Sermon Tone Analysis

9 February 2019 — Fifth Saturday after Epiphany

, ,

Moses is in need of help.

He can’t do it all.

What’s odd is that it would seem that Moses didn’t maintain the lesson learned from his father-in-law (see ). It’s not entirely the same.

In , it was the “priestly” judges who were selected.

This is more along the lines of a professional judiciary, such as we have from local, to district, to appellate, to supreme judiciaries.

We have something different here.

What has occurred is the selection of senior spiritual leaders.

They are family leaders, too, but it is the application of the Holy Spirit that makes this important.

There are a couple of story-lines occurring here, and that can lead to some confusion.

It is often assumed (and has often been taught) that Eldad and Medad remained in camp because they were disgruntled, putting them with the grumbling people.

The text does not make that clear.

It is our assumption.

We do know that Eldad and Medad were selected by Moses (so, much less likely to be among the disgruntled).

What if they just hadn’t made it, yet?

Or, what if they did not feel worthy or were scared?

Both reasonable based upon experience God’s miracles.

They had been chosen…and the Holy Spirit fell on them anyways.

Joshua was offended on Moses’ behalf, but Moses noted that it is God’s spirit, not his.

Many, many years later, Jesus has a similar experience with his disciples.

Within in the context of arguing which disciple was greater than the other, and Jesus shutting that conversation down well, John ups the game reporting that a man who was not among the disciples are successfully driving out demons.

John then states that they (in other words, “I wasn’t the only one, Jesus.”)

tried to stop the man, but Jesus stopped even that.

The disciples were “offended” by the man driving out demons, but were they upset on Jesus’ behalf or their own.

Jesus’ response would indicate that this was about them, not him.

Often we can become overly concerned with the “right” way of doing things.

With the Holy Spirit, the right way can often not be our way.

This is not to say the God is a god of chaos.

God makes and creates order.

However, our concept of order and “right” can be at odds with God at times.

Joshua and John (yes, with some pride in there) assumed they were doing the right thing by saying “this is wrong.”

Yet, God did it, so it wasn’t wrong.

It just didn’t fit their idea.

Philip may have learned a lesson by the point of this story in Acts.

The gift of the Holy Spirit didn’t hurt either.

Philip obeyed and went to the “desert” road for a divine appointment.