Among the evils associated with the sin of murmuring (arguably the vice most often condemned in Holy Scripture), first place probably goes to the disposition of murmurers to feed the grievances of one another.

Fred and Ralph, for example, may entertain very different grievances against George. Perhaps Fred thinks George too flamboyant, whereas Ralph considers him overbearing. As long as Fred and Ralph don’t meet and talk about George-as long as the two of them just murmur individually-George can probably handle the problem. Kept separate, these two sources of complaint have only an accumulative force-let’s say, seven plus seven. It may be the case that George can handle an accumulated complaint calibration of fourteen.

Suppose, however, Fred and Ralph get together, and the discussion somehow turns to the subject of George. We may construct their conversation as follows:

“Say, Fred, what do you think of George?”

“Oh, George is a very fine gentleman, Ralph, and a real prince of a guy, even if he strikes some folks as a tad flamboyant.”

“Yes, George is a sterling character, an ace of a fellow, which is why people overlook it when he gets a bit overbearing on occasion.”

“Well, that’s how it is with flamboyant people, isn’t it? They don’t know when to stop. Flamboyance leads to an inflated self-image. Before long it can really get on your nerves.”

“That is the truth of the thing. I don’t know many people as nerve-wracking as George. I can hardly stand him.”

“Yep, let’s face it: That George is a real creep. Especially with his bad breath, it’s a wonder he has any friends.”

“Name one. I can’t think of anybody who likes George, or admits it. The jerk has absolutely no redeeming qualities.”

Yep, that pretty much sums up George.

Now this is how it goes when murmurers congregate. The trick of virtue here is to keep Fred and Ralph apart, because the inference of their conjunction is not accumulative, but squared. Their combined number is not fourteen, but forty-nine.

There is a clear example of such a conjunction in Holy Scripture. I am thinking of the marching and camping arrangement of the Chosen People in the desert. According to the Book of Numbers, the tribes of Gad, Reuben, and Simeon marched and camped on the south side of the Tabernacle (2:10-16). The tribe of Reuben, which occupied the middle position, was thus placed adjacent to the Levitical family of the Kohathites, which marched and camped between the Reubenites and the Tabernacle (3:29). As it turned out, this physical proximity proved to be dangerous for some of the Reubenites and Kohathites.

For starts, each group had its own complaints. The children of Reuben, Israel’s first-born son, felt unjustly demoted when Moses gave the position of leadership—on the east side of the camp—to the tribe of Judah (2:3). Two Reubenites, named Dathan and Abiram, especially murmured about this.

Their physical position in camp, moreover, put them right beside the Kohathites, who were nusing a grievance of their own. These murmured that another Levitical family, the family Aaron, was accorded the dignity of the priesthood and were placed to the east of the Tabernacle. One of the Kohathites, a certain Korah, was especially incensed about this.

Unfortunately for all these murmuring individuals, they talked with one another—and compared notes—about Moses and Aaron.

Perhaps neither group, by itself, would have become openly rebellious to the Lord’s appointment, nor did they rebel for a long time.

In due course, however—perhaps when they realized none of them would reach the Promised Land alive (14:28-29)—they began to feed one another’s sense of frustration, finally undertaking a desperate and disastrous rebellion. They all came to a very bad end (16:1-35).

When earth and fire devoured those confederate murmurers, the event simply revealed, for all to see, their actual spiritual state. As each disgruntled element fed on the other, they were both finally consumed. This is what murmurers do.

© 2011, admin. All rights reserved.

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

“Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3).

A chosen man, a great wonderworker, a type of the Lord Jesus Christ in his miracles, a victor in Egypt, a victor in the wilderness, the leader of a people – how could he not be proud? But if he had become proud, Moses would not have been all that he was.

They become proud who think that they do their own works and not God’s in this world, and who think that they work by their own power and not by God’s power. But the great Moses knew that he was the doer of God’s works, and that the power with which He did them was God’s power and not his. That is why he did not become proud because of the awesome miracles he performed, or the great victories he obtained, or the wise laws that he gave to the people.

“The Lord is my strength and my song” (Exodus 15:2),

said Moses. Of the entire assembly of the Israelites in the wilderness, no one felt his own particular weakness as much as he, the greatest one of that assembly. In every task, in every place and in every moment, he expected help only from God. “What shall I do?” he cried to God, and he ceaselessly listened for God’s reply and sought God’s power.

“Meek above all men on earth.”

For all the others considered themselves as being something, trusted themselves as being something, but he – nothing. He was completely absorbed in God, completely humbled before God. If the people needed to be fed and given drink, he turned to God; if it was necessary to do battle with his enemies, he raised his hands to heaven; if it was necessary to calm an uprising among the people, he cried to God. The meek, the all-meek Moses! And God rewarded his faithful servant with great glory and made him worthy to appear on Mount Tabor with Elias alongside the Lord Savior.

O Lord, the God of the meek, the Good Shepherd, make us also meek like Moses and the apostles. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.

© 2011, admin. All rights reserved.

The Lord reveals his glory in the presence of chosen witnesses. His body is like that of the rest of mankind, but he makes it shine with such splendor that his face becomes like the sun in glory, and his garments as white as snow.

The great reason for this transfiguration was to remove the scandal of the cross from the hearts of his disciples, and to prevent the humiliation of his voluntary suffering from disturbing the faith of those who had witnessed the surpassing glory that lay concealed.

With no less forethought he was also providing a firm foundation for the hope of holy Church. The whole body of Christ was to understand the kind of transformation that it would receive as his gift. the members of that body were to look forward to a share in that glory which first blazed out in Christ their head.

The Lord had himself spoken of this when he foretold the splendor of his coming: Then the just will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Saint Paul the apostle bore witness to this same truth when he said:

I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not to be compared to the future glory that is to be revealed in us.

In another place he says:

You are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

This marvel of the transfiguration contains another lesson for the apostles, to strengthen them and lead them into the fullness of knowledge. Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets, appeared with the Lord in conversation with him. This was in order to fulfil exactly, through the presence of these five men, the text which says: Before two or three witnesses every word is ratified. What word could be more firmly established, more securely based, than the word which is proclaimed by the trumpets of both old and new testaments, sounding in harmony, and by the utterances of ancient prophecy and the teaching of the Gospel, in full agreement with each other?

The writings of the two testaments support each other. The radiance of the transfiguration reveals clearly and unmistakably the one who had been promised by signs foretelling him under the veils of mystery. As Saint John says:

The law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

In him the promise made through the shadows of prophecy stands revealed, along with the full meaning of the precepts of the law. He is the one who teaches the truth of the prophecy through his presence, and makes obedience to the commandments possible through grace.

In the preaching of the holy Gospel all should receive a strengthening of their faith. No one should be ashamed of the cross of Christ, through which the world has been redeemed.

No one should fear to suffer for the sake of justice; no one should lose confidence in the reward that has been promised. The way to rest is through toil, the way to life is through death. Christ has taken on himself the whole weakness of our lowly human nature. If then we are steadfast in our faith in him and in our love for him, we win the victory that he has won, we receive what he has promised.

When it comes to obeying the commandments or enduring adversity, the words uttered by the Father should always echo in our ears:

This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him.

Source

© 2010, Fr. John A. Peck. All rights reserved.

Senior Editor of Touchstone Magazine, and archpriest of All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago, IL, Fr. Patrick is, perhaps, the most erudite writer in the Orthodox Church in North America today. This article, one of his Pastoral Ponderings, was published by Orthodoxtoday.org.

Two parallel scenes in the Pentateuch indicate the spiritual growth of Aaron over the years of Israel’s desert wandering. Standing in opposition to one another in the general structure of the Torah, each scene also contains further elements of internal contrast.

The earlier story is preserved in Exodus 32, which describes the incident of the golden calf. Aaron, in that episode, appears as a craven and double-minded hireling, and no shepherd. At the people’s first idolatrous impulse, in fact, he accedes to their wishes, telling them to hand over their jewelry, which he then uses to construct a molded calf.

Although very involved in the people’s sin, Aaron never admits his association in their guilt. He becomes, rather, a classical example of a sinner rationalizing an infidelity, pretending his is not an act of apostasy, but an example (as the saying goes) of “accepting people where they are.” Aaron does not love them enough to resist them.

Then, taken to task by his brother for this complicity, Aaron shamelessly denies his fault. “You know the people,” he tells Moses, “they are set on evil.” In a line of supreme mockery, the cowardly Aaron tries to minimize his involvement by claiming, “I cast [the gold] into the fire, and this calf came out.” He is portrayed as a truly unsuitable priest.

Within the structure of this story, furthermore, Aaron is dramatically contrasted with Moses: At the very moment he is down in the valley, enabling the infidelity of the Israelites, faithful Moses stands on top of the mountain, praying the Lord to spare His people. The prayer of Moses prevails.

There is an additional irony in this contrast between Moses and Aaron: At the time the restless Israelites in the valley had been plotting their rebellion, Moses had been receiving the Lord’s detailed instructions concerning Aaron’s priesthood (Exodus 28-31). That is to say, even as his priesthood was in the process of formation, Aaron already proved himself unqualified for it. Even as his vestments were being designed, he showed himself unworthy to wear them.

In pointed contrast to this early portrayal of Aaron stands a later scene in Numbers 16. In the latter case we find a much improved Aaron, who has now become a genuine high priest with

“compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to weakness” (Hebrews 5:2).

As the Israelites in the later scene are being punished by plague for their most recent rebellion — thousands of them dying in a single day — Aaron takes up his priestly censor and runs down among them, placing his body between the dead and the living, and

“making atonement for the people.”

The Sacred Text tells us,

“he stood between the dead and the living; so the plague was stopped.”

In this riveting scene, Aaron is not contrasted with Moses. On the contrary, the two brothers are now at one in their concern for the people. When the Lord tells them,

“Get away from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment,”

Moses and Aaron alike fall on their faces in joint intercessory prayer. In the earlier story, Moses had made that prayer alone, while his brother was being complicit in the people’s sin, but now the two brothers are in complete harmony.

The tension of the earlier story is resolved:

“So Aaron returned to Moses at the door of the tabernacle of meeting, for the plague had stopped.”

The internal contrast in this second account is, rather, between Aaron and a Levite named Korah. Forgetting that “no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron (Hebrews 5:4), Korah coveted the priestly office as a position of honor and power, both for himself and his household. So in the rebellion Korah and his family were the first to be punished:

“the ground split apart under them, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods. So they and all those with them went down alive into the pit; the earth closed over them, and they perished from among the assembly.”

If we compare Korah’s sin with the earlier infidelity of Aaron, it appears to be far worse. Whereas Aaron’s had been the failing of a weak and unworthy man, Korah’s is the more terrible offense of malice, pride, and deliberate rebellion.

© 2010, Fr. John A. Peck. All rights reserved.