“[Moses said,] ‘I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me.’ So the LORD said to Moses, ‘Gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel…'”
They wept for food, the wandering people did.
Their palates had grown weary of the miracle,
which sounds ungrateful. I suppose it is.
But who does not grow weary of life’s wonders?
Then Moses was displeased, and not with weeping
people, but with God, whom he accused of treating him
so badly. “Why do you lay the burden of these people
upon me?” For Moses, too, had wearied of the wonder.
And God – the singular, the Trinity not yet
imagined, whose powers had rained flies
and hail and pestilence and death upon
the wailing people of the Pharaoh – said,
“You shall not lead alone. You never have.
Did you forget? We’ve been a team, we have,
with you and me and Miriam and Aaron.
The team will grow by seventy today.
“They say too many cooks will spoil broth.
Sometimes, you know, that’s true, if they
neglect to speak and listen to each other. Now
my Spirit shall be given to these elders.
“They shall prophesy, including those
who missed the memo in the camp.
And you, my harried, whiny Moses, shall
at last be glad for helpers on the road.
“As for these weeping people, now:
Let them eat quail.”
A poem/prayer based on Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29, the Revised Common Lectionary Alternative First Reading for Year B, Proper 21 (26).
The image is Moses elects the Council of Seventy Elders by Jacob de Wit (1737) – AQGtI5P6nkpYyw at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21988106.
ordainedgeek 
Wonderful … if I was preaching but Covid has me out of circulation.
I’m so sorry! Rest and get better. May God speed your recovery!
Thanks so much. It is my first bout with it and it is tough.
That was my experience a couple years ago. It took a lot out of me and it took much longer than I liked to feel like I was myself again.
Send a few prayers my way … I have to write next week’s sermon today … and it is on Job!! Seriously? Today is because I am doing a month for the Indonesian congregation while Pastor Sandra takes an older lady back to Indonesia where she wants to live out her days and my sermon needs to be translated. Fortunately it will be short because of that and because they like to sing all the verses of six hymns!! … but the lay council decided last December that this year would be preaching every week on the Hebrew Bible lesson. so think of me on my dung heap … could not plan this one.
I’m confident of God’s blessings with you and within you, Maren. May you delight in six verses of Indonesian music! It’s one of the treats of worshiping with Micronesian or Samoan churches here. I don’t know the language, but the music vibrates with devotion.
Yeas, it does! I spent ten years serving the morning Anglo church and often subbing in the afternoon so I know them well, though, immigration being what it is, my friends disappear so often.