Numbers 11:4-6,10-16,24-29; Psalm 19:7-14; James 3:13-4:3,7-8a; Mark 9:30-37
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
There are two kinds of energy in this world—balancing energy and reinforcing energy. Reinforcing energy is energy that supports vision. It is not afraid to try new things and pours energy into the unknown with curiosity. Balancing energy is the kind of energy that is always seeking to return to status quo. You’ve heard the old adage, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” This is the mantra for those who seek balancing energy. For balancing energy, change is not simply bad, it is a threat that needs to be resisted, challenged, and defended against.
Moses and Jesus hold reinforcing energy. They are casting vision and seeking those who will help to energize the world that it might be renewed, transformed. That their vision, given to them by God, might be realized.
Casting vision can be challenging. What you can clearly imagine, others may not see—for whatever reason. In the case of Moses, it seems to be hunger, disgruntlement, and anxiety that keeps the people from embracing Moses’ reinforcing energy and vision. They complain over and over again—even to the point of hearkening back to their captivity in Egypt and reframing their life as slaves. In Egypt, we had meat, fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, garlic—and now there is nothing but this stinkin’ manna from Heaven all the time! How Moses and God didn’t wipe out the Israelites in the desert is beyond knowing. But they don’t. Instead, they recast the vision. They gather seventy of the elders of Israel and they prophesy. The elders only prophesy this one time, but it is enough. It is an opportunity for God and Moses to share the vision with the elders and invite them to be a part of the reinforcing energy required for this great movement of the people to be realized.
Jesus also possesses reinforcing energy. His whole life is built around reinforcing energy, which is what the disciples and those who follow him are probably most attracted too. But it proves challenging for his followers to understand or accept his vision. Instead of getting frustrated with the disciples or giving up on them, Jesus finds different ways to explain his vision of the kingdom. He places a little child in the midst of them and talks about stumbling blocks and peace. Even when the disciples get distracted and ask random questions or protest too much, he does not cast them away. He continues to invite them in.
This is what reinforcing energy looks like. It is not resistant, but invitational. It is open, curious, and creative. It may despair in the moment, but it can recover itself and continue fueling the vision. The greatest risk that reinforcing energy faces is not failure—reinforcers recognize that failure is always a possibility, they even invite failure as an opportunity to learn and grow—it is resistance. Because resistance is balancing energy that can keep vision from being realized. Balancing energy is not curious, creative, nor courageous. It always desires status quo and does whatever it can to maintain that status quo even if it means disrupting and harming the system.
A few “rabble” among the Israelites have a “strong craving” for meat. They complain that even though they were enslaved life was so much better back in Egypt where they had onions, leeks, cucumber, and fish to eat. This is balancing energy at its finest. It rewrites history forgetting their abuses, the death of their sons who were tossed into the Nile, beatings, and all the negatives, the injustices, even the possibilities for the future. It gets stuck in its own fear and desires to return to a rosy-colored past that rarely reflects the truth of that reality. Balancing energy is not simply about wishing to recover a fairy tale past, it is also about control, exclusion, and judgment.
Both Joshua and John get upset that someone else is acting with divine power without “permission.” Of the seventy called by Moses and God to prophesy, two remain in the camp where the spirit rests upon them. When Joshua, the assistant to Moses and one of those chosen, hears about this egregious action, he petitions Moses to stop them. He does not want to include or empower anyone who isn’t playing by the rules—he is more concerned with controlling people than allowing the spirit.
John has the same concerns. He tells Jesus that someone was casting out demons in Jesus’ name, so they tried to stop him. John, like Joshua of old, resists anything outside of the norm. He may be a follower of Jesus, but he has yet to understand the inclusive and empowering nature of Christ. For him, doing this new thing is really a repackaging of the old ways—the power dynamics won’t be displaced, merely disrupted. The ones on the outside will now be on the inside and those on the inside must realize the repercussions of their past behaviors—they must be disempowered.
This is the true danger of balancing energy. It is not simply a desire to return to the way life once was or hold on to an ideal even if it no longer reflects the realities of the present. It’s not even the resistance it exercises to new possibilities, hopes, or dreams. The true danger of balancing energy is that it corrupts growth and harms relationships. It seeks to marginalize others and refuses to be inclusive, much less empower other people. It wants only to control which is not the way of God or creation.
Balancing energy seems safer because it holds up that which we already know, a perception of what we have already experienced. Reinforcing energy is scary. It can roar in like rushing waters, threatening us and exposing our vulnerabilities. It Is not tame. Neither is God.
The people of Israel have escaped Egypt, but now they are lost, wandering in a wilderness under threat of starvation, and experiencing a sense of instability and chaos. The little reinforcing energy that motivated them to follow Moses and flee Pharoah has been used up. Their tanks are empty and there are those who would fill them only with balancing energy. Five thousand years later, life is no different. Whenever we become disappointed and life no longer meets our expectations, we are quick to recover a balancing energy that yearns for a fairy tale version of our past.
And yet, the truly great leaders always respond to this balancing energy with invitation and vision. They do not succumb to the “rabble” nor do they judge them. They teach, they encourage, and they empower. In this way, great things do happen. Moses leads the people out of Egypt to the Promised Land and Joshua will establish that land as their home. Jesus inspires his disciples to go out, making disciples of all peoples. John will respond to that call and travel to faraway lands and live into old age to make that vision a reality. Joshua and John may have been balancing energy in their moments, but they will become reinforcing energy and in so doing they discover that, in broadening the vision, they help to build up a kingdom of God that is built on invitation, inclusion, and empowerment of all people. They are no longer a victim of their balancing energy, but a joy and vitality in their reinforcing energy.
Amen