Commentary on Exodus 17:1-7

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 3^rd 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.

Commentary on Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16

Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16 Page 694, BCP

Attendite, popule

1 Hear my teaching, O my people;

incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

2 I will open my mouth in a parable;

I will declare the mysteries of ancient times.

3 That which we have heard and known,
and what our forefathers have told us,

we will not hide from their children.

4 We will recount to generations to come
the praiseworthy deeds and the power of the LORD,

and the wonderful works he has done.

12 He worked marvels in the sight of their forefathers,

in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.

13 He split open the sea and let them pass through;

he made the waters stand up like walls.

14 He led them with a cloud by day,

and all the night through with a glow of fire.

15 He split the hard rocks in the wilderness

and gave them drink as from the great deep.

16 He brought streams out of the cliff,

and the waters gushed out like rivers.

This psalm has two main purposes: to praise and to instruct. When we tell stories about our past, both of these purposes can be accomplished. There has been a lot of hubbub in the education world this week about students walking out of class in Texas in response of attempts of some conservative school board members to forbid the criticism of American actions in the teaching of US history, in particular. Psalm 78 is an example of this kind of celebratory history: All the good bits of God’s help to Israel during the Exodus are here. But what is missing? Look back at our reading from Exodus. Yes, that’s right. All the complaining and kvetching and ingratitude of the Israelites is missing. And what is the result of this selective recounting of the very story we’ve been reading all these weeks compared to the one from Exodus?

It’s a completely different story, that’s what.

It’s not a different story about God, really, but it kind of loses the flavor of God providing for the people EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE ACTING LIKE UNGRATEFUL TODDLERS. God certainly is good in Psalm 78, but let’s face it, anyone who has spent time with a kid or a pet knows that being generous and compassionate even in the face of mulishness and constant demands is even more praise-worthy.

Verses 15-16 tell the part of the Exodus story we just read a few minutes ago.

In verse 12, there is a reference to the “field of Zoan.” The name “Zoan” means “place of departure,” and refers to the place where the Israelites left Egypt by crossing the Red Sea, although really Zoan is on the Tanitic branch of the Nile, so called because it is near the ancient city of Tanis.

Once again proving the danger of the internet to lead one down immensely pleasurable but nonetheless time-wasting rabbit holes, I discovered that, according to http://biblehub.com/topical/z/zoan.htm, this was the location of the ancient city of Tanis. Tanis… Tanis…. And suddenly, my weird encyclopedic knowledge of movie dialogue and song lyrics brought me to type these words into Google: “Indiana Jones Tanis” and hit return. Behold, friends! I give you this, from http://indianajones.wikia.com/wiki/Tanis!

Indiana Jones uses the correct length of staff to be able to find the Well of Souls in Tanis, which contained the Ark of the Covenant. So cool! The fact that he later got thrown into the Well of Souls to die is a mere trifle.

Yes, the fields of Zoan, AKA Tanis, was the city that Nazi-funded Rene Belloch and Indiana Jones both were searching to find the Lost Ark of the movie title. And if you do not know what I am talking about, please run, do not walk, to Netflix and watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, and then come back. You can thank me later.

Commentary on Matthew 21:23-32

Matthew 21:23-32

When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" ²⁴Jesus said to them, "I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. ²⁵Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?" And they argued with one another, "If we say, `From heaven,' he will say to us, `Why then did you not believe him?' ²⁶But if we say, `Of human origin,' we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet." ²⁷So they answered Jesus, "We do not know." And he said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

The Parable of the Two Sons

²⁸"What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, `Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' <sup>29</sup>He answered, `I will not'; but later he changed his mind and went. ³⁰The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, `I go, sir'; but he did not go. ³¹Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. ³²For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him."

The setting in context: In chapter 21 of Matthew, Jesus makes a triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The crowds (some, but not all ,of Jerusalem) greet him with shouts full of messianic imagery in v. 21:9: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” (language we recognize from the opening of the liturgy leading to Eucharist in Eucharistic Prayer A). He proceeds to get right in the face of the priests and Pharisees by engaging in his wild cleansing of the Temple in vv. 12-17. Then we have the humorous and petulant nugget of a story of Jesus cursing of the fig tree that bore no fruit in verses 18-22. The cleansing of the Temple is not just a religious act of a zealot but a political act that could undermine the role of the chief priests and elders in the eyes of the Jewish population. The chief priests and elders believe that they serve an important role as intermediaries between the people and the occupying Roman Empire. And here comes this wild-eyed erratic hick, claiming that he is all about peace while looting the Temple’s marketplace, threatening to bring disaster down upon everyone’s heads.

So let’s understand: when the chief priests and elders approach Jesus in v. 23, they are fully aware of the criticism he is leveling at them in these actions, and in that it seems like a big chunk of Jerusalem agrees with him. And they are PISSED. So you can bet there was a certain… tone… in their opening question, a definite visual once-over that takes in his peasant’s clothing and dusty sandals and probably unkempt hair and sweat stains from all that throwing money-changers’ tables around. “Who the heck do you think you are??” they ask with an implied sneer. “We’re the people with the power around here. We’ve got a nice set-up here, and we’re not about to let some carpenter’s son from the sticks imply that they are promoting irreverence and blasphemy.” Allowing the sale of animals and the breaking of change is a practical matter in a cultic system that requires animal sacrifice.

So Jesus does that really annoying thing that most of us can’t stand: he answers a question with a question. And some of us who have been following along all through the year probably are glad to see him taking a page from the playbook of his opponents and trying to use a question to trip them up instead, since this certainly was one of their favorite tactics. It is obvious at this point that Jesus is in no mood to play. There are 10 different times in the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus is asked questions directly, and at least three times were Matthew notes the questions were asked in order to “test” Jesus.  Although the primary cause of this question is indignation and probably not a little fear, Jesus uses this occasion as a chance to test them, his opponents. Jesus agrees to answer their question—if, first, they can answer a question of his.

And the chief priests and elders did not get to the position they are in now without sensing the trap. His question in v. 25 gets at the heart of the authority of John the Baptist. The game is afoot! Given that the authorities have opposed John the Baptist, they certainly cannot say that his actions were ordained by God;  yet, if they answer that John was a fraud, religiously speaking, they could very well face a riot, since many of the people who supported the temple believed in John.  So they fall back on the classic answer used by students everywhere: “we don’t know.” And when they chicken out, Jesus then responds with a refusal to answer.

Jesus’s question gets at the heart of his ministry, however. And in a way, he does answer their question—or at least provides a hint for the readers of the gospel of Matthew. Jesus’s ministry had started with his baptism by John. In Matthew’s Gospel, the beginning of chapter 3 explains that John served as a prophet, announcing the coming of Jesus, the Messiah. Jesus was baptized by John in chapter 3, and is driven immediately thereafter into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, in 4:1-11, to be tested by the devil.  At Matthew 4:12, Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee, and in v. 18 he calls his first disciples; by v. 23 crowds of people are following him. The authority of Jesus and the authority of John build upon each other: John is the foundation, and Jesus is the New Temple built upon that foundation, as was hinted at in the questions that the devil asked him in the wilderness in chapter 4. What Jesus is saying here is this: if John’s authority comes from God, then so does that of Jesus, since Jesus is the fulfillment of John’s prophecies and ministry.

The second half of our reading makes this linkage explicit. The parable of the two sons is the first of three parables that expose the greed and injustice of Jerusalem’s religious leaders--  the other two include the Parable of the Wicked Tenants (which we will read next week) and the Parable of the Wedding Banquet (which is not read during this liturgical year at all).

Any of us who have spent time with teenagers can see that the story of the two sons is pulled from real life. If I had a dollar for every time one of my students or my children had told me they were going to do something, and then didn’t do it, I could buy a football team. The refusal of the kid to do something, only to go ahead and do it later, also happens, although not as frequently as we would like. Sometimes kids just have to refuse to do stuff to assert their independence, even when they know that there’s a good reason to do the thing they’ve been asked to do.

The Pharisees, the religious leaders, and the elders, all claim to be doing the will of God, and being obedient to God. Their notions of purity and propriety lead them to condemn and sometimes even shun others—specifically, the tax collectors and prostitutes that Jesus mentions in v. 31.  Yet, those same outcasts, those people limited to the margins of society by the rules of the authorities, are exactly the people who are listening to Jesus’s radical gospel message. Jesus makes it clear that although the lives of tax collectors and prostitutes may not have been examples of obedience up to this point, ultimately they demonstrate obedience by becoming true disciples of Christ—by being transformed in the way that our epistle speaks of. The repeated refusal of the chief priests and elders to understand Jesus’s authority as the Messiah places them in the role of the first son in the parable.

Saying you are going to do something is not enough, unless you follow through. Now, of course, refusing to do something and then later doing it is also pretty stupid. But, at least in that second case, the work does eventually get done. Just as in the parable of a lot of sheet that Jesus told in Matthew 18:10 -14; just as in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard that we heard last week; what ultimately matters is that you attend to the Gospel, accept it, and are transformed by it.

Commentary on Philippians 2:1-13

Philippians 2:1-13

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, ²make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. ⁴Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. ⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 

⁶who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God

as something to be exploited,

⁷but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

⁸he humbled himself

and became obedient to the point of death--

even death on a cross.

⁹Therefore God also highly exalted him

and gave him the name

that is above every name,

¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

¹¹and every tongue should confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

¹²Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

(Note: some of these verses – in particular, 5 through11 -- are part of the Palm Sunday liturgy.)

Well, this just about sums it all up, doesn’t it? If we want to be Christ-like, we have to be humble and completely self-effacing. It’s in the very nature of who we understand Christ to be, and that the Pauline epistles do such a good job of reminding us: one who was the greatest became a humble human, and not just a human but a peasant in the farthest, out-of-the-way occupied corner of a vast and relentless empire. Jesus faced rejection again and again, even to the point of being accused of being a rebel and blasphemer and dying for it.

At verse 7, Paul speaks of Jesus “emptying himself” of all his rightful honor and glory due to him as the Son of God, and choosing to be born lowly as a human. The Greek term for this is “kenosis,” and this section of Philippians is known as “the kenosis hymn.”

Kenosis is emptying ourselves of our willfulness, all of our prerogatives for self- aggrandizement, and becoming completely obedient to God. For Jesus, this means giving up all of the power he could wield as the Son of God, all of his ability to simply say “NO!” and being obedient to God’s will. As Christians, we seek to emulate Christ’s humanity as much as possible, and we are also called to obedience and humility—and after all, we have a lot more to be humble about!

This is an act of obedience, of bending our human will to the will of God. Discipleship leads to paradox—being humble will lead to exaltation, the last shall be first, the youngest will triumph over the eldest. We see this pattern over and over again in scriptures, and we’ve noted it several times this year.

The final two verses remind us that discipleship has to be oriented to doing God’s will, not our own. It’s too easy to fall into the belief that Jesus, God incarnate, is just like us rather than trying to be more like Him.

In one of my classes this week, we were talking about this quote from Anne Lamott:

That’s always been one of the main challenges in Christianity. We anthropomorphize God, turning that whole “made in God’s image” thing from Genesis on its head. We don’t need a God who is more like us. We need to be a people who are more like God. And the good news is, we already have a template: God has lived among us as one of us, and God continues to live among us. And as self-proclaimed members of the Body of Christ, there is our charge. Even though it is clear, it certainly is not easy. Transformation never is. Transformation, both of ourselves and of our world, requires work, and that starts with the will to do it (v. 13).

May we have the will to do the work. May we allow God to be at work in us, so that we may do God’s work in the world.

Letting God Open Our Eyes: Speaking to the Soul, June 23, 2014

A beautiful little wildflower at Osage Forest of Peace in Sand Springs, OK.

Genesis 21:8-21

Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17

Matthew 10:24-39

I spent several days last week at a lovely retreat center called the Osage Forest of Peace near my hometown of Tulsa. One of the favorite things to do there during the early morning hours is to walk over the hiking trails that wind behind the retreat center over nearly forty acres.

Now, given that this was during the very end of spring in Oklahoma, it is also copperhead season, so I had a tendency to look at the ground often to see if any dangers lurked along the path ahead of me. I was working on notes for the lectionary readings for Sunday so they could be sent to the members of the group that meets each week to discuss them on Sunday during Christian education. But also, I’ll be honest, I was lost in thought about a problem. And strangely, I began to notice all kinds of beautiful tiny wild flowers, almost all of them varying shades of purple, all of them no longer than two inches. They were easily missed, and seemingly insignificant. But they were also amazing. And to see them, I had to open my eyes.

That same phrase was used in one of the readings in the lectionary from yesterday. Hagar and her son Ishmael have been cast out into the wilderness, despairing, thinking that she and her child were about to die of thirst. And yet, God opens her eyes: and there is a well. In fact, both of Abraham’s sons are saved at the brink of disaster when someone’s eyes are opened: in a couple of chapters, Abraham will be on the brink of sacrificing Isaac, only to look up and see a ram caught nearby, ready to take Isaac’s place as the sacrifice.

I was thinking about Hagar’s story, and Jesus’s reminder in Sunday’s gospel that sparrows were sold two for a penny, yet even they would not fall to the ground without the notice of God. While I had been looking for danger, and probably not doing that very well because I was also distracted, my eyes were opened to all kinds of miracles along a dry and rocky path.

Sometimes, we focus on the problems, and forget about the blessings. Sometimes we feel insignificant, and that our needs or concerns are being overlooked. And then, God provides us something to remind us that God is listening, and that we shouldn’t be so preoccupied with concerns that we forget to look around us and really see the hand of God in our lives. Sometimes miracles are more showy: the well of water is right there, another sacrifice is found, yes, but also the baby leaves the NICU, the car wheels find purchase as they spin on the rain-slicked curve, the surgery turns out well.

It’s often that way. We go about our business, plugging along and not paying much attention to what is going on around us. And smaller miracles appear, but still important: here are tiny flowers, blooming where no one might ever see them, yet they bloom anyway. Yet there are often hidden miracles—we only have to look up and open our eyes.

(This was first posted at the Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on June 23, 2014.)

On Faith and Trust

"If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all."- Isaiah 7:9

"It is commonly agreed that this utterance of the prophet is a (the?) pivotal text upon which the meaning of faith in the work of Isaiah and, indeed, in the entire Old Testament. Faith... is not a matter of intellectual content or cognitive belief. It is rather a matter of quite practical reliance upon the assurance of God in a context of risk where one's own resources are not adequate.... 

It is most unfortunate that, in the long history of the church, "faith" has been almost everywhere transubstantiated into "belief," which transposes the concrete practicality of trust into a cognitive enterprise. How ludicrous that in the long, oppressive history of orthodoxy-- which guards cognitive formulations-- that those who enforce right belief seem most often themselves unable or unwilling to engage in deep trust."

-- Walter Brueggemann, WBC Commentary on Isaiah, 67-68.