Moses Looks Back
Psalm 90
I got a phone call from my son out in California not too long ago. He had a burning question. I didn’t see it coming so I wasn’t exactly prepared for it, which actually happens to me a lot in conversations with my children. In this particular conversation, Michael asked me: “Dad, am I middle-aged? I’ve been reading some things.” I did some quick calculations and said, “Son, you are getting close, but just so you know that hurts me a lot more than it does you.” I know what that means for me. I don’t like to think about it, but I do know what it means.
Our text today from the Psalms, Psalm 90, may be the oldest psalm ever written. It is attributed, not to David, who wrote most of the Psalms, but to Moses. It is attributed not to young Moses, floating in a basket in the Nile River, or growing up in the Egyptian palace, or standing up to the Pharaoh, or leading the Israelites across the Red Sea, but an older Moses, who like me, was past middle-age reflecting back over his life.
According to some scholars, Psalm 90 is connected to Moses’ reflections on events that happened back at Kadesh-Barnea as described in Numbers 13-14.
There is an old saying you have probably heard before: “If you think you are a leader, and look behind you and no one is following, you are just taking a walk.”
I definitely know what that is like. I have taken some walks all by myself. It has happened to me. It happened to Moses. It happened to Moses at Kadesh-Barnea.
We all know the story of Moses. He was given this monumental task while he was out herding sheep in the desert out by Mt. Horeb. God appeared to Moses at the burning bush and sent him to Egypt to set the people of Israel free and lead them to the Promised Land. He led them out of Egypt. He led them through the Red Sea. He did all that, but at Kadesh-Barnea things ground to a halt. The monkey wrench landed in the gear- box. And of course when the monkey wrench lands in the gear box everything grinds to a halt.
The people, except for Joshua and Caleb, refused to follow Moses any further. They didn’t want to venture into the Promised Land. All the scouts, except for Joshua and Caleb, who were sent into the land to spy it out came back saying, “There are some huge giants over there. It is way too risky and dangerous to try to go there.”
So the people stopped following Moses which meant he was just taking a walk.
These things happen to leaders. It happened to Moses. It happened to Alexander the Great. His army finally told him, “We are not going any further,” and they didn’t.
Here in Psalm 90, Moses is looking back over his life as one who knew some great success. There are not a lot of people who go head to head with the Pharaoh and live to talk about it, but he also knew some bitter failure. He knew what it was like to have the people he was leading just stop following.
And so he prays.
He doesn’t try to establish himself as someone who is greater than everybody else, and he doesn’t beat himself up for falling short of the execution of his plan.
He turns to God and says:
Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you had brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Moses knew he didn’t do everything right. He definitely knew the people he led could be stubborn and hard headed. And at the time of the writing of what we now know as Psalm 90, he also almost certainly knew he was never going to personally set foot in the promised land.
And he never did. He was buried in Moab.
So, was Moses a failure? He was supposed to lead his people to a specific place, to the Promised Land, and he never did, and he never went there himself.
Was Moses a failure?
What does this Psalm tell us? This Psalm tells us that Moses came to understand that we have our way of measuring success and failure and God has God’s way of measuring success and failure and that as Isaiah would later write, “Our ways are not God’s ways.”
As Moses reflected on his life and the events of Kadesh-Barnea he began to see God’s kingdom is bigger and greater than anything we can see or measure in any specific moment in time.
For the Lord, he says, a thousand years is like a watch in the night. Moses didn’t let one little set back keep him from seeing how big God is.
Have you ever been to Kadesh-Barnea? I don’t mean the actual geographical site down on Israel’s southern border with Egypt, but the place where the monkey wrench hits the gear box and things just seem to stop dead?
Have you ever been to the place where you are trying to lead people somewhere good and they are just not having it? Ever been there? Moses has been there, most leaders have.
It is no secret this is a tough time in the Methodist church. It is a time when things like success and failure are being redefined.
It is time for us to reflect on who we are and what we believe God is calling us to do.
I would say it is time for us to do what Moses is doing in this Psalm.
It’s time to pray.
It is time for us to ask God to bless the work of our hands and to leave all the rest to God who just like in Moses’ time is able to do abundantly far more than we could ask or imagine
Maybe it’s time to put our questions about whether we are succeeding or failing behind and just trust in God.
Maybe it’s time to look back like Moses, and pray.