Our sermon series on disputing with God continues this morning with a second story about Moses. Last week, thanks to Moses pushing the boundaries of God’s permissiveness after the golden calf incident, we were able to learn more about God's nature and what it means for us. This week, Moses’ apparently argumentative nature and inability to let things go will teach us more about the relationship between God and God’s people. So let’s jump right in.
Today’s reading continues exactly where we left off last week. After God agrees not to destroy the Israelites towards the end of the previous chapter, God decides here that God needs to not be around them for a while. God needs some space. God is still hurt and angry, and the relationship between God and God’s people has been badly damaged. The feelings of betrayal are still too fresh, so - to avoid doing something that God would regret - God essentially calls a relationship timeout.
When I first read this passage at the beginning of the week, I was surprised by how much I relate to it. It reminds me of what happens every time my spouse and I find ourselves at odds in *our* relationship. Our strategies for dealing with conflict couldn’t be more different: when I get upset, I crave connection and resolution, but when Nick gets upset, he tends to withdraw and isolate himself. I need reassurance; he needs space. This has always been a challenge for us, especially in the first several years of our relationship. What do you do when your own needs are completely antithetical to your partner’s needs? How can you maintain a meaningful relationship when you both want contradictory things?
One option is to prioritize your partner’s needs over your own for the sake of keeping the peace. That’s the approach that the Israelites seem to take at first (and understandably so - they’d just messed up in a huge way with the golden calf, so they were probably eager not to give God any more reasons to think badly of them). In verses 7-11, Moses sets up a meeting tent for God’s presence to dwell in, far away from the Israelites’ camp, and the Israelites obediently keep their distance. Whenever God’s presence descended on the tent, the people came out of their own tents and bowed reverently, so it’s pretty clear that they weren’t ready to let go of the relationship entirely. But, according to God’s wishes, they refrained from even the appearance of approaching God themselves.
The problem with this method of conflict resolution is that the cost for the person ignoring their own needs eventually becomes too high. Emotional needs are still needs, and when you deny them - even with the best of intentions - you suffer. I can imagine the Israelites’ hearts breaking each time they saw God’s presence from a distance, and if you’ve ever had to be apart from someone that you loved desperately, you can probably imagine it, too. Every time I pull back to give Nick the space that he needs, the minutes begin to feel like hours, my anxiety compounds, and it becomes difficult for me to think about anything else. It meets his needs, but mine are neglected - which, in turn, puts additional strain on our relationship.
If we continued this way indefinitely, we’d eventually get past the conflict, but our relationship would never be the same. So, while I do try to give him the space that he needs for a while, I eventually reach out to Nick for the connection and resolution that *I* need. And if he’s ready, we sit down to talk through our conflict, expressing each of our fears, concerns, and needs. Together, we figure out the best way to resolve things so that our relationship will be stronger going forward: sometimes, the best solution is for him to give me more of what I need. Sometimes, it’s for me to give him more of what he needs. Sometimes, it’s a compromise - a balance between the two. But every time, we’ve found that the key to avoiding neglect or resentment between us is intentional communication.
Moses doesn’t want the rift between the people and God to become permanent, so after giving God some space for a while, he decides that it’s time for that communication. So, Moses brings the people’s fears, concerns, and needs to God openly and honestly: the fear of what will happen if God doesn't go with them to the Promised Land. The concern that God doesn’t actually think as highly of Moses as they all thought. The need to ground their identity in God’s presence with them. He doesn’t make any demands or ultimatums. Moses just pours his heart out to his God in the hopes of restoring their relationship. And as a result - because God deeply values their relationship, too - the Lord hears Moses and agrees to his request.
Now, it’s wonderful that Moses and God are able to patch things up for the sake of their relationship, but *we* don’t have a Meeting Tent to go to when we’re on the outs with God. In fact, many of us may have been explicitly taught to preserve our relationship with God exactly the same way the Israelites initially tried to: by repressing our own fears, concerns, and needs for the sake of appeasing the Lord. According to this theology, it’s only through unquestioning compliance that we can hope to earn God’s love and forgiveness. It says that things are just different now than they were back then.
But no healthy relationship - even one between an omnipotent god and a sinful people - can be sustained like this. And God has proven to us, time and time again, that God is in this relationship for the long haul. The truth is that things ARE different now - just not in the way that we might think. Our sinfulness no longer separates us from God’s holiness. We’re no longer reliant on the rhetorical skills of our religious leaders for reconciliation with God. Because there’s a new Moses who’s repaired the rift between God and humanity forever - and his name (of course) is Jesus Christ.
In Christ’s Resurrection, the covenant between God and humanity has been restored for good. Christ transforms our relationship with God from something that has to be delicately mediated into a durable partnership that cannot be destroyed. Jesus has sealed the marriage between God and humanity such that nothing can ever tear it apart again.
And so we don’t need to find a Meeting Tent. We don’t need to go to the right location, recite the right words, or offer the right sacrifice in order to communicate with God. Bringing our fears, concerns, and needs to the Lord is as simple as sitting down to talk with your spouse. Because that’s all that prayer is, when you come right down to it: confiding your thoughts and feelings in someone that you love and trust. When we build it up into something bigger or more formal than that, all we’re doing is hindering communication in the most important relationship of our whole lives - and nothing good can come from that.
It doesn’t even matter that God already knows what’s in our hearts - that’s not the point. Nine times out of ten, when Nick and I quarrel, he already knows why I’m upset - but we have the conversation anyway. Because that’s how we support each other and strengthen the relationship. Communicating in this context is less about conveying information than it is about sharing a part of ourselves and building trust - which is what God wants from us, more than anything in the world.
Thinking about prayer as simply communicating with God may make it seem less significant - especially when there’s so much wrong in the world - but don’t be deceived. We should never underestimate what it can do. As Kierkegaard once said, “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” When we pray, we’re not only sharing what’s on our own hearts; we’re opening ourselves up to understanding what’s on God’s. We’re learning how to build holy relationships with others by cultivating our relationship with the Holy One. We’re reinforcing our trust in God to guide us where we need to go. And these days, we need *all* of this to keep us grounded and give us strength while we “fight the good fight,” as the old hymn puts it.
So pray like your connection to God depends on it. Pray, not just to speak, but to hear and be heard. Pray, not to make demands, but to pour out your heart to your beloved. Pray so that you might be transformed. Every time we communicate with God, regardless of the words we speak or the topic we address, we invite God deeper into our hearts, minds, and lives. So let us pray until God permeates every part of who we are, and we’re changed from a people who merely believe in God to a people who truly love God. That’s an important distinction to make. Because it’s that very love, that relationship grounded in honest communication with the Lord, that becomes the fertile soil out of which miracles can grow. And it all starts with a conversation. Amen.
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