turning, and when the lug that held the fill tube wedged against the back wall of the porcelain tank, it ruptured the tank, with one strong turn. I remember my dad just staring at the now split open tank, contemplating “what’s next?” Off to the hardware store we went for a new fill valve, a whole new tank, and all of the internal hardware for it. Almost three hours after turning off the water to the house, we were up and running again. As usual, dad used this as a “lesson” for me that “Nothing is as easy as it seems,” and “Plan for contingencies.” As I thought of this “lesson” in light of Moses’ issues he was having with the Israelites in today’s scripture, I thought of this additional lesson: “Things may escalate.” Prepare for it!

 

My dad’s regular reminders to “Consult your experts” sure sounds like an answer to Moses’ emotional appeal to God in verse 14: “I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me.” How many of us either delay dealing with a situation or just simply ignore it, because we know it is a bigger problem than we are confident we can deal with? This is where Moses and dad were right—“Consult your experts.” Moses took it to God, and God told him to use his elders to help. Again, problems that arise in community will most likely need the community to fix. Even our “personal” problems may best be approached by relying on the support available in our community, and most certainly may involve “experts” who are part of it. I wish I was a better student of this latter lesson. What is it in us that tempts us to default to the “Lindbergh” approach to fixing things, be they with our household plumbing or our innermost psyche? I could cite an impressive list of things I chose to “fix” myself before finally reaching out to ask for help or pay an expert. I could have saved myself, time, grief, and money. Moses might have kept himself from getting so depressed, had he turned to God sooner! How about you? Have you “Lindberghed out” on too many things? Rarely in a healthy community is there a place for “Lone Rangers.” This was another lesson my dad tried hard to teach me.

 

The ”rabble” among us may not always be just a brood of gripers. Perhaps they are an alarm, letting us know of something that is starting to fester in community, or just downright alerting us to a dangerous situation. Any community is made up of a wide variety of personality types and persons of varied experience, including tragic ones. These “types” may more quickly see and react to stuff that could become stumbling blocks for the community. When they do, they may “rabble rouse,” rather than merely talk to the leadership. Why? Possibly because their past experience was that when they tried that, leadership either didn’t listen, or at least didn’t respond to their cries. While this was not the case with Moses in this scripture, it is often true of church and community leaders. There are legitimate reasons for some of their perceived “cluelessness,” such as having already too full plates, or a lack of knowledge regarding how to approach the issue, without some serious research. Unfortunately, there are less than helpful reasons for it: denial of the problem; becoming “hooked” by the complaint coming from an adverse personality type to their own; or even copping out by placing blame on someone else, hoping to be absolved of the responsibility. Good leaders should probably not be “politicians,” but chosen leaders of organizations often are, and we know that political types can succumb to placing blame rather than problem solving.

 

Another way that my dad reminded me of Moses was that both got their people to the “promised land.” My mother, brothers, and I had great lives, thanks to my dad’s hard work and counsel, and all three of “us kids” have had much success in life. And when we failed or fell short, in some way, we did not wallow in pity, but looked to our supportive community—and occasionally the experts—to help us out. And for each of us, we learned that God was the “Great Expert” we could always turn to, along with the others!

 

A lot has been made of God not “allowing” Moses to enter into the Promised Land with his people, but I think it’s overblown. We have to remember that the Bible was written by human writers. Regardless of how “inspired” we may believe them to have been in writing down what we call “holy writ,” the fact is, they were still seeing the religious world through human eyes. Their account says that Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land because he allowed the “rabble” to get to him when they were thirsty, and struck the rock when God told him to only speak to it to miraculously release its refreshing contents. Really? Possibly God just knew that Israel would need a new leader in a new world, so it was God who personally “retired” Moses for all he had put up with? Regardless, both Moses and Dad Sterling “retired to their heavenly reward” having never been guilty of “Lindbergh stuff.” Amen.