Public Opinion Matters

One of the greatest gifts that humans have been given is the gift of community. It is what surrounds us with love, what helps to raise us and inform us about the world. Community is the backbone of our ability to function in this world as the people that God created us to be. Humans are created to exist in community, because we are the image of God — and God exists in the eternal holy community of Father, Spirit, and Son.

Community is something that we deeply long for at every stage of our lives. When we are born we long for the comfort of just being held by our mother. As we grow we long for and desire community. I remember the sweet little voice of my niece, bored out of her mind from hanging out with grown ups all day asking “can we just go find some kids?” I want to play!” And then seeing this phenomena in its fullness as she danced her heart out with complete strangers at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. I see this everyday as my 2 year old is smothered in hugs by his classmates when I drop him off at preschool.

Our need for and desire for community is programmed into our identity as human beings. That is why the church is such a powerful force for so many of us. That is the reason that the church exists — to foster the love between human beings and one another and between human beings and God.

But one of the things that we all find out is that sometimes our communities fail us. Sometimes they don’t live up to our hopes and our desires. Unfortunately, communities are made up humans and humans are flawed and we hurt one another. This is often the reason that people end up isolated from or even excommunicated from the communities that raise them.

We’re in the midst of a sermon series called “in the wilderness” and that exactly the type of thing that we are going to be looking at today. This series has us moving through the book of Numbers in order to trace the different types of betrayal that we face as human beings navigating a messed up world, and how God’s promises and faithfulness can help us heal from the hurts imposed on us when humans let us down.

If you’ve missed the past couple of weeks, here’s a quick rundown. God promised the Israelites that he would bless them and bring them “Shalom” which is a reconciling and restorative peace. And it turns out that these people really really need it, because they are just riddled with conflict. They are a wandering band of nomads, following a pillar of cloud and fire through the desert to a place they’ve never gone before. And it wears on them and they don’t care to continue at times.

Their leader, a man named Moses bears the brunt of their displeasure, and he is consistently betrayed by those whom God told him to lead. First his siblings try to usurp his authority, grumbling that they are just as gifted by God to take the place of authority as their brother Moses. Then immediately after that situation is resolved, Moses appoints 12 leaders to go and spy out the land that God promised to the Israelites. They return and 10 of them betray Moses by beginning a disinformation campaign to dissuade the Israelites from going into the land.

They say that the land devours its inhabitants and that they people who live there are giants and they absolutely can not enter into the land and expect to live. They imply that God and/or Moses has lied to them.

Today we are going to read about the fallout from this betrayal of Moses by his inner circle.

Numbers 14:1–3 NRSV

Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron; the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become booty; would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?”

So the people buy into what the spies have reported and they are scared. They begin the cycle of complaint as I like to call it. They just continue to dwell on this bad report and cycle through the blame and the name calling and the worst possible result. They catastrophize the situation and even want to go back into slavery in Egypt. They no longer want God’s promise. They want what they had before — which was awful. They were dying at the hands of the Egyptians left and right.

So that’s where they are at as a society. Let’s see what they do next...

Numbers 14:4 NRSV

So they said to one another, “Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt.”

Here it is. They decide to stage a revolution. Let us get a new leader and go back to Egypt.

This obviously isn’t going to go over well with Moses.

Numbers 14:5–10 NRSV

Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the Israelites. And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the Israelites, “The land that we went through as spies is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only, do not rebel against the Lord; and do not fear the people of the land, for they are no more than bread for us; their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.” But the whole congregation threatened to stone them. Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites.

So Moses, Aaron, and the 2 faithful spies beg the people “don’t do this.” They are trying to call the people back to the promise of God. It goes as well as you might expect. The people threaten to kill them. And so, the big guns show up. God appears. And God’s following dialogue with Moses shows us that these people aren’t simply betraying Moses. They are betraying God. And God doesn’t take too kindly to this.

Numbers 14:11–12 NRSV

And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”

God is like, listen these people don’t want me? They don’t want what I’ve offered them? They don’t want my promises? They don’t want my land? They don’t want to be my people. Fine. I’ll give them what they want. I offered a land that would help them flourish, but if they want Egypt — the land of death — I’ll give it to them. And I’ll make you a new nation Moses. No worries. I’ve done this before, I’ll do it again.

Honestly, I’m with God here… even though if I think for a while about this it kind of causes me to have some questions for God. Like wait, what about grace and mercy and stuff? Well here’s the reality, what God is trying to show Moses and us is that he will let people have what they want. If they don’t want God he’ll let them go on and live that way. It doesn’t mean God doesn’t want them, it just means that they are unwilling to allow God to fulfill his promises to them.

But Moses has the same question I do. So he’s like whoa hold on there God. Are you sure you want to do this?

Numbers 14:13–19 NRSV

But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for in your might you brought up this people from among them, and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people; for you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go in front of them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. Now if you kill this people all at one time, then the nations who have heard about you will say, ‘It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them that he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’ And now, therefore, let the power of the Lord be great in the way that you promised when you spoke, saying, ‘The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children to the third and the fourth generation.’ Forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have pardoned this people, from Egypt even until now.”

Moses is like, hey God the people of this land will talk poorly of you if you just let this whole nation walk away. It’s not a good report.

See, the call of Israel was to spread the goodness and power of the Lord throughout the land. This type of report would do the opposite, and not only that — it would not seem to be in line with these attributes of who God is — slow to anger and abounding in loyal covenant love. A god who is forgiving.

Numbers 14:20–23 NRSV

Then the Lord said, “I do forgive, just as you have asked; nevertheless—as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord— none of the people who have seen my glory and the signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tested me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, shall see the land that I swore to give to their ancestors; none of those who despised me shall see it.

God’s like “Fine Moses, you’re right.” But these people aren’t going into the promised land. They don’t get to live into the fullness of my promise. That’s something that their children will enjoy.

And this here is the reason that the Israelites were in the wilderness for 40 years. God was waiting for the entire Exodus generation to pass on. They forfeited the fullness of God’s promise to them, but God did not abandon them. They lived their whole lives with God amongst them — even though they would continue to cause massive problems for Moses and the leaders of Israel.

Now most of us here have not led a migrant band of stubborn people through the wilderness before. But I think many of us have probably faced some similar type of feelings and situations as Moses. Perhaps you ran a business and had to deal with poor employee morale that led to a super toxic work environment that questioned your ability to lead.

Perhaps you’ve led a classroom of students who rebelled against your teaching style and assignments.

Or you raised kids who rebelled against you and questioned your goodness and love for them.

Hey, just so you know, churches do this a lot too. A lot of times the leaders or the pastor of the church have to face this kind of stuff. Especially as of late in a lot of the world.

The point is, we are often betrayed by communities that we lead. But the situations aren’t unique to leaders. Sometimes we are disowned by communities that we simply belong to. Perhaps it’s because we change, and sometimes it’s because the people that we loved and built our lives with change. Something happens — like a bad report of the future — to sever the bonds that once tied us together. And the pain is real. It leaves us lacking in an area of our greatest need.

So what are we supposed to do when this happens? I think that Moses has some good direction for us. Moses holds fast to two unchanging truths — the person and the promises of God.

Moses goes to the people and pleads with them not to forsake God’s promises. And I believe that this is as much for his benefit as it is for the people. Moses needs to be reminded that God has promised peace and goodness to him. And then Moses appeals to who God is — abounding in steadfast love, forgiving, and slow to anger. These attributes that set God apart from all of the other gods that the ancient world believed in and worshipped are the attributes that God wants humans to exhibit, even in the midst of betrayal.

The healing here begins by leaning into who God is rather than who the people and communities that hurt us are. By leaning into these attributes of loyal steadfast love, forgiveness, and being slow to anger we set ourselves apart from the broader outrage culture that encourages us to write people off and to seek retribution and vengeance against those who have caused us harm.

Leaning into these attributes allows us to show people the face of Jesus, who took these attributes to new extremes.

I once heard a 12 step speaker by the name of Sandy talk about forgiveness. He said that he was asked once by someone that he was helping “when am I allowed to not forgive someone.” Sandy said “there’s only one situation in which you are permitted not to forgive. There was a teacher who lived 2000 years ago who was betrayed by his community and nailed to a cross to die. And on his way out of this life, he forgave the people who did that terrible act to him. So, if someone ever does anything worse to you than nailing you to a cross, you have my permission not to forgive them.”

And that’s really it right friends? It’s easy not to forgive. It’s easy to seek retribution, to tear down the humans that hurt us. To disparage an entire community. But that wasn’t the move that Moses made, nor was it the move that Jesus ever made. They chose to lean into who God is. And that is our call as well.