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. 2The 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?" 3But the people thirsted
there for water; 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?" 4So Moses cried out to the Lord, "What shall I do
with this people? They are almost ready to stone me." 5The 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. 6I 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. 7He
called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and
tested the Lord, saying, "Is the Lord among us or not?"
(Note: We saw this reading
earlier this year on the 3rd Sunday in Lent, March 23.)
As I was pondering this
reading, I was enjoying a rare afternoon to sit in my backyard garden. It’s the
first day off I’ve had in about a month. I decided while I was sitting here to
water all the different plants in the hillside garden around the seating area where
I like to work. I made sure to fill up the birdbaths while I was at it. Then I
just turned on the hose and let it start running down the hill to water all the
hostas, ferns, and other plants that dwell under the canopy of trees in our
backyard. After about 10 minutes, suddenly there was great rejoicing in the
Land of Birds, and dozens of sparrows, finches, chickadees, and wrens began to
wing their way over to wash themselves in the birdbath and in the puddles of
water on the ground. One of them even had the temerity to land on the empty
birdfeeder, give me the stink eye, rap the base of the empty feeder sharply
with its beak a couple times, and then flutter off in a huff, as if to say,
“Get up off your duff, and get me some food, woman.” Never mind that I had
generously turned on the hose, which is what had drawn these birds here in the
first place. Never mind that I had graciously filled the bird bath and emptied
of all the leaves and other junk that accumulated in it. This bird was not satisfied, and he was letting
me know it. Meanwhile, a gang of sparrows promptly and joyously splashed out
all the water I had placed in the birdbath, and one of them flew to a branch
over my head and started to shrilly berate me to refill it.
Are these birds never
satisfied?
And the answer is, NO. Once
I started providing them with birdseed and water, they expect me to keep doing
it. The nerve! That’s also the way it is
when you help people, sometimes, too.
There are some people in the world who, when you get into a relationship
with them, it ends up being all about them. No matter how much you give them,
they always want more. No matter how much you give them, they’re never
grateful. They never seem to stop and think, ”Okay, that’s enough.” Some of
those people we call ”babies,” and having one of those things basically means a
lifetime of servitude to them (I’m kidding). They’re perfectly satisfied when
all their needs are met—the problem is, that their needs don’t STAY met. Anyone
was ever changed a filthy diaper, smiled into the angelic face of a
six-month-old who has fought you every step of the way while you clean her up,
and then watched her bat her eyelashes and coo blissfully and immediately fill
that diaper right back up with a toxic substance probably banned by the Geneva
Convention knows what I’m talking about.
The Israelites are the same
way. Over and over again, they long for their days of slavery in Egypt over freedom in the
wilderness. The more the going gets tough out in the Sinai peninsula, the more
rosy their memories of their time in Egypt becomes. “Meh! The work wasn’t that
hard! At least we had cucumbers!”
Forgotten is the groaning that
they raised up to God—groaning so loud that God could not ignore it. Nope, just
like infants, the minute their tummies grumble or their mouths get dry, they
turn and bite the hand that feeds them. Last week we saw God provide them with
meat and bread, manna and quail that fell from the sky, and all the Israelites
had to do was go and pick it up. Today, it’s water—or, specifically, the
perceived lack of it. Gripe, gripe, gripe. Complain, complain, complain. I think
that’s one of the reasons why, although it did them very little credit, the
ancient Israelites liked to tell this story on themselves-- one of the side
purposes was probably to explain just why they complained so much, as all of us
do.
Sometimes, we focus on what
we don’t have instead of what we do. Here are the Israelites, freed from
slavery in Egypt, moaning about how their every need isn’t being taken care of
while they are traveling back to their homeland. We are an unhappy,
discontented, grumbling people at times. Our reading from Exodus today is one
of an Old Testament genre called “murmuring stories.” These are stories in
which the people “murmur”—in our text, it is rendered as “quarreled,” but it
seems that misses the flavor. “Murmuring against” someone is so much more
suggestive of that tendency we all have to mutter just audibly enough to be
heard, that passive-aggressive tactic that allows one to later deny that she
has said anything at all. Murmuring of this type is filled with negativity, ingratitude,
a simmering resentment. Freedom includes responsibility to look at our
situation with clear eyes. And the first step is to be glad that we are free.
In Exodus 16, we hear the
first mention of the conveniently named “Wilderness of Sin,” which is also
called the “wilderness of Zin” in Numbers, as well as “Wilderness of Sinai.”
Wilderness of Sinai has an entirely different feeling, however—in English, a
“wilderness of sin” elicits a metaphorical response: who hasn’t felt lost in a
wilderness of sin? The concept of wilderness also creates images of chaos,
bleakness, desolation. Wilderness is where Jesus goes to be tempted and to
encounter Satan, but it’s also a place where one can be alone and encounter
God, as when Moses discovered the burning bush. The “Wilderness of Sin” will
make three appearances named as such in the Torah: In Exodus 16, Exodus 17, and
Numbers 33. We also see Moses using his staff, as he did when he turned the
Nile into blood, and when he turned that staff itself into a snake before the
Pharaoh as signs of God’s power and might.
A parallel version of this
story appears in Numbers 20:1-13, but has an entirely different spin, since it
appears as though Moses and Aaron make it sound as if they themselves, are the
ones who make the water come out of the rock, rather than the “holiness of
God.” In the Numbers version, afterwards, God then punishes Moses and Aaron by
declaring that they will not get to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land.
Meribah means “strife,” or
“contention,” and Massah means “test.” Moses names this place Massah and
Meribah because the people are demonstrating a lack of trust in God—and if you
know scripture, this certainly won’t be the last time, either.
There is a lesson here for
all of us. The people have been in the wilderness for about two months, and
they are wondering where that “land flowing with milk and honey” is. But more
immediately, they need water, and supplies are getting low. Even though they
have come so far, the people question the commitment of God to provide for
them, to care for them in this most basic need. But that saying “It’s always
darkest before the dawn” really does have some truth behind it. Rather than
focus on how we feel deprived, or lash out in fear when we feel uncertain, we can
remind ourselves of the blessing of being one people, united by a common
calling and a common identity, our common love of God, who has freed us so that
we can love God through our own choice.
