Moses and the People: Intercession Vs. Murmuring

WE HAVE SEEN how our flesh in exile feels nostalgia for the homeland, a nostalgia that at times becomes blighted as our longing for "the onions and the garlic" of Egypt (Num 11: 5-6) makes us look back and lose hope. How do we become aware that we have changed our forward direction (like "those who shrink back" in Heb 10: 39)? How do we distinguish good nostalgia from bad, the nostalgia by which we are "saved in hope" from that which seeks salvation by romantically transforming memory into mere memento? The signs of unhealthy nostalgia are resentful murmuring and the triumphalist striving that creates for itself false gods: "Make us gods that will go before us," the people tell Aaron. "As for this fellow Moses, who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him" (Exod 32: 1). All triumphalism simply cloaks our desire to possess an idol we can adore. The God of memory gets transformed into the token of a god made to our measure.

Moses is the prototype of the person who prays in solitude before God, meditating and receiving the law of God for a people who has already sought another god. Sometimes when we pray, we feel that we are "arriving late," as if our message of salvation is being heard by people who have already been saved by another god-and they are in their own way, having traded in the gift for the negotiated deal.