Old Testament: Exodus 17:1-7
Is the Lord among us or not?
It’s a timeless and familiar question, and there’s no way to know how often – in one form or another – it’s asked today. It’s certainly asked when natural disasters strike, causing incalculable damage – disasters with names and descriptions impossible to forget: Camille; Katrina; the Joplin tornado; Texas flooding; California wildfires. It’s certainly asked when violent and inhumane acts end lives and hurl families into emotional turmoil. It’s certainly asked when unexpected diagnoses demolish the foundation of life, challenge physical and mental health, and move patients and loved ones onto uncertain and shifting sands. It’s certainly asked at the time of sudden job loss, or addiction, or unexpected homelessness, each removing the light of all that’s known and understood and replacing it with the expansive, dark void of the unknown.
In these and countless other scenarios, that question – many questions, in fact – pour forth in a torrent of fear and emotion. Where was God in all of this? How could God let this happen? Why wasn’t God here? Is the Lord among us or not?
It’s important to recognize that in our moments of darkest fear, despair, or uncertainty, we share a kinship with the Exodus people and with those who have journeyed throughout all time. We know doubt as our ancestors knew doubt. We know disappointment as our ancestors knew disappointment. Their question – Is the Lord among us or not? – reflected what they felt they’d lacked or lost in that time. This question reflects for many in our time what they feel they may lack or have lost. Our concern – to put it bluntly, our grumbling – is “the continuing human complaint.”[1]
Last week we reflected on the journey of Abram and his family. This week we’re presented with the journey of an entire nation of people, twelve tribes fleeing after generations of enslavement under a succession of pharaohs who are now taking their first steps into the unknown. The readings from these narratives share the common aspect of being two of many stories of people caught in the space between promise and fulfillment. Both Abram and Moses were tasked by God with undertaking these journeys and given hope in the assurance of what would be received at the end (descendants too numerous to count, a land that would be their permanent home). Now, however, they’re between the beginning and the end – the former left far behind, the latter still somewhere ahead.
For Moses, the location of today’s scene is very familiar. The encampment at Rephidim is the last stop before the people reach Mount Horeb (also known as Sinai). For those familiar with the story of Moses, you’ll recall it was on Horeb that Moses first encountered God in a burning bush. God’s power was first shown to Moses on that sacred spot, and now it’s on that same sacred place that God’s power will once again be shown to all the people.
The place that marked the starting point of Moses’ journey with God is now the place marking the end of this phase of his journey. It reminds me of the words of the English poet T. S. Eliot in the second of his Four Quartets, “East Coker”:
In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation…[2]
For Moses, the point of the beginning of his journey – this part of his journey – is also the point of its end. As part of that journey the people he leads have escaped from death to life and the hope of future generations to come.
But in this moment of their escape, at this point between promise and fulfillment, the people are thirsty. They’re grumbling. They blame Moses. And they want to know whether the God in whom they’ve put their faith, the God who had chosen Moses as their liberator, was still making the journey with them. Carol Meyers writes that their question goes to the heart of concern about the divine presence – trying to find the balance between “the notion that God is everywhere, or at least wherever humans call out to God” and feeling that God was “more accessible in specific places … they constructed for the divine presence.”[3]
They’d witnessed the plagues brought by God upon Egypt. They’d witnessed the providence of God in being saved on the evening of the Passover. They’d witnessed the power of God in the dividing of the waters accomplished by Moses’ staff as they fled from pharaoh’s chariots. Despite that, now that they’re thirsty, they wonder where God has gone. Despite all they’d witnessed during their flight to freedom, they now seem to have fallen back on that famous question, “What have you done for me lately?”
So they quarrel. They complain. They put Moses to the test. In turn Moses complains to God. God, what am I supposed to do? And how does God respond? Not with judgment, anger, or frustration, but with love … and graciousness … and abundance. God has Moses raise the same staff with which he caused the dividing of the sea – preserving their life – and strike a rock to bring forth water in the wilderness – again preserving their life. The staff the people recognized as the one carried by the man who led them to the water and then drove the water back is now the staff that brings the water to them.
The people of the Exodus didn’t know where God was leading them, and in this moment, they weren’t all that happy with where God had brought them. They weren’t forced to follow Moses; they chose to follow. Now they questioned God, not recognizing that “God’s interests do not always coincide with those of the people.”[4]
Friends, we are now the Exodus people, caught in our own space between promise and fulfillment. Many of us have seen examples of God’s graciousness at one time or another, in one way or another. In our lives some of us may have been brought to the edge of a deep and dangerous sea, only to have God split it apart so that we might pass safely through. Some of us may have been freed from our own personal forms of bondage, shackled by difficult circumstances, harmful substances, or unhealthy relationships, only to find those chains now broken and cast off.
To a person, however, all of us are on a journey, headed for a destination promised by God that we can’t yet see. All of us, like our faith ancestors thousands of years ago in that desolate and dry wilderness, may want to complain. Maybe we do complain. Maybe we even test God. That’s okay. God can take it, and as we see in this passage from Exodus, God will respond to our complaints and our tests not with judgment, but with providence. God will respond not with abandonment, but with embrace. God will respond not with anger, but with love.
When we are confronted by someone showering us with a litany of complaints, trying to test us beyond any limit we think we can endure, or displaying hostility beyond any we think we deserve, we should remember the example of God and do likewise. Offer providence and plenty. Offer embrace and love. Offer a glimpse of God. Offer an invitation for them to join our Exodus journey – an invitation to come and see the fulfillment that awaits us. And when they ask, “Is God among us or not?” give them the answer that’s been proven time and again since the beginning of humanity’s journey.
Yes.
[1] Terence E. Fretheim. Exodus (Kindle edition), p. 187.
[2] T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets 2: East Coker. Retrieved from “Best Poems Encyclopedia” website, https://www.best-poems.net/t_s_eliot/four_quartets_2_east_coker.html.
[3] Carol Meyers. Exodus (Kindle edition), p. 134.
[4] Fretheim, p. 188.