Word to the Wise
Monday, August 2, 2021 - Monday in the 18th Week in Ordinary Time
[Num 11:4b-15 and Matt 14:13-21 or, in Year A, Matt 14:22-36,1031]When Moses heard the people, family after family, crying at the entrance of their tents, so that the Lord became very angry, he was grieved. "Why do you treat your servant so badly?" Moses asked the Lord. "Why are you so displeased with me that your burden me with all this people?".....I cannot carry all this people by myself, for they are too heavy for me. If this is the way you will deal with me, then please do me the favor of killing me at once, so that I need no longer face this distress." [Numbers]
Moses is the classic "man in the middle." He gets it from God and from the Children of Israel. Finally he lets God know how he feels. Among other things, he reminds God that freeing the Children of Israel and bringing them out in the desert was God's idea, not his! The job is too big for one man! Of course, Moses himself had to learn the meaning of the word, "delegate!" This would happen a bit later in Ch. 11 of the Book of Numbers when Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, pays a visit and finds Moses trying to handle every single dispute!
Nevertheless, the experience of being handed a task that puts one smack in the middle between a quarrelsome constituency and an executive power is one I have gone through and I know others who have had the same experience. Ask any pastor who has to implement something from the bishop that he knows the parishioners are not going to appreciate! Or any teacher who has to give bad news from the principal to the classroom! What does one do when one thinks the higher power is God, however? Can one complain against God? Moses and Abraham and Jeremiah and others, including the Psalmist, had no problem doing that!
One can ask to be relieved of the job. Or one can pay attention to wise advice about the way forward. Moses did both! But God is more than big enough to listen to our complaints when we are caught in the middle. That's what a true friend can do. And there is no better friend than God, even if we get angry with what God asks us to do. AMEN