Stirring Up the Water – sermon on March 19, 2017
Exodus 17:1-7 The whole Israelite community set out from the wilderness around Sinai, traveling from place to place as God commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So they quarreled with Moses, saying, “Give us water to drink.” Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put God to the test?” But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?” Then Moses cried out to God, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
God answered Moses, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested God saying, “Is God among us or not?”
John 4: 5-10 Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
Sermon: Stirring Up the Water by Rev. Doreen Oughton
In 2005, a Romanian convict serving time for murder, tried to sue God for breach of contract. The suit contended “God was supposed to protect me from all evils and instead God gave me to Satan who encouraged me to kill.” In 2007, Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers filed his own lawsuit against God, accusing the Almighty – in a fit of alliteration – of “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues,” and the like. As you might have guessed, these lawsuits were dismissed. Since God doesn’t have a legal address, the presiding judges argued, God can’t be summoned to appear in court.*
In our story this morning from the Book of Exodus, the people who have been led out of slavery in Egypt to travel to the promised land Israel are registering their complaint against God. The terms used here – testing and quarreling – have legal connotations. The travelers have not been on the road all that long, at least compared to how much longer they have to go – 40 years according to scripture. In chapter 19, 2 chapters after this, we are told it has been 3 new moons since they left Egypt, so less than three months at the time of today’s reading. And it is not the first time they have stressed out about their circumstances. Only days into the trip – after God had parted the sea for them, and closed it again on the advancing Egyptian army to protect them – they are thirsty. The first water they come to is too bitter to drink, so God provided a branch that made the water sweet. Then they were hungry, and God provided quails and manna. It seems they have lingered in this place awhile, with the now-sweet water and plenty of food, but God tells them it is time to move on from that place. And so they come to camp at REFidim, a place with no water.
How long it took for the criticism and quarreling to start, I don’t know. Did they arrive and start setting up tents confident that even though water wasn’t apparent, God would provide? Did they go through one meal without drink, then another, then went to bed thirsting, praying that in the morning, water, like the manna, would just miraculously appear? However long they waited, it was too long to hold onto their confidence in God. The crowd is upset, angry, suspicious. They wonder if there is something fishy going on. Moses said he would lead them to freedom, but what if it is just a trick. What if he, and the God he answers to, are the new bosses, same as the old bosses? What if they are just leading them into a helpless situation, leading them to death instead of freedom? They are not just grumbling and complaining and speculating amongst themselves, they are demanding to be heard. They want their complaints answered. Well God didn’t have an address then either, but God was willing to hear and respond.
Moses was willing to wait longer than the others, and pushes back a bit. He asks why they are quarreling with him, why they would put their God to the test. But this relationship between the released captives and their God is new, or different, and God has tested them as well. How do they know that water-sweeting gift wasn’t a one-time thing? How many miracles can they count on? Is God with them still, caring for them, protecting them – even now, even here, even though they have been scared and skeptical? So Moses takes it up with God. He doesn’t beseech God on behalf of the people the way that Abraham took up the case for Sodom and Gomorrah. Moses just cries out his own frustration – “What am I to do? They are ready to stone me!” God basically says, “I will answer them – get your witnesses and go to Horeb. I’ll be there, before you. They want water, and I will give them water.” Sort of a “don’t worry – I’ve got this” assurance to Moses. Contrary to the words of the psalmist, there is no evidence here that God was impatient with the complaints. There was no name-calling, no labeling the people as stiff-necked. There was simply provision, like there was with the water-sweetening branch, with the quails and with the manna.
Deacon Quentin shared the beginning of the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, where he asks her to provide him with water. She responds to his request with a question of her own – how is it he break from the well-established boundaries of their time to make such a request of her. His response – “if you knew who I was, you would break these boundaries as well to ask me for living water.” So the message I get from all of this is that it alright to bring our cases to God. It is fine to wonder if God is with us, to cry out for what we need. Our crying out might be the thing that spurs God to provide for us or for others.
I think there is also a message here about how hard it is to enter into the wilderness, the unknown, even when we are promised that it will be better than what we’ve had. Because that promised land can be a long way off – 40 years away, maybe. Change is hard, and it doesn’t always bring out the best in us. Fears can take over, insecurities arise. God heard the cry of God’s people enslaved in Egypt and responded to their cry by having Moses lead them out. God heard the cry of God’s people enslaved to the ways of this world – the ways of scarcity and competition, the ways of manipulation and dominance, the ways of selfishness and shortsightedness – and responded by sending Jesus to lead us out. I don’t know how long this journey will be – much longer than the 40 years for sure, but all along the way God is with us. All along the way there are miracles of provision, of sustenance – physical, emotional, and spiritual. We don’t have to follow quietly, like lambs. We don’t have to quash our doubts and fears. But to get to that promised land, we do have to follow. Isn’t it interesting that this place in the story of Exodus is named not for the miracle, but for the crying out. It is not called “the place where God provided,” or “the source of abundant water,” but “the place of trial and testing and strife.” There is room, even a certain reverence for such things in our faith.
Christ’s church had found a nice place to settle in for many years, those years when you all were growing up, or raising your families here. Seemed like everyone went to church. The pews were packed, committees were staffed, the coffers overflowed. But for some reason, God has asked us to move on, to enter into the wilderness – a wilderness where there are more empty pews than filled ones, where we rely on cell phone companies to keep us afloat financially, where we’ve had “committees” of one or two people serving for years. Church-goers are a minority in our society, though people still believe in God, still thirst for meaning and purpose. Maybe as we are being led into the wilderness, we wonder why. Do these changes mean we will die? We might want to make a case to God – how could you let this happen to your Church – Christ’s body in this world? You can do that. You can ask those questions. You go to God with your fears. God will meet you there. What response might God have to us today as leaders, as followers, as communities? What kind of living water might be waiting to gush forth from the rocks of our resistance?
Did everyone take a rock? (Deacons pass if not). This rock represents your worries about changes in the church – the church universal or this church. Is it the right size rock for you? If you’d like to select another, raise your hand and the deacon will bring the basket. I invite you to ponder the specifics of your worry. What makes it hard to anticipate a new thing instead of longing for what used to be? What do you fear losing? A sense of belonging, a feeling of comfort? Does moving on mean a devaluing of what was? I invite you to write your fear, or your complaint on the rock. Or write your request of God. When you are ready, bring it down and place it in this bowl….
Let us pray: Mighty God, just as you called your people forward into the promised land of Israel, so you call us forward into your kindom. It means travelling through the wilderness, confronting our attempts at self-reliance, our attempts to live without you. We try to store things up for the future, as our ancestors tried to store up manna. But you ask us to let go, to travel this journey lightly, trusting in you to provide. It is hard, but today we offer you our fears, our worries, our resistances. Let your living water wash them away. (Pour) Let it cleanse, heal and restore us. Your living water is powerful, like the river that carves a grand canyon in the rock. It is more powerful than our resistance, more powerful than our fear. Go before us into this wilderness, meet us in the place of our testing and bring forth life abundant. In the holy name of Christ, we pray that it may be so. Amen.
*Noted in essay by Debie Thomas in web blog Journey with Jesus, 9/28/14
