The Day of Pentecost, June 8
Numbers 11:24 – 30
Most preachers who follow the lectionary will probably go with the reading from Acts 2 for Pentecost. Maybe the gospel. Or maybe 1 Corinthians 12, to bring the Holy Spirit closer to Presbyterian experience, which has more to do with ongoing service in a congregation than preaching in foreign languages on streets and sidewalks. I think the reading from Numbers 11 has a word for us today. A word about God’s Spirit. And a word or two about whom we should pay attention to.
The story begins with Moses’ growing frustration with the people of Israel, who he says “number 600,000 on foot” (v.21) plus a whole new generation still not walking. Moses is mostly mad at God: “Why have you treated your servant so badly … that you lay the burden of all these people on me?” (v.11) Moses isn’t alone in leadership. There are elders among the people. God tells Moses to round up the 70 he thinks are best at their jobs: “I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them …” (v.17). Moses will then have partners to share his burden.
This spirit isn’t exactly the Holy Spirit of John 20 or Acts 2. In the Old Testament a spirit of power and ability is given to select leaders, for specific times and purposes. More like a spiritual gift, à la 1 Corinthians 12. But with an added authority, direct from God. Moses and the 70 will announce God’s will and see that it is carried out.
Our reading begins with an ordination service, and a mini – Pentecost. Those who receive the spirit (68 of them) speak out, but just for a moment. Eldad and Medad, who didn’t get to church on time, get the spirit anyway. They prophesy in the camp, and it seems they’re still speaking when word gets to Moses. Shouldn’t someone stop them? They didn’t attend the service. They’re preaching outside the tent, beyond the liturgical limits. Do they have authority to speak?
Joshua, Moses’ right hand and one of the chosen elders, wants Moses to stop these outsiders. Moses replies that he wishes all God’s people would get the spirit and preach. Then he and the silent 68 go back to camp. Where, presumably, they meet and hear Eldad and Medad preaching among the people.
In our churches, on Pentecost 2014, we need to turn from our search for signs the Holy Spirit is still present inside our tents, and look and listen toward where the Spirit is present and at work in places and people we don’t recognize yet. That includes places we might not choose to go and people we’ve let slip away from us. People who don’t assume they’ll find any spirit in our way of being church. (Don’t get defensive here. Ask instead how they might have come to assume that about us.)
Eldad and Medad must have caused quite a stir in the camp, among all those people who weren’t considered worthy to go out to the tent and see the ordination. I’m sure they also watched closely, to see what Moses, Joshua, and the 67 other elders did when they met Eldad and Medad. Just as people today notice how church people react to new and different and apparently unauthorized signs of spirit. At least they notice when we say, “no.”
Sometimes I fear we’ve lost a whole generation of Eldads and Medads, people who speak words we need to hear, from outside the boundaries we work so hard to maintain. Eldad and Medad were among the chosen 70. They had good reason to believe they were insiders, wherever they stood when the spirit fell on them. After all, God didn’t stay inside the lines.
