Friday, February 20

Scripture: Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff; water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their livestock drank. (Numbers 20:11).

Observation: This passage sounds like good news, and for the parched Israelites and livestock panting for water in the desert it is good news, but for Moses and Aaron this verse is bad news because their actions here disqualify them from entering the Promised Land. God told Moses and Aaron explicitly and with no room for interpretation that they were to speak to a rock and command it to gush water for the thirsty humans and animals (Numbers 20:8). But Moses does more than speak to the rock; he pummels the rock with his staff. He hits the rock not once but twice, showing that Moses didn’t strike the rock on accident. Moses inserts himself into God’s gracious act. He makes the miracle about himself. Striking the rock is a way of saying, “Look what I can do! See how powerful I am! Follow me. Put your trust in me, Moses, worker of wonders.” God looks upon the striking of the rock as an act of public narcissism: “Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” (Numbers 20:12). Moses corrupted the spirit of leadership and called attention to himself rather than to the common vision of reaching the Promised Land as God’s chosen faithful people.

Application: Moses and Aaron are showing us what leadership should not become. The task of leadership is to guide people from here to there, from the current state to the future state at a speed the people can tolerate. Leaders are tasked – really, called – to deny their ego and point toward the preferred future with their words, actions, values, way of being, teamwork, and management and care for others. If the leader ever makes the cause about themself, if they ever conflate ego with vision, if they direct the efforts, hopes, and sacrifices of the team or community toward themselves as the focal point as opposed to the preferred vision that everyone signed up to pursue, then the leader forfeits their right to leadership. Moses and Aaron earn the demotion of being denied the Promised Land because striking the rock was an act of public narcissism. They committed the cardinal sin of leadership: they made the cause about the leader. It’s easy for readers to say that God is being too harsh on Moses and Aaron. After all, it was only a rock. But the stakes are too high. God needs leaders who will place purpose first and self later. Moses and Aaron did well in leading the Israelites out of Egypt and into the desert, but in making themselves the focal point of the organization called Israel, they have demonstrated that it’s time for a new generation to answer the call to leadership. Leaders, beware: as soon as we conflate self with vision, we prove that our season of authority has passed.

Prayer:

You are the first and final leader, the Visionary who saw the potential for something when all You had to work with was nothing, the Reformer who sees what people and systems and communities can become while we settle for less, the Redeemer who will renovate every sad overlooked slum and eliminate every tear-jerking, heart-deflating kidnapping of life by the faceless thief of death and reverse the trend of family members winding up remains because You in Your total lovely genius see beyond what the eyeballs of my heart can see: You see better when all I see is now. Please spare time in your crazy busy schedule as CEO of all things to give an extra spark to leaders everywhere. You know the kind: the coaches of little league baseball teams, parents everywhere, ballet dance instructors, band teachers, teachers of every subject and age, clergy yanking their flock on a pilgrimage to God when no one has the time, police chiefs and firefighter chiefs and hospital chiefs, school principals, politicians because you love them too, all people who are thrust into the holy work of leading, the work You started when You decided to move creation from the here of nothing to the there of something. Give them patience, fortitude, sufficient caffeine and sleep (not in that order), resilience, vision, and the right balance of solitude and friendship, and above all, help them and mostly me to deny the self and march together in one direction as long as the work will take. Onward we go: Amen.