Posted on 07/16/2015 7:00:13 AM PDT by Salvation
We are currently reading the story of Moses in daily Mass. The story reminds us that not all things are as they appear, and that God’s ways are not our ways.
Moses’ early years are marked with clear signs that he is gifted and chosen. Drawn from the water by Pharaoh’s own daughter, Moses’ very own mother is chosen to be his caretaker and is paid for that privilege by getting to live in Pharaoh’s palace. Pharaoh pays for Moses’ diapers, his food, and his education. And he is unwittingly preparing and equipping his nemesis. God can be very sly!
But at age forty, Moses gets ahead of God (never a good idea). He grows angry at an Egyptian who is oppressing a Hebrew and ends up killing the Egyptian. Moses has to flee.
Now why has God let this happen? From our perspective, Moses was in the prime of his life. At forty, he has experience but has not lost his youth. He is educated, gifted, and has access to power and lots of connections in Pharaoh’s own palace. Moses is in a perfect position to lead the people out of slavery! Or so we think. Except for one problem: God doesn’t think so.
But why not? In a word, pride. Moses, in getting out ahead of God and trying to take things in his own hands, is exhibiting pride. God says, in effect, “You’re too proud. I can’t use you in this condition. It’s time for some lessons in humility.”
And so Moses learns humility. He is forced to flee (humiliating). He must live out in the desert (humbling). And he marries and has children (quite humbling indeed! J).
Ok, so a few years’ worth of humility lessons and then Moses gets started. No, not a few, forty years’ worth!
Now Moses is eighty. He’s feeble, leaning on a staff, and he stutters when he talks. And God comes and tells Moses that it’s time to lead the people out. Moses says, in effect, “Are you crazy? I’m old, I can’t speak, I’m feeble … I can’t do it.” And that’s just the attitude that God needs from Moses: that he can’t do it. And he couldn’t do it at forty, either; he just didn’t know it. God has to do it and Moses will be His instrument. But now this instrument will be docile in the hands of the artist, now Moses can be useful to God.
This is not the way we think. We equate ability and leadership with vigor, power, money, access, talent, etc. For us, the prime of life is in our thirties, forties, and fifties. But God’s ways are not our ways; His thoughts are not our thoughts. Moses at eighty is what God needs. Moses at forty was not of use.
What are some conclusions we can draw?
First, be careful how you assess your own life. In typical earthly fashion most of us consider our prime as being those years when we were most in command of our gifts, when we were working, “making a difference,” earning an income. We measure human life in its prime in terms of money, power, access, physical strength, stamina, etc.
But has it occurred to us that our most powerful moments might be on our deathbed? For there we have many sufferings to offer and our prayers will pierce the clouds as never before. The Lord hears the cry of the poor, the suffering, and the repentant.
I often counsel the bedridden, and the dying in this way: I tell them that we are depending on their prayers as never before because their prayers are more important than ever before. And even if they have a hard time, because of age and discomfort, formulating prayers, just one word on our behalf, “Help!” may change the history of the world. St. Augustine said, More is accomplished in prayer by sighs and tears, than by many words (Letter to Proba).
Yes, be very careful how you assess your life’s worth. Our math is not God’s math; our thoughts are not His. God sizes us up quite differently.
Second, be careful how you assess the lives of others. Here, too, we tend to value those people who are powerful, have money, strength, beauty, talents, and “obvious” gifts. But the Lord warns us in many places that we should esteem the poor, the disabled, and the suffering. He says, Many who are last shall be first (Matt 19:30).
God also counsels that we ought to make friends among the needy and poor by our use of worldly wealth, so that when worldly wealth fails us (and it will), the poor and needy, those who benefitted from our generosity, will welcome us to eternal dwellings (See Lk 16:9).
Yes, befriend the needy, the disabled, and the poor. In this world they need us, but in the next world, we are going to need them! Those who have suffered and those who were poor due to injustice, if they have been faithful, are going to be in high places in Heaven. We’re going to have to get an appointment to see them! Things are not always as they appear. The poor, the disabled, and the suffering are quite often among the real powerhouses of this world.
So pay attention to what the story of Moses tells us. Not as man sees does God see (1 Sam 16:7). We are vainglorious and we look to worldly power and its categories. God is not impressed with our sandcastles, our big brains, and our bulging muscles. He bids us in stories like these to say, with St. Paul, Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor 12:10).
Things are often not as they appear to us. Put on your “God glasses” and by God’s grace see more as He sees.
Monsignor Pope Ping!
Is it a Christian tradition that Moses was 40 when he killed the Egyptian? If so, source please.
I have no idea....it was stated my the priest who wrote this. Might be a good question for his comment board at his site. (Click on the red title line.)
Acts 7:22-24
"Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, and he was a man of power in words and deeds. But when he was approaching the age of forty, it entered his mind to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel. And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian.…"
I think you can get at that same number by simple math in searching different events in Exodus, but I don't have time to check that out just now.
Acts 7:23-24
**it was stated my the priest **
it was stated by the priest
Is it a Christian tradition that Moses was 40 when he killed the Egyptian? If so, source please.
———————————————————————————— Acts 7:23
Stephen gives an account of Moses just before he is killed.
Thanks for your answers. Not surprisingly, Stephen differs from the Jewish commentators/tradition. It’s interesting that you have a NT scriptural source for something that is not explicit in the Torah. (Interesting is a subjective word, but it is data nonetheless.)
It’s interesting that you have a NT scriptural source for something that is not explicit in the Torah
Evidently the NT authors credited some strand of Jewish oral tradition.
Matthew Henry's commentary says:
"[These ages] are traditional. There are that say that Moses was forty years in Pharaoh's palace, forty years in Midian, and forty years in the wilderness" (Tauchum, in Exodus it.). "Moses was forty years in Pharaoh's court, and forty years in Midian, and forty years he served Israel" (Beresh. Rabb. )
I am not familiar with these sources ("Tauchum, in Exodus it." and "Beresh. Rabb.") --- are they rabbinical, possibly?
They are post-2nd Temple Rabbinical commentaries (or course Jewish tradition quotes itself back much further than that, “Rabbi so-and-so said in the name of [3 generational chains of student-pupil]”) on TaNaCh.
There are (again “interestingly” and frustratingly, to Jew and gentile) seemingly-conflicting dates/names/stories, though in the (again, Rabbinical, mystical) tradition of Judaism, the seeming-contradictions stem from variations on a spiritual theme, manifested as nuanced literal accounts or details of an otherwise terse Biblical verse.
Example: Moses was 12, or 18, or 40 when he left Egypt. Stephen seems to have picked one. (argue among ourselves who copied whom...)
I am not familiar with these sources (”Tauchum, in Exodus it.” and “Beresh. Rabb.”) -— are they rabbinical, possibly?
But I think that is what I prefer.
Excerpts From the Talmud by H. Polano
It speaks a great deal of Noah, Abraham, and Moses. Amazing read. In the section with the sayings of the Rabbis, Rabbi Gamaliel, St. Paul's mentor, is quoted.
I wrote some more info in another post, The Oral Law
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