A Letter To Aaron
By Rev. William Dohle
Dear Aaron,
You don't know me, but I follow in your footsteps. You see, I too serve God's people as a priest. I'm not Jewish. I'm Christian. And they don't call us priests, but pastors, but basically they're the same thing. We are spiritual leaders of God's people, the same as you.
As a spiritual leader I have faced many of the same temptations as you did. I have been tempted to adapt my message and please my audience, as you did at Sinai when you made the golden calf. I have been tempted to denigrate those in authority over me, as you did to Moses when you spoke against him and sided with Mirium. And I have been tempted to disobey God's command, as you did at the waters of Meribah.
Not only have I been tempted, Aaron, but I've fallen into those same traps. I have adapted my message, sometimes on the fly during a sermon, and refrained from saying something that I knew might make someone upset. I have made for myself and others "golden calfs", physical signs of God's presence to bow down and worship instead of trusting in the mysterious presence of God. I too have spoken against those above me, knowingly and unknowingly. And I too have disobeyed God's commandment to trust.
I have failed just as you did, Aaron. I am wrong. I need forgiveness.
And reading your story gets me worried. You see, Aaron, people haven't changed in the thousands of years that have passed since you walked the earth. They're just as stubborn as they were in the wilderness. For many people, their pursuit of God takes a backseat to everything else going on in their lives. I know because they've told me so. They'd rather party with the golden calf than wait patiently below the mountain for a word that may never come.
People today remember things falsely too, thinking as your people did that things were so much better in the past. Looking with rose colored glasses at all the pain and suffering that they endured back then, they forget the present and concentrate on the past.
You stood up to that. You stood up for years in the midst of your people, proclaiming God's love and redemption and presence among them. You lived with people whose priorities are so much like the people I know. And I'm worried that, just as you were remembered at the end of your life, not for the good you did, but for your mistake at the waters of Meribah, so I too may be remembered by my mistakes and not for the good I do.
Aaron, I have no idea how many times you succeeded and how many good sermons you gave your people in the wilderness. I don't know how much you loved and cared for them. I don't know much of the good you did. But I know your mistakes. Those are the things we remember. Those are the things written down for us.
Sadly, at the end of your life, your time with Moses before Pharaoh was forgotten. It was your mistake at Meribah they remembered. It was for this reason God prevented you from entering into the Promised Land.
I'll never see that promised land either, I'm afraid. I'll stand on the mountain of life and pass on the mantle of leadership to another. I'll never see the promised land for myself, for I am a product of my own generation and my own time. Neither you, nor Moses, ever passed into the Promised Land. Maybe it was because of your mistake at Meribah. Maybe you always kicked yourself for what transpired there. Or maybe it was because you were a product of your own time and the promised land, being promised and not fulfilled, is always for another.
In any case, though I know God forgave me and has forgiven you for your mistakes, I still wonder: How will I be remembered? What will this people, still stubborn yet blessed and precious in God's sight, think of me when I pass on?
And do they worry about that? Do they wonder how they'll be remembered? Are they, at times, nervous or scared to make mistakes fearing that those mistakes will mark them as they marked you? Maybe they have that same worry... Maybe not...
As for me, I hope that I'm remembered as you are. Whether I succeed or not. Whether my sermons were good and interesting, or dry and boring. However I'm thought of, I hope I'm remembered standing up on that mountain top, stripped of all the pomp and circumstance of life, yet content to be up there with God with even a glimpse of the kingdom God has promised to bring.
May I trust my memory and my life to God, just as you did.
Gracious God, your faithful servant, Aaron, was gathered to his people just as you gather all of us. Help us trust you with the future so that we might work together for good in the present, not worried about what others think but confident in your grace and love for us. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment