Haggling with God: What happens when Moses prays in church?

¹⁰ But the whole assembly talked about stoning them. Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites. ¹¹ The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them? ¹² I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.” ¹³ Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them. ¹⁴ And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, Lord, are with these people and that you, Lord, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. ¹⁵ If you put all these people to death, leaving none alive, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, ¹⁶ ‘The Lord was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath, so he slaughtered them in the wilderness.’¹⁷ “Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ¹⁸ ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’ ¹⁹ In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.” ~ Numbers 14:10-19

The writer Philip Yancey, once wrote about his church at prayer. Every week they offered a brief time when people could voice their prayers aloud. Often these intercessions were quite polite and gentle with little emotion – except for one Sunday. In a clear but quivering voice a young woman prayed, “God, I hated you after the assault! How could you let this happen to me? And I hated the people in this church who tried to comfort me. I didn’t want comfort. I wanted revenge. I wanted to hurt back. I thank you, God, that you didn’t give up on me, and neither did some of these people. You kept after me, and I come back to you now and ask that you heal the scars in my soul.”

As I read this story this week my door flung open to find me staring back at Moses himself. And he looked me straight in the eye and said, “Amen. Now that’s a prayer!”

Throughout our series on the Pentateuch, I have repeatedly said that we should not construct a biblical theology from one book and have talked about progressive revelation and how God reveals more of himself as the story goes on and that later revelation takes precedence over earlier ones. And even now I would argue that we certainly shouldn’t confine our theology of prayer solely to the book of Numbers (things develop, for sure). But, even though that is true, neither should we have a theology of prayer that doesn’t take the book of Numbers into account. So last week we heard from Jesus how to read Leviticus. This week the tables have turned. Moses will come and read us – and teach us how to pray. And Moses wants to say to us . . .

          1.    Your prayers are too polite and not honest enough.

Moses would probably say, “Stop praying and start crying.” Throughout the Pentateuch, it rarely tells us that “Moses prayed . . .” More often, it says, “Moses cried . . .”

After Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh, Moses cried out to the Lord about the frogs he had brought on Pharaoh. ~ Exodus 8:12

Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink. There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test. ~ Exodus 15:25

Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.” ~ Exodus 17:4

When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down. ~ Numbers 11:2

So Moses cried out to the Lord, “Please, God, heal her!” ~ Numbers 12:13

But Moses and Aaron fell face down and cried out, “O God, the God who gives breath to all living things, will you be angry with the entire assembly when only one man sins?” ~ Numbers 16:22

Crying is raw and honest. You can’t cry politely and there’s a lot to cry about in Moses’ world and in ours. Moses cried publicly and often sobbed these complaints to God in front of God’s own people. It was not merely a private experience. Crying is what we do with those we trust, with those we love. Crying to God is one of the most appropriate responses we can make in a broken world. There is a tradition in the Talmud, the Jewish commentary on the Torah, that Moses wrote a portion of the Torah in his own tears.

Sojourner Truth, the African-American abolitionists, like Moses had no problem praying what was on her mind. “Oh, God, you know I have no money, but you can make the people do for me, and you must make the people do for me. I will never give you peace till you do, God.”

Crying out to God will help us address a deadly disease of respectable Christ followers: “holy lying.” Holy lying is falsely telling God what we imagine God wants to hear rather than expressing our true thoughts and feelings. Now, if you’re only crying, that’s not good. It’s a sign of deep pain and need that probably deserves special attention – counseling, medication, etc. But, if you’re never crying to God, never frustrated at God, that’s also not good. It’s the number one symptom of “holy lying.” It’s as unhealthy as a marriage where there are never fights. Crying and complaining are a part of any healthy relationship.

I once heard a well-meaning pastor laud a woman in my community who had died at the young age of 56 saying, “Though, she had bone cancer she never complained to God or questioned God at all.” Moses would balk at such praise. “What’s good about that?,” he would ask. “If you are free, why do you talk like slaves? Why do you lie and tell God things are okay? Why don’t you live into our name – Israel, ‘God-wrestler.’” Not communicating or questioning is worse than fighting. In a wrestling match, at least both parties stay engaged. According to Moses, “prayer in its highest form and grandest success assumes the attitude of a wrestler with God.” (E.M. Bounds)

More than simply crying to God, Moses wants us to . . .

          2.    Stop groveling and start arguing.

In our passage from Numbers 14, Moses refuses to acquiesce to God’s desire to wipe out the Israelites. He doesn’t respond with, “Your will be done” in part because God had already promised to make Israel a great nation. Moses’ response is, “Your will be changed!” Even though we love and worship God, Moses would tell us that we dare not meekly accept the state of the world, with all its injustices and unfairness. He would encourage us to call God to account for the state of our world. We’ve seen in the Old Testament how God’s sovereignty is often expressed in ways that stretch us. God claims ultimate power over everything. He is the Creator who stands alone and above all creation. And I’ve suggested that God is willing to take responsibility for things that he didn’t even do because he made the world and takes responsibility for the cause and effect relationships we find in it.

So on the one hand, we find a God powerful enough to do miraculous and amazing things – to liberate a people out of slavery. On the other hand, we find a God personable enough to argue with and who relents at the prayers of his people in surprising ways. What if our responsibility to God is to acknowledge this truth by reminding God of that? If God is sovereign, above all powers, then Moses is right, we can chide him for the injustices that we see. In an African Call for Life, prayers published by the World Council of Churches, a black South-African woman, sounding a lot like Moses, prays:  

“Yes, Jesus, I accept that you are the Life of the world, but we women are oppressed by men. They ask, “can a woman also be called to the ordained ministry of the Church?” Oh, Jesus, why do you favor men, your church is male-dominated. I have to change my name into a man’s after marriage. He believes that I am inferior. He only accepts me out of pity. Yes, Jesus, the Life of the world, make life better for us, women.” Moses would say, “amen” to that kind of prayer.

Listen to Sojourner Truth again praying for her ill son:“Oh, God, you know how much I am distressed, for I have told you again and again. Now, God, help me get my son. If you were in trouble, as I am, and I could help you, as you can me, think I wouldn’t do it? Yes, God, you know I would do it.”

Lastly, Moses would teach us . . .

          3.    Don’t hesitate to remind God of promises made – God answers and we change.

More than simply arguing, on more than one occasion, we encounter characters of faith like Abraham and Moses reminding God of God’s own promises. And when that happens, when they appeal to God’s grace and compassion the fearsome God soon disappears. When Moses prays to God, he finds himself quoting God’s own stated words about himself back to God: “Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as you have declared: ‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion’. . . In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just has you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.”

But why would God create a relationship in which God would have to be reminded of anything? Is God two-faced? Throughout the Pentateuch, it appears that God invites arguments and struggle into prayer and often yields, especially when the point of contention is God’s own mercy. And something amazing happens in this intercession, for it’s not simply that God yields but that the intercessor also changes. In the very process of arguing with God over God’s own mercy, we become merciful. In the very process of praying to God about God’s faithfulness we become more faithful. In the very act of talking with God about who God is, we take on God’s own qualities.

When we take up God’s promises we are advocating for a love that changes us. We are advocating for goodness, healing, and peace. And when we do that in prayer, we become like what we pray for. We become an intercessor.

The best way I can think of explaining this relationship of prayer is through the analogy of a parent coaxing a child to try and swim. The child is fearful and will demand that the parent keep her safe. But after the child jumps into the water the parent slowly takes a few steps back and then a few more. When the child arrives in the parent’s arms, she looks back and discovers that she swam three times as far. Did the parent change? No. Was the child ever in danger? No. But the parent’s loving ruse helped the child grow into becoming a swimmer.

This is why, Moses would tell us, prayer is dangerous. It grows us. And God may very well hear and respond to your prayer and the prayers of others. “That’s what happened to me,” Moses said. And God responded, “I have heard the cries of my people. And so I am sending you.”