Sermon: Is God with Us?
A Sermon Delivered by The Rev. John D. Painter at Centenary United Methodist Church Metuchen, New Jersey September 28, 2008
Text: Exodus 17:1-7
From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” But the people thirsted there for wa-ter; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The LORD said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Is-raelites quarreled and tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD among us or not?”
?Exodus 17:1-7, NRSV
An old story is resurfacing in recent years about a young woman who entered a convent to prepare herself for a life of celibacy and service. The institution was one of a very strict order. Besides other regulations, the convent enforced a requirement of silence—not a word dare be uttered. The Mother Superior explained to the new recruit that this rule of silence was rigid. However, once every five years just two words could be spoken.
At the end of the first five years of service, the young novitiate was called in and in-structed that she had earned the privilege of expressing two words. What would they be? Her an-swer? “Food rotten!”
Five years later she was again afforded the rare privilege of speaking two more words. What would she say this time? “Beds hard!”
The third time she was summoned, after five more years, the woman proclaimed in exas-peration, “I quit!”
“Well, good riddance,” responded Mother Superior. “All you have ever done for the past fifteen years is complain!”
Reflecting on this morning’s reading from Exodus, Tracey Allred has said: “There are many parts of the Bible that I wish I could have experienced firsthand. I would love to meet in-dividuals like Abraham, Esther, Samuel, Rahab, David, and so many others. I would love to be in the physical presence of Jesus, and witness the great miracles found in scripture. One part of the great story, however, of which I would not have desired to be part is the Exodus. It is not only that a lifetime of wandering in the desert would have been horrific, but also mostly that I cannot tolerate whining. Perhaps it is because I am the mother of two small children. Perhaps it is be-cause I have spent my entire life in the church. Whatever the reason, I find myself completely frustrated with the entire community of Israel throughout much of the book of Exodus. I wonder if God felt that same way.
Pastor Allred concludes, “The story of the exodus is really a story of God’s mercy.” The people of Israel are still wandering in the wilderness, led by Moses and Aaron. You may remem-ber that in last week’s story, the hungry community called out for food, and God fed them day-by-day with the quails and the bread (manna) from heaven. Today’s reading begins with the He-brew people setting up their camp at Rephidim and discovering that there is no water available to them. Their reaction to this dilemma is familiar—they lash out at Moses…and, in effect, at God. How can they be sure that God is still with them? In spite of their deliverance from Egypt, their reliance on God’s sustaining presence falters once again. Our of their extreme frustration and fear, the people even accuse Moses of intending all along to bring them out into the Sinai wilder-ness and kill them.
Exasperated and exhausted with the complaints of this stiff-necked people, Moses throws up his hands in the air and cries out to God for guidance: “What shall I do with this people?”
But Moses and the Hebrew people are not left alone in this wilderness of frustration and anger. God responds with grace, and the journey resumes, as God instructs Moses to “Go on ahead of the people…I will be standing there in front of you.” Moses strikes the rock as God di-rects, and water rushes forth. The springs that are created there are named Massah and Meri-bah—Hebrew words that mean “temptation,” “contention” or “strife” —and forever recall the Israelites’ quarrelling and testing of God. At first glance, these names may seem like a reminder to not raise complaints to God. But as I suggested to you in my Message last Sunday, we are able to come before God with our complaints and our deepest concerns, because of our deep and abiding trust in and friendship with God. It is more likely that these names—Massah and Meri-bah, “quarrelling” and “contention”—are more a judgment of the Israelite’s lack of trust in God’s willingness to hear them or God’s ability to act on their behalf.
Yet, with the water that freely flows from the rocky slope of Mount Horeb, God’s faithful presence and abundant provision sustains the people once again. God’s faithfulness prevails over the Israelite’s lack of trust and faith. Nonetheless, at the very end of this story, the people raise their haunting question: “Is God among us or not?”
Some feel that to even entertain such a question is “unbelievable.” But others believe that the question remains critical at some time or another for every one of us who journey forth in faith. This week on the Internet I found a powerful reflection by Diana Butler Bass on her ex-perience in Worship last Sunday at an Episcopalian Church. As she listened to the readings from Exodus, and the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard from Matthew last Sunday, “I literally gasped as the stories told of a God who provides for God’s people in the most trying of circum-stances, that God gave food enough for the day.”
“As I glanced around the suburban parish, I saw plenty of worry on peoples’ faces. On the surface of it, these are comfortable churchgoers. But, after the last several months of eco-nomic battering, I knew that there was anxiety enough to go around. Soaring gas prices have cut into our paychecks, falling home prices cause our concern about equity nest-eggs to pay college tuition bills, and never-ceasing cutbacks in insurance premiums are surely at the basis of our prayers for good health. Now, the stock market collapse threatened whatever money these nice Episcopalians have saved for retirement. I know how easy it can be to poke fun at suburbanites. But these people are those who my grandmother always called, ‘the good Christian folks,’ those who have played by the rules and lived with integrity. Now they are watching their security and future disappear. I leaned over to my husband and said, ‘I am really glad I’m not preaching to-day.’”
Well, I am preaching today, and to say that these are difficult days is to state the obvious. But in the midst of the apprehension and uncertainty all of us are feeling, may I remind you of these great passages from Scripture reminding us of God’s provisions of quail, manna and water in the wilderness journey; of God’s generosity of the daily wage in the Parable of the Vineyard. These stories also tell us that God does not just provide for us as individuals; God provides for the whole community. All of Israel was blessed with food and water; all the laborers were paid—not only those who deserved it or worked particularly hard. We are in this together in suffering and reward. And we are not alone. We are a community who welcomes God’s provisions. We care for one another, we work side-by-side with one another, and we share together in the bounty of God’s grace.
Some of you may have noticed that there is a presidential election coming up in a little over a month. My words this morning are by no means an attempt to suggest for whom we should vote on November 4. But I am delivering a “political” message in this sense: We are God’s polis, a holy people, a holy city—one governed not by the stock market, presidential cam-paigns, or housing prices, but by grace, generosity, and goodness. This alternate community—this community of grace—is ultimately strengthened by worldly hardship because it reminds us that our ultimate spiritual investment is in a realm not seen. Our community is one marked by “holy insecurity”—to use Diana Butler Bass’ term—the sure and certain knowledge that our wis-dom is not an economic strategy; our power is not financial; and our trust is not in princes or presidents.
It might be easy for me as a preacher or for any one of you to be hard on the Israelites when we hear these desert stories of their complaining and whining. But they were desperate, after all; they and their flocks were facing hunger and thirst. From their vantage point there was a great deal of uncertainty in their future. They were putting their faith in something—or Some-one—they could not see; and their only tangible representative of this unseen Divine Being, Moses, was not someone they were sure they could trust. Their journey was teaching them that God would provide, but the hunger and thirst of their children was probably more than they could bear. They must have often felt alone, and sincerely wondered if the LORD was with them or not.
There may be a couple of helpful lessons we can learn from these complaining Israelites. First, it is human to feel the need to complain, murmur and grumble. Our basic physical and emotional needs drive us, and we are unsatisfied when these are not met. But our propensity to whine and complain does not eliminate or surpass God’s propensity to provide. God doesn’t need our grumbling in order to provide for our needs. All God desires is our love and our trust…and God does the rest.
Second, Jesus Christ is with us in a way that the Israelites could not fathom. Though we may feel that God expected and deserved the faith and trust of the people of Israel, it was not un-til the Incarnation of Jesus the Christ that humanity really experienced “God with us.” God be-came like us to know us better, and so that we would not doubt the presence of the LORD as the Israelites had. Pastor Tracey Allred declares, “I still want to shake the Israelites throughout much of Exodus or at least put them in time out. Perhaps my frustration with them is the part of myself I see in the story. May the abiding love of Jesus Christ move us from our places of selfishness and fear to an awareness of God’s great mercy and provision.”
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PRAYER
Eternal God, you are the God of our parents and our children. You are the God of our past and our future, of our beginning and our ending. Today we have gathered in the present to worship you. We bring to you our concerns and our burdens. Remind us of your faithfulness, just as you reminded the Israelites on their journey. Remind us of all the times when you heard us and answered us. We thank you for being a God that participates in our lives, exemplified great-est in the gift of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
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