WILDERNESS CHALLENGE: WHERE IS WATER?

Exodus 15:22-27; 17:1-7

August 21, 2011

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Rev. Janet Robertson Duggins

Today again we are reading from Exodus, which you know is a story about a journey, with the usual ups and downs that any journey has. Like nearly all journey stories, this one tells about both a physical journey – through actual places and landscapes – and a spiritual journey. The people of Israel aren’t just on a road trip; they are also on a journey of discovering who they are as a people and what it means to belong to this God who has called them “chosen” and brought them out from slavery in Egypt.

The two stories we’re going to read are “water” stories. Here, as so often in the Bible, water is has spiritual and symbolic meaning in addition to being in and of itself a great gift and necessity of life. Thirst for water is likened to the need for God’s presence and healing.

One of these stories about water takes place before, and one after, the episode of the manna and quails you heard about last Sunday.

This first story is actually the very first story of the 40-year wilderness wandering. After crossing the red sea, narrowly and miraculously escaping the pursuing Egyptian army, Moses and his sister Miriam the prophet led the people in a singing, dancing, praising-God celebration. That’s most of Exodus 15. Then with nothing much by way of transition from that joyous, triumphant moment – this is what happens next:

read Exodus 15:22-27

So they come to what sounds like a wonderful and peaceful place where there is plenty of water and food and rest … but they don’t get to stay there. They move on, and pretty soon experience hunger and frustration, until manna and then quail meat are provided. Then as the journey continues:

read Exodus 17:1-7

Have you ever been thirsty? really, really thirsty? What was that like?

When you’re really thirsty, you understand in a way that’s not at all theoretical just how important water is. I went backpacking the desert in Utah once many years ago, on a route which brought us to a water source only every other day. We had to carry gallon jugs of water, and we quickly found that none of us cared that the water was warm, that a good bit of sand had gotten into the water jugs and even an occasional bug. All that mattered was that it was water.

Jerry and I just spent a week at Ghost Ranch, in the high desert of northern New Mexico, a place where it’s important to drink a lot of water because of the altitude as well as the dry conditions. The staff and signs everywhere constantly ask, “are you drinking enough water?” “Enough,” it turned out, is at least 8 oz. for every hour you are awake – more if you’re hiking or doing some physical activity.

I mention this because although the conditions for the Israelites probably were a little different, the need for water was not. It’s easy to criticize the Israelites for whining too much, for being so ready to throw in the towel, for having so little trust in God, for not learning from their experiences of God’s care…. But the fact is, they were thirsty, and it’s almost impossible to think about anything else when you’re really thirsty. And this being without water wasn’t just a little inconvenience or discomfort, it was a dire predicament, a matter of life or death. No wonder they got upset– undoubtedly we would, too.

And can’t you just imagine the disappointment when, after three days with no water, they finally come to some, only to find it isn’t drinkable? They’d been through a lot already, then just when they thought they were safe, they found themselves with no water; and then to come across some and find it’s no good after all…. We know what that’s like, don’t we? Just when you think things are looking up, something else happens to pull you down.

Here, the bitterness of the water mirrors the bitterness the people are feeling. Remember, they are not that long out of slavery and oppression – you don’t leave that kind of legacy behind easily. And somehow they’ve gotten themselves into this adventure in the desert - for which they are completely unprepared – and which is starting now to look both foolish and dangerous. Everything that lies before them is unknown – the route, the destination, how long it’ll take, what and who they’ll meet on the way… even whether or not there’ll be anything to eat and drink.

The text doesn’t actually say it, but you can sense the fear that’s behind their outbursts, can’t you?

The anger and complaints are directed ostensibly toward Moses their leader, but it’s clearly understood that though Moses is the face before them, the bitterness is really toward God.

In both of these stories, we see what theologian Frederick Niedner calls a “theology of sufficiency.” The people of Israel are holding to “an assumption that seems quite natural and universal. When they have what they need and want, they believe God is with them. In times of hunger, thirst, and affliction, they deem themselves abandoned or betrayed.” More than that, they start wondering if God has ever been with them. (p. 74)

Moses seems to encourage this linking of provision with God’s presence, and even God seems to go along with it to some extent – responding to the complaints, meeting the needs, trying to build up trust with the people. It’s a long process … a journey for God and the people.

You might have noticed that in both of these stories we encounter this idea of “testing” – God “testing” the people, the people “testing” God. Maybe this expression puzzled you like it puzzled me. It’s not really a word we use much to talk about our relationship with God, or God’s with us. I think that the English word that best captures what’s going on here might be “challenge.” God challenges the people to listen, to become people of faith, to start to trust in this relationship with God who chose them and called them out of Egypt on this journey. If they can do that, God says, they will be spared from the plagues visited on the Egyptians (who refused to listen to God) and they will discover that God will heal their hurts and fill their spiritual thirst.

You can see how easily the promise – “trust God and you’ll see that God will be with you and will provide” – gets turned around: “We’ll listen and trust when we see that God is providing what we need and want.” And of course, the next step from that is: “Unless we see God providing what we need and want, we can’t be expected to believe God is really with us.”

So before we know it we have the people challenging God, attempting to coerce God into proving – in some concrete and unmistakable way – that God is not just present but “on their side.” I guess in times of stress we all can forget how foolish it is to think we can manipulate God. People try all the time, of course. “I’ll be good from now on, God, if only you’ll….” “I don’t need to think about safety, God’ll take care of me.” “If you want me to take this job, send me a sign.” “I’ll believe if God will only heal her.” There are a number of problems with doing this - for one thing it comes out of our own very limited perspective and doesn’t consider that there might be a lot we don’t understand. But more than that, Old Testament scholar Terrence Fretheim says that this sort of thing “violates the Godness of God.” It makes God out to be a servant at our beck and call… and that is a quite amazing kind of presumption.

Still, in Exodus, we find that God is pretty patient with the people, letting them struggle a little but still responding with what they need not only for their physical lives but to keep their hold on faith. Because there’s no question at all that these stories are about more than drinking water.

The Israelites’ big question in all this is finally made explicit at the end of the second story: “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exodus 17:7)

Isn’t that our question too? Is God among us, or not? Is God here? And… how will we know?

These stories affirm that the answer is, “YES, God is here!” But notice that the question doesn’t entirely go away. It’s not answered for once and for all. It’s the question that gives the name to the place of the story in Exodus 17. The site isn’t remembered as “the place where God gave us water” or “the place where water came from a rock,” but as the “place where we tested God.” The question will be remembered and revisited again and again.

Can we see God when we are being led by a pillar of fire or cloud? Sure! But what about when we have to search out a path through a wilderness? Can we see God in the promised land? Sure! But what about when we get taken into exile and become refugees? Can we see God with us when we are strong and successful? Sure! But what about when we are surrounded by enemies and things are looking bad? Can we see God in the temple? Sure! But what about after the temple has been destroyed? Can we see God when we are at Mt. Sinai or some other sacred place? Sure! But what about out in the fields, along a lonely road, in a crowded city? what about when there is no experience that feels “spiritual”?

Then, where is God? Now, where is God?

Some variation on this will be THE question the people of God will wrestle with throughout their history. They will have to learn that God’s presence doesn’t always conform to their expectations and hopes. They will have to learn to recognize God’s presence in new and different ways, in the unexpected, and in times of struggle. God will be found at the mountain, in temple worship, beside wise and powerful leaders, in the voices of holy men and women, in a land of plenty, and beside peaceful waters. But God will also be found in stories and in a book, in songs of lament, in places of exile, in desert rocks, in the face of a stranger, alongside those who suffer, in the angry voices of prophets, and in a community of diverse and fallible people. Eventually some people will recognize God’s presence living among them in one who offered himself as living water but cried out in his own time of suffering, “I am thirsty.”

The thirst for God’s presence, for “living water” that makes us feel restored and alive, is an ever-ongoing journey of learning to see, learning to listen, learning to wait, learning to suffer perhaps… learning to trust in a relationship with a God who is both loving and mysterious, who provides for us yet urges us into freedom.

Water is important, essential for the journey. But so is the thirst that makes us seek it.

Resources:

Terrence E. Fretheim, Exodus (Interpretation commentary series)

Frederick Neidner, Exodus 17:1-7 “Theological Perspective” in Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2.

Carol A. Newsom, Exodus 17:1-7 “Theological Perspective” in Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2.