SUNDAY, APRIL 24
READ EXODUS 17:1-7
EXODUS 17: 1-2 Directed by God, the whole company of Israel moved on by stages from the Wilderness of Sin. They set camp at Rephidim. And there wasn’t a drop of water for the people to drink. The people took Moses to task: “Give us water to drink.” But Moses said, “Why pester me? Why are you testing God?”
3 But the people were thirsty for water there. They complained to Moses, “Why did you take us from Egypt and drag us out here with our children and animals to die of thirst?”
4 Moses cried out in prayer to God, “What can I do with these people? Any minute now they’ll kill me!”
5-6 God said to Moses, “Go on out ahead of the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel. Take the staff you used to strike the Nile. And go. I’m going to be present before you there on the rock at Horeb. You are to strike the rock. Water will gush out of it and the people will drink.”
6-7 Moses did what he said, with the elders of Israel right there watching. He named the place Massah (Testing-Place) and Meribah (Quarreling) because of the quarreling of the Israelites and because of their testing of God when they said, “Is God here with us, or not?”
I find it a strange, disconcerting image: the people of God quarreling with the Lord. In the Christian cultures I know—liberal, conservative, and in-between—we don’t argue with God. We’d rather complain about one another.In the Hebrew Scriptures, divine complaint is an honored tradition. Job famously challenges God. Prophets try to resist the divine plan when God taps them for service. In this Exodus passage, the whole group raises its voice against God’s management of the precarious desert sojourn.
We modern Christians reluctantly aim harsh words at God or question divine arrangement. In the Old Testament, an argument with God suggests a real relationship. Anger assumes communication and emotional connection. It presumes a ground rule of engagement: The Judge will hear the bill of resentment and will respond and make answer, if not amends.
I have a few complaints myself for the divine in-box. Why do we seem to be wired for tribal, limited loyalties rather than for universal love? Why the terrible maldistribution of riches and disasters and suffering and luck (and water) across the world? We are awash in mystery.
I read this passage again. I stand amazed that a relationship with the Creator of the universe is possible at all. In the ordeal of daily need in the boiling desert, this truth is what the Israelites ultimately remembered. Frustration with God gave way to a greater experience: the mercy of God. It’s what they learned and remembered, which is why we honor it even now.
Holy God, with gratitude I call your name. With conviction I admit my dependence on you. With hope I ask your blessing. Amen.[Ray Waddle]
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PO Box 340007
Nashville, Tennessee 37203, United States
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