Temple Beth El
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
March 11, 2005
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 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?” 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 Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exodus 17:1-7)
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We could, I suppose, begin elsewhere in the wilderness….with the book being Numbers…. ….the chapter being eleven….the issue being food…..and the people being hungry. Now as we look in on them again, the book is Exodus….the chapter is seventeen….the issue is water….and the people are thirsty. Along with surly. I mean, if the zigzag journey across the Sinai really did consume the better part of forty years, wouldn’t you have questioned the tour guide? I think I would have. Heck, I know I would have. How many times do you think Moses was forced to field the question, “Are we there yet?”….followed by, “Well, then, how much longer?”
Whatever be the case, there’s a whole lot of complaining going on. People complaining to each other. People complaining to Moses. Moses complaining to God. And God, responding as God always seems to respond in the book of Exodus, with just enough of an intervention to quiet things down but not enough of an intervention to speed things along. No express train to the Promised Land. No clear, flowing stream in the desert. No fleet of bottled water delivery trucks on the horizon (“Look, Aaron, it’s the Aquafina man.”). Just a rod and a rock….a couple of love taps….and (wonder of wonders) a drinking fountain. “Can’t get water from a stone,” you say? Well, lookee here.
Whereupon we read: “And Moses called the name of the place Massah and Meribah because of the fault finding of the children of Israel, and because they put the Lord to the proof by saying ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’” The words “Massah and Meribah,” when translated from the Hebrew, mean “testing and strife.” But why should I tell you what you already know?
I would have done it differently. I would have named the place after the miracle rather than the complaint. I would have called the lady with the paint and the guy with the brushes and said: “Here, on this very spot where we got water from the stone, create us a sign that will say to others who pass this way, ‘Wilderness Oasis….‘Cool, Clear Water’…..or even ‘Water by God’.” Instead, they are told to create a sign that says: “Testing and Strife.” So that everyone forevermore will remember this as the place where the people murmured: “Is the Lord among us or not?”
On the surface, this is not a text that connects readily (or comfortably) with the likes of you and me. Thirsty, we are not. Homeless, we are not. Recent escapees from slavery, we are not. Looking for road signs to the Promised Land, we are not. All things considered, we are already in the Promised Land, are we not? Although it could always be better, could it not? But most others look upon this….and us….with envy, do they not?
As to whether the Promised Land is a piece of real estate or a state of mind, I can’t say. All I know is that whether we were born here….or whether we more recently climbed here….we are here. Feeling like we belong here. Hoping we can stay here. But occasionally….on long winter days when the sun doesn’t shine in the heavens, or cold winter nights when serenity doesn’t shine from our hearts….wondering why we’re not happier here. Which explains why we, too, have been known to murmur among ourselves….itching our irritations….caressing our complaints…. counting our grievances (naming them one by one)….even to the point of asking: “Is the Lord among us or not?” For if the Lord were among us, shouldn’t it go better for us?
I don’t know about you, but I am finding names harder to remember than they used to be. It’s as if my brain is contracting at the rate my circle of acquaintances is expanding. Leading me to recall the advice of my San Diego colleague, Mark Trotter, who (in adjusting to a similar difficulty at a similar age) said:
When I find myself in a situation where I think I should be able to identify somebody, but can’t, I simply thrust out my hand, shake theirs vigorously, and say: “How’s the old complaint?” I mean, everybody has one. And in the process of letting them rearticulate theirs, I am often able to associate where I met them with the thing that bugs them.
Memory being as funny as it is fragile. Wasn’t it James Barrie (the author of Peter Pan) who, in an address to a group of college students in 1922, said: “God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.” Which Moses could have said….and often did….to the less-than-cheery children of Israel. “Remember what God has already done for you.”
God heard your cries.
God answered your complaints.
God found you a liberator.
God freed you from Pharaoh.
God parted the waters.
God drowned your pursuers.
God gave you the dream of a home (and a way to get there).
But you forgot all that.
To which the children of Israel said: “Yeah, but what has God done for us lately?”
When I pick a text for a sermon, I never know who it’s going to fit. The same is true for titles. Some texts and titles can be off-putting. And if such be the case this evening, I suppose that’s all to the good. For it means that this evening finds you with no major complaints….long on blessings….short on grievances….not having to search in the basement of your soul to dust off what God did for you once, given the bounty of what God is doing for you now. If that’s you, this text is not yours. Because gratitude sits comfortably with you. It is easy for you to feel good at this time of the year, given how good you are feeling at this time of your life.
But if that does not describe you….if this text fits you….and if this title (“What Have You Done For Me Lately?”) says it all for you (taking the words right out of your mouth, although you’d be embarrassed to pray them out loud, lest God consider you disrespectful)….then I have a couple of things to say which may redeem the moment for you. So listen up, while those who are comfortably counting their blessings take their leave (so as to drift off into the realm of higher mathematics….counting blessings to the twenty-third power), unhindered by having to pay attention to a sermon which was obviously not written for them.
So to those who are still hanging in there with me, the first thing I want you to do is remember to remember. But later this evening….or tomorrow evening….when you gather around your tables with your families and friends (functional and dysfunctional), I would encourage you to remember not just the good things….as in the wonderful blessings you really have received, some of whom may even be sitting around the table with you….but also the bad things. In fact, I would encourage you to remember the bad things by name….the terrible things that have happened to you….even the worst things.
I know that nobody has ever told you to do that before. Besides, why would you? Wouldn’t that depress you….discourage you….suck the starch right out of you? Well, it might, if all it did was lead you to cry, once more, over the spilled milk of your sad and sorry life.
But the reason for honing in (if even for a moment) on your sorrows, your losses and your sadness, is that remembering them means you got through them. You survived the worst day of your life. Sure, there may be a worse one coming. But you will be better able to deal with the next one if you can remember having dealt with the last one. You got through the trial. You got beyond the temptation. You survived that horribly destructive relationship. And that thing that once led you to say, “If that ever happened to me, I’d die,” did….and you didn’t. Die, I mean. If you allow yourself to remember the darkness of the valley (or the dampness of the miry clay), you can take some comfort in the fact that you are not as deep in it now as you were deep in it then. Something got you through. Someone got you through. So remember how that happened. Remember who that was. You may have made your own mess. But someone helped you clean it.
In the words of a hymn much beloved by African Americans: “We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.” And there may be tears to come….infinitely more tears to come. You may even be crying them right now. But the Lord has done a wonderful thing, bringing you through to the present moment. And how the Lord did it, you may never know. But get here, you did. Which is why, when you sit down at table, you will remember to thank the Lord.
Maybe, as you break a little bread and sip a little wine, you will also take a little journey with a tour guide named Memory….a journey to the place where you first saw (even picked) a lily in the valley. I’m talking about that place where you found still waters, green pastures, anointing oils, and marveled that God could not only find you in the midst of your enemies, but feed you in the midst of your enemies.
You need to remember all that stuff, even as you quietly sing a couple other lines from that previously-quoted hymn:
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee,
Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.
Remember to remember. Remember all of it. Including the worst of it….the sustenance during it….the road through it….and the One who paved it (or, in some instances, even blazed it).
Then, do not put God to the test. Do not submit God to your puny little proofs. Do not join those who say:
Bill, I used to believe. But I am finding it hard to believe any more. Because I cried and no one came. I asked and no one answered. I prayed and nothing happened. I said: “If you are God, my scan will be clean, my job will be spared, my marriage will be salvaged, my son will be saved. And it didn’t happen.” So because it didn’t, God isn’t.
I know what it’s like to be there. My scan was clean….was job was spared….my marriage was salvaged….but my son wasn’t saved. And I don’t put my faith up for grabs there. So don’t go there if you haven’t already been there. And if you find yourself presently there, try to get out of there. You are not to tempt God. You are to trust God.
As to how God brought water from the rock, I don’t know. I’m not savvy about geology. But I am savvy about theology. So I know exactly why this text is here (and what consolation it is expected to bring). As concerns our ancestors in the wilderness, it would have been a wasted investment on God’s part to have brought them all that way, only to let them die of thirst. All that trouble for nothing. All that annoyance for nothing. All those miles for nothing. But what the story wants to say is that the trip wasn’t for nothing. God brought the children of Israel through water, to water. And how many times do I say at a committal service in some cemetery (with the wind whistling through that green awning) that the deceased will, in addition to having every last tear wiped from the eye, drink yet again from the fountain of the water of life. God can be trusted.
How do you know when a marriage is bad? I’ll tell you one way you know when a marriage is bad. The marriage is bad when the two people in it continually subject the love that undergirds it to daily proofs. “Do you love me?” “If so, prove it.” Which is how the conversation goes when trust breaks down. Or was never built. And have you noticed that when there is no trust, you can never supply enough proof (“You want to see my checkbook? Here’s my checkbook. You want to see my date book? Here’s my date book. You want to scroll through the numbers in my phone book? Here’s my phone book. You want an affidavit from my boss, my barber, my bus driver? Go ahead and call my boss, my barber, my bus driver.”). No, when there is no trust, you can never supply enough proof. Everything is going to be looked at with suspicion. And no reassurance is ever going to be satisfy.
Which is as true of the marriage between God and creation as it is in the marriage of husband and wife. When there is no trust in God, nothing God can do will ever be enough. No prayer that God can answer will ever be enough. No blessing that God can bestow will ever be enough. God will always be one bad experience….one bad accident….one bad day at the ballpark….one metasticizing tumor….one defeat….one divorce….one death….from no longer being believed. But it’s hard to live that way. And it’s nigh-but-unto impossible to love that way.
Said a woman concerning her husband: “I so desperately want to believe him.” Because she knows that without it, there’s no marriage. My friends, it is when times are good that belief is easy. It is only when times are less good that belief is necessary.
