From the Sunday Note, with additional thoughts:
Early in the morning Moses went up Mount Sinai
as the LORD had commanded him,
taking along the two stone tablets.
Having come down in a cloud, the LORD stood with Moses there
and proclaimed his name, “LORD.”
Thus the LORD passed before him and cried out,
“The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God,
slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.”
Moses at once bowed down to the ground in worship.
Then he said, “If I find favor with you, O Lord,
do come along in our company.
This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins,
and receive us as your own.”
Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9, our first reading
Moses is an “intercessor.” He stands between the LORD God and those “stiff-necked people” the Israelites, and he intercedes for them. Moses is quite clear-eyed about the people he is trying to lead to the Promised Land: they are full of “wickedness and sins.” They are exasperatingly selfish, impatient, emotional, and prone to reject good advice. They combine grandiose ideas about their own righteousness and power with loud whining about every difficulty they face. “Prayer of complaint”—that they know how to do! Time after time Moses steps in between their gross sinfulness and the just judgment coming toward them from God. He intercedes for them.
Intercession is a too-often-neglected part of our Christian prayer life. Yes, praying for people caught up in war or famine or earthquakes is intercession and necessary to do. But for most of us most of the time, this is intercession at a distance, far away from our daily lives.
How about intercession for our near neighbor with the fixation on some political topic, or for the one who neglects his spouse, or for an aunt who regards religion as a waste of time or a fraud, or for someone whose moroseness or bluntness increases an isolation that leaves them baffled? We should be interceding for pressured co-workers, or the people we commute with, or see shopping, or sit behind in a theatre or ball game. In other words, intercession closer to what Moses does—prayer for people around him who seem oblivious, and perhaps impervious, to his good will, so far as we can see.
“So far as we can see” however, is not very far at all. We don’t know them in depth. Intercession for people around us may provide an opportunity for a kind word or a helpful gesture, and these may serve as a gentle calling to a turning point in their spiritual development. Or our intercession may benefit them in ways hidden from us for now, but which, in fact, will contribute to their salvation.
As John says in today’s Gospel, “…God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved by him.” (John 3:17) With Christ we do not want anyone to be condemned, but all to come to repentance.
We can do good by intercession. The people we walk among need it. Do not neglect it any day.
For further reflection:
We can’t earn our way to everlasting life, to heaven. However, we can be open (or closed) to God’s promptings to pray for others. Rumor is, He wants us all rowing together to get a large boatful of his children moving toward that Life. Therefore: ask for His forgiveness, be open to His direction to pray for others, however unlikely a candidate for heaven they may appear to be. (WE are not the judges of that.)