Reflection - Fire

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/081617.cfm
Deuteronomy 34:1-12
Matthew 18:15-20

Charleton Heston's portrayal of Moses will probably persist for at least another generation or two. But the Moses we find in Scripture was a man of both greater and lesser stature than we find depicted in the movies. In the book of Exodus we meet a man that stuttered and was reluctant to act as God commanded. His brother, Aaron, was not prominent in the confrontations with Pharaoh for no reason at all, an after-thought as it were, or one whose presence was required only for moral support. He was given by God as Moses' companion both because of Moses' speech impediment and because of Moses' reticence.

My Scripture professor was fond of reminding his students that we stand today on the shoulders of giants. Moses was one of those. The text reminds us of this:

"Since then no prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses,
whom the LORD knew face to face.
He had no equal in all the signs and wonders
the LORD sent him to perform in the land of Egypt
against Pharaoh and all his servants and against all his land,
and for the might and the terrifying power
that Moses exhibited in the sight of all Israel."

Twelve hundred years after his death, Matthew will compose his Gospel in such a way as to present Jesus as the new Moses. Yet, in spite of Jesus' teaching that the people of Nin'eveh "repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here."Or that "The queen of the South. . . came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here." Jesus never compared himself to Moses.

Moses was a man who climbed mountains to meet God. He was a man whose face glowed with an unbearable radiance after those meetings.  Moses had the inner courage to argue with God about God's justifiable anger with his people. And he, himself, endured those forty years of desert wandering that were sent as punishment, not because of his own sin, but because of the sin of the people. Such was the strength of God's Spirit empowering him in the courts of Egypt and in the desert wanderings. Such was the veneration that Moses commanded even after more than a thousand years.

But let me return to those forty years of desert winds and sand. What was the sin of  the people? Did you know they were brought to the Promised Land one time before they actually entered? Did you know that they had early on, after leaving Egypt, arrived at the border to that land and Moses sent scouts to survey the environment before they entered? The scouts explored and appraised the land over a forty day period. They came back with glowing reports; but the people rebelled at entering because they did not trust that God would support them. God's response might well have been predicted:

"Your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day a year, you shall bear your iniquity, forty years, and you shall know my displeasure." (Numbers 14:33-34)

I find it interesting that the church combines the text about Moses with the words of Jesus we hear in the Gospel. 

"Amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth
about anything for which they are to pray,
it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.
For where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them."

Those wandering Israelites spent forty years in the desert because they couldn't agree to accept God's offer of a land flowing with milk and honey. Not just two oyr three of them, but the vast majority of them. But now, since Jesus, we too have been made an offer. We are offered the fulfillment of what we together pray for. We are offered his presence when we gather in his name? And it occurs to me that this offer demands more on our part than a casual mention of what we would like to have happen, something more than a cursory: O, by the way, take care of Susie who is sick or Tom, who needs a job. 

That's why the church also gives us this Psalm and its refrain. 

R. Blessed be God who filled my soul with fire!
Shout joyfully to God, all the earth;
sing praise to the glory of his name;
proclaim his glorious praise.
Say to God: "How tremendous are your deeds!"

Come and see the works of God,
his tremendous deeds among the children of Adam.
Bless our God, you peoples;
loudly sound his praise.

Hear now, all you who fear God, while I declare
what he has done for me.
When I appealed to him in words,
praise was on the tip of my tongue.

R. Blessed be God who filled my soul with fire!

We need Fire in our souls and fire in our hearts when we ask.