“Then the Lord asked him, “What is that in your hand?” Exodus 4:2
“Many years later when Moses had grown up, he went out to visit his own people, the Hebrews, and he saw how hard they were forced to work. During his visit, he saw an Egyptian beating one of his fellow Hebrews. After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand.” Exodus 2:11,12 NLT
God’s greatest leaders have been a true rogue’s gallery.
Adam was not great, he was just first. He “screwed the pooch”[1] A majority of the Christian elite secretly believe that they could have done better, that if they had been in the Garden of Eden, they would have refused the forbidden fruit.[2] The first family started with one son killing the other. Noah built the Ark, rode out the storm, and got drunk, his boy Ham disgraced him and created the Canaanites.[3] Abram lied twice, saying Sari was his sister rather than his wife. He went along with his wife’s scheme to fulfill God’s promise by her ingenuity rather than with patience and power. Isaac was better, but Jacob was a real conniving deceiver. Joseph was a bright spot, but if you combine his pompous, pretty boy image with the nice rainbow jacket—his brothers got sick of him and conveniently lost track of him. Moses was no choir boy—he was saved from the Pharaoh’s edict, was plucked from the Nile, and was raised in the Pharaoh’s luxurious palace under the protection of the Pharaoh’s daughter. He was privileged, wealthy, educated, and a Renaissance man before the Renaissance—a Renaissance man with a shepherd’s staff and a blank look on his face. It appears that none of these men would be good enough to meet our modern standards.
Some contemporary evangelicals have been puzzled by recent political events, have become disillusioned, yet have dug in their heels. They feel guilty, angry, and confused. They have become far too prissy, proper, and pure for the real-life characters who walk off the pages of the Bible. Moses spends his life being really good, and then really bad. God loved him, but in the end, would not permit him or his brother into the “promised land.” Moses had to take his brother Aaron to Mount Hor. God seems to have a thing about mountains and caves. There Moses removed his brother’s priestly garments, his breastplate, ephod, blue robe, [4] and linen undergarments. A total defrocking, a humiliation for the weaker man, the second banana brother. God announced that Aaron would now die because he took part with Moses in a rebellion against God’s instructions concerning the water at Meribah.[5] Moses obeyed and took Aaron and his son Eleazar up the mountain and there Aaron died and Eleazar came down the mountain wearing his Father’s priestly clothes. Israel mourned Aaron for thirty days.[6] Later it would be time for Moses to be removed from power and to join his ancestors. To whom much is given, much is required. When Moses died, God himself buried him. It was a tender moment, and it is recorded in holy scripture, a reflective note is added regarding Moses.
“And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. In all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land. And in all the mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel.” Deuteronomy 34:11,12.
Moses was both good enough for God and not good enough for God. He did disappoint and fail, but he also soared to great heights. Since Moses had faults, he wouldn’t be good enough to meet the high standards of the evangelical left, to be a modern politician who disagreed with their agenda. This does seem a bit odd.
Evangelical Utopianism
Contemporary church leaders and people, in general, sit in judgment of these ancient leaders. They just don’t measure up; they violate modern sensibilities. The idea seems to be that the shocking events in Israel’s history sanctioned by a wild and wooly God are not Christ-like. Any defense of the behavior of King David’s adultery and subsequent murder of his mistress’s husband, even his slaying of Goliath, is a bridge too far for the 21st century.
Christian Utopianism is normally reserved for some New York City, Upper East Side leftist version of Christianity that can only survive on life support from Riverside Church with a dash of Union Theological Seminary thrown in. This kind of thinking asks the impossible. Live in peace as an individual and nation to nation, and the world will be one [7] because humans cannot not deliver it and God wants no part in it. That is the reason it keeps moving through the cultural life-cycle of man, (person, if you like) a movement, and then a museum, followed by a monument. The monument tells you it’s over, done, not going to happen. When you start with Martin Luther King, and end up with George Floyd, it’s over.
Utopia means “nowhere.” It’s another way of describing nirvana, nothingness. It is not promised or even recommended in the Bible. Utopian dreams usually describe a world of hand-holding harmonic swaying throngs, turning the other cheek, loving all other humans, and the absence of war, conflict, disagreement, and debates. Everything is permitted, no matter what they choose to be or how they behave—as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. This kind of thinking denies reality and is a colossal waste of time. And by the way, a lot of people get hurt, a lot more people get murdered, executed, thrown into jail, gagged, and are efficiently silenced. It’s Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Brave New Word, and Caligula’s orgies all mixed together.
Wasted Time
There is an urge in each of us for perfection, all the while knowing that we are far from it. All of creation cries out for this perfection; it is embedded deeply within us.[8] Sometimes, we call it conscience. C.S. Lewis and others have used this yearning as an argument for perfect existence. I think that argument is correct. What has gone wrong is that it is not accessible to us right now, not in this life. And to strive for it now is a fool’s errand. And to rally people to it is unhealthy.
Back to Moses
God dramatically saved Moses’ life, but not so he could be a perfect specimen of Godliness. His mission was to save Israel and lead the people out of their captivity. God saved him for a special mission. But getting a human being to obey and complete his or her mission is anything but simple. It took a lot of time for God to shape Moses up to get him in a position to hear it and do it.
The story found in Exodus 2:11-25 shows Moses as a young man anxious to get to know his fellow Jews. He defended a fellow Hebrew from an Egyptian’s beating and killed the Egyptian. He buried him and covered up his actions. Through a series of events, Moses was found out, became a fugitive from justice, and fled to the region of Midian. There Moses did it again; he saved several damsels in distress, the daughters of Jethro, being harassed by shepherds at a well in Midian. Moses, for his heroic actions, won the hand of Zipporah. He settled down to have a family and tend Jethro’s many flocks. He was happy enough to live out his life on the back side of the Negev, a simple shepherd. The years went by, and, at eighty years old, he felt out of danger. Just had to take care of a wild animal once in a while going after his flock. [9]
And then—this.
“Years passed, and the King of Egypt died. But the Israelites continued to groan under their burden of slavery. They cried out for help and their cry rose up to God. God heard their groanings and he remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act.” [10]
Four hundred years is a long time. America is 250 years old, with only 150 years to go and many generations yet to be born. Moses is on the shelf, educated, equipped, and successful in a shepherd’s kind of way, but not ready to go back to Egypt to rescue two million Jews. The clock is ticking; he is nearing 80 years of age. There is a new Pharaoh; there was one who did not know Joseph, and now there is one who does not know Moses. While Moses was living a quiet life, the people of Israel were groaning. Groaning toward God is prayer. They have been praying for many generations. Four hundred years in our terms is the year 2175—and God hears our groans and will answer our prayers in 2175. It’s not a pleasant thought, but is it even a legitimate prayer? Are we being held as slaves? If God would rescue us and pluck us out of where we are, what purpose would it serve, unless it is the second coming? Just some questions I have.
God lives in a timeless simultaneous reality. Think of it as a finished painting outside of time. He sees the entire painting as a completed whole of history, but more relevant to us, our lives. In time, however, we are still painting, waiting, praying, planning, choosing, willing, and obeying. The Israelites have been praying, complaining, living, dying, and aspiring, and Moses sits, waits, prays, and he has no idea what is coming.
Moses is going to prove to be very much not up to the task. He is anything but an ideal Christian or the kind of person that our entire system seeks to produce. Millions of Christians consider Moses a type of Christ because he saved his people. But clearly, he is not the Christ, not even close.
Will Christians both left and right ever find someone good enough to lead our country? Will there be someone to solve our theological divide, our cultural divide, and our political divide? I don’t think so, not in this world, under these conditions. We are divided and in disagreement because that is what we the people have always been. We won’t change in this version of us. We all are fallen, some of us are reborn, transformed. But not enough nor completely to escape our being human. It will be a reality only when God decides it will be done. I can understand the desire to live as one in this world at this time, but for now, we will need to settle for a Pepsi. Leaders like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, who fail, and then succeed, then fail some more, once in a while do something spectacular like Samson and bring down the house. And here I am, your humble correspondent, still trying to understand what is going on.
Billy from Babylon
Winter 2025
P.S. Your Neo-Assyrian monarchs say hello, Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V, Sargon II, and his son Sennacherib…Sennacherib claimed in 701 BCE to have King Hezekiah trapped like a bird in a cage. Hezekiah was afraid, but Isaiah gave him a pep talk, and God saved the day and the nation. 2 Kings 18,19. Some bird, some cage, some God.
[1] “Screwed the pooch.” Slang that means to make a big mistake or fail in a humiliating way.
[2] Romans 5:12-16 tells us that “In Adam” we were all there. The Roman letter makes it clear that NO, we would not have done better. Romans 3:23, 6:23.
[3] The Mark of Cain has many interpretations. It is not the African nations or people of color as some put it. It is a range of people dedicated to the destruction of God’s people and plan.
[4] The color blue represents God’s glory, purity, and severity. Numbers 15:38,39, Exodus 24:10.
[5] The episode where Moses struck the rock in anger rather than obey God’s instruction to simply speak to the rock. It took place in Kadesh-Barnea, also known as Meribah-Kadesh. Numbers 20:7-12.
[6] Numbers 20:22-29.
[7] John Lennon’s song, Imagine. A national anthem of aspiration, only found in small conclaves of utopians and only then until they run out of money.
[8] Romans 8:24-28
[9] Midian is east of Egypt and south of modern-day Israel. The back side of Midian is in the Negev desert, a good place to get lost and never be heard from again.
[10] Exodus 2:23-25 NLT.
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