Reflection - Moses

By Steve Hall

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022721.cfm
Deuteronomy 26:16-19
Matthew 5:43-48

No person in the Old Testament had greater standing than Moses. It was understood by the people that he had a special relationship to God and spoke with his authority. In the New Testament he is referred to only in passing. So what do we Christians of modern times know of this man who stood next to God, as it were, for twelve hundred years.

To begin with, he was 6’ 3” tall. He had dark brown, slightly wavy hair. He was a man with strong masculine facial features and he didn’t have a beard til after he fled the Pharaoh and the Egyptian royal court. No?! Wait! That was Charlton Heston playing the part of Moses.

Easy to get them mixed up, isn’t it?

If your personal history is even slightly similar to mine, your grasp of the Old Testament is, or at least used to be, confined to a few dramatic stories. I went to Catholic schools all my life. In the elementary years we had two books that specifically pertained to our faith: one, of course, was the Baltimore Catechism; the second was a small book called Bible History. Our lesson in the Catechism started each and every day. The Bible History book, on the other hand, was always in pristine condition as it gathered the dust discarded from the books actually used.

After sixteen years in Catholic schools, from elementary through college, I finally had a course in Sacred Scripture. I remember the professor pointing out that most of what we students knew as well as what most Catholics knew of the Old Testament was contained in the first five books. He wasn’t wrong. But the account of Moses was in those books. What did we know of him? Or, rather, what had we missed knowing about him? Or, even more important: in our focus on the dramatic details — his rescue from the river, his life in Pharoah’s court, his escape from Egypt, his encounter with a burning bush and his role in the ten plagues — in our focus on these details, what did we miss that would have been even more important?

Charlton Heston brought us a striking image of Moses in the movie, The Ten Commandments; and what I remember from the movie is primarily centered on the figure of Moses. However, if the movie were true to the presentation in Scripture, his Academy Award nomination would necessarily have been for no more than that of Best Supporting Actor. What the Biblical account tells us about Moses is marginally secondary to what it tells us about the central figure of the account. The story is about God!

In the current passage from Deuteronomy we get a glimpse of the central place God held in the events that unfolded. But this is not an isolated incident of the Scripture acknowledging the presence and activity of God. Rather, it is one presentation of what was understood all along. The people did not mistakenly attribute to Moses that which only God could do. The confrontation with Pharaoh, the plagues that descend in the face of Pharaoh’s obstinacy, the pillar of cloud that preceded them by day, the pillar of fire that preceded them by night, the parting of the waters, the destruction of their enemies — none of these were attributed to Moses personally, but rather to the divine power that was working through him.

For all his faithfulness to the Lord, Moses was still a man with human frailty. On the occasion where the people needed water while traveling through the desert, Moses was instructed by God to strike the rock with his staff to bring forth water. This Moses did — but once for God and nice for himself. For this weakness of inserting himself into the miracle, Moses was restricted to viewing the Promised Land from afar. None of this was supposed to be about Moses. All of it was about God.

This is a lesson we need to learn in our present age. What is important in what happens in our lives is not about politics or philosophy, not about power and wealth, not about manipulation and control, not about country or community, not even about Pope or pastor or parish. What is important in what happens is always about God: His presence or His absence, His blessings or His absence of blessing. What we allow the Spirit to accomplish within us is what is important. That is why Jesus will challenge us to love beyond the boundaries of our own limitations. That is why Jesus can reasonably tell us to be perfect. We are called to stand on mountains, not just just admire them from afar.