Moses: The Man In The Middle

April 2009

Moses was a man of prayer. Much prayer. Often he is caught in the middle, in between God and his people, begging to spare his people, questioning God’s former immense fidelity and past impeccable justice. Not an enviable position, I don’t think. I want to look briefly at one of Moses’ prayers found in Numbers 14:13-23. First let’s refresh our minds about how Moses is the man in the middle.

The man in the middle (Walter Brueggemann’s name for Moses) started his life between the two banks of the Nile. He lived his young life between two cultures, the Israelite culture with his mother as nurse in Pharaoh’s residence, and his Egyptian culture with Pharaoh’s daughter as surrogate mother.

As an adult he stood between an Egyptian taskmaster and a Hebrew worker. A day later he came between two Hebrews. Once his actions were discovered he ran away to the land of Midian, the land between Egypt and the Promised Land. Then he returned to Egypt to stand between YHWH and Pharaoh, and on the way to the promised land, Moses stood between his people and YHWH on several occasions. He even stands between YHWH and Pharaoh. Incidence after incidence, prayer after prayer, we see a man who is in the midst of conflict acting as a go between, an intercessor, and a mediator (See Exodus 33-34 for example).
I wonder if that life of intercession should not inform and guide our personal lives, our communities’ lives, and our denomination’s stance vis-à-vis the culture? Is not standing in between or in the middle the task of all who serve God? God seems to be OK with it! How many revivals began when the people of God stood in the middle on behalf of other people of God and on behalf of society? Was there ever a revival that did not begin and continue in this fashion?

Read Numbers 14:13-23. This ‘in the middle’ kind of prayer is a bold calling on YHWH to change his mind from his resolve to do away with his people and start anew with a nation from Moses’ loins. The man in the middle is exasperated with YHWH’s resolve to destroy his people. He wonders out loud if God is choosing the best action. Has what God resolved to do in the best interest of God and of his people? What about God’s reputation when the nations find out that God terminated his relationship with his covenant people?

How do you deal with your exasperation with God? Moses talked frankly with God. He spoke boldly and without fear. His motives seem pure enough: we see him so in love with his own community, his own people, and YHWH’s reputation. It’s like he is the man in the middle who cares more for his people than YHWH seems to. He even questions whether YHWH is acting in his own best self-interest! Bold, don’t you think? And God seems to listen and be willing to alter his plans though not to the extent that Moses requested.

We see Moses using his friendship with God to intercede on behalf of his people. He does this by reminding YHWH of his historic promise (compare Exodus 34:6-7 and Numbers 14:18 to see how Moses uses history with YHWH to make his point about God’s resolve). Moses is not embarrassed or sheepish in pointing out to his creator his past promises.
 
Here are my 4 “take aways” from this prayer.

1. Whatever it is that exasperates me about the ways of God is legitimate in prayer. Are the unrighteous prospering? Are the poor still downtrodden by life? Moses is certainly not the first or the last that struggled with God’s ways of dealing with his world. The psalmists regularly cry out to God in exasperation about how their enemies treat them. The prophets often raise issues that God seems to be silent about and believe he should intervene or not intervene. This kind of gutsy praying is legitimate because of a prior history and relationship between the Prayer and the One he prays to. 

2. It is passion that drives gutsy praying. Passion that God’s reputation may be tarnished if God does not act the way we think he should. This passion is premised on our love for God and for his people. Certainly God cares more about our issues than we do. Certainly God has his reasons and his ways are not ours. But our lack of absolute knowledge is what makes us human and makes us seek for satisfactory resolution as we see it, or drives us to find answers we don’t have.

3. Spontaneous praying is good. Remembering the promises of God from the past or the prayers of his people from the past is just as good if not better. Moses goes back to the Scripture to remind God to act on the basis of his promises. Writer after writer in the Old and New Testaments use prayers from the past to express their desires in the present. In other words, the prayers of the past are legitimate prayers for us. Repeating the preserved prayers of others is a good thing.

4. Standing in the middle is the right posture for us all the time. Brueggemann says that “bold prayer is to ‘stand in the breach’, hopefully to be a ‘repairer of the breach’ between God and God’s people or of daring and of exposure, for it assumes that God can be, and is indeed impacted by such prayer.” Whether we are seeking the mercy of God upon our families, communities of faith, friends, or our country, one role we ought not to neglect as the people of God, as individuals, or as a body of believers is to be repairers of the breech that our messy lives create.

Walking with the Master is no cakewalk. Sometimes it’s like being lost in the fog of life, and rediscovering the ancient paths again, like the path of Moses in prayer (Jeremiah 6:6).

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