Numbers 20 often befuddles us. After all, the story is pretty straightforward: Israel needs water, God provides water. All that Moses does is to strike a rock instead of speak to it, and for that he is told that he will never enter the Promised Land. I don't know about you, but to me that seems a little out of proportion.
Several things present themselves to help me get my head around the incident. Let me just ponder the most important one: Moses is Israel's leader, and leaders are always held to a higher standard. That's the responsibility of leadership. After all, if a person wants the ability to influence people for good, they need to be aware of how easy it is for them to influence them for ill, too. Leaders, by the nature of their position, can set good or bad examples, with consequences far beyond their apparent meaning.
Here's an example. I grow up in the shadow of Nixon's Watergate scandal. Now, on the surface, it's kind of small potatoes: a bothced break-in and a badly conceived lie. But the ramifications have been enormous--the hastening of an entire era of lost confidence in institutions and authority. (I'm not saying Watergate is the only event that undermined our confidence, but it surely helped that loss of confidence get rolling.) How do a minor crime and a lie have that kind of impact? When they're perpetuated by the leader of the free world! If the President does that sort of thing, it sets an example for lesser government officials and for all sorts of people in power that power can be used for personal benefit.
Anyhow, leaders--in the world and in the church--are held to higher standards, and this is especially true in Moses' case. If God's favorite can so casually disregard His Word, surely everyone else can, too! So, parents, bosses, pastors--everyone in authority ought to recognize that they wield that authority to lead on God's behalf, and with that responsibility comes responsibility.
The title bit, that God is no pragmatist, means simply that it matters to Him *how* Moses brought water from the rock. The point is not that water came out; the point is that Moses was supposed to speak to it and he hit it instead.
ReplyDeleteYou could argue that speaking to the rock fits with the way that God's people are supposed to relate to Him. He speaks; they listen. So, the Lord may have had a lesson in mind about the power of His words to accomplish what He said.
There's a lesson here, too, about good works. Lutherans regularly maintain that the 'work' itself doesn't matter; what matters is the heart that performs the work. An unbeliever and a believer both mow the lawn of an infirm neighbor; but only the believer does a good work, because his heart is right with God. The Lord is not just interested in results, but results achieved from correct intentions. (Correct intentions are those intentions born of a heart that has been made new in Christ.)