Exodus 17:1-17 "Let the Waters Flow"

 You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly! 

         From the very beginning, water is an image that figures prominently in the cycle of stories about Moses, the greatest of Israel’s leaders.  We have been reading these narratives for the past six Sundays now.  In the first couple of weeks, we found images of water in abundance while, in later tales, we encountered water in its seeming scarcity.  However, always the image of water has been illustrative of the power and might of God/Yahweh/The Great I Am. 

         Let’s go back to the very beginning of these Moses stories and see how water figures into them.  First, as an infant, Moses was set afloat in the waters of the Nile River in Egypt in his mother’s desperate attempt to save his life in the wake of the Egyptian king/pharaoh’s command that all Hebrew male babies were to be drowned.  By the grace of God/Yahweh/The Great I Am, Moses was found and raised as the adopted son of the Pharaoh’s daughter.

         As an adult (a senior citizen actually), Moses confronted the Pharaoh and argued his case for the release of the Hebrew people from slavery. To punctuate these debates, God/Yahweh/The Great I Am sent a series of plagues upon the Egyptian people, not the least of which were a zillion frogs leaping out of the waters of the Nile and showing up in the most outlandish places – beds, buckets, cooking pots. 

         Another one of the disasters that befell the populace was that the waters of the Nile itself, the primary source of hydration, irrigation, and the fish industry for the entire country, turned to blood and became unusable.  “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink,”

         And, of course, Moses led the freed slaves through the Red Sea to safety on the far shore.  Tradition has it that God/Yahweh/the Great I Am, in a swirl of wind, blew the waters apart, so that Moses and the Israelites walked across the seabed and barely got their toes wet.

         Once on the other side, however, the Israelites no longer found water in abundance. The image of a lot of water evaporated (no pun intended) and was replaced by its opposite, the image of water as a scarce commodity.  It is at this point that the Israelites’ penchant for complaining (grumbling as some Bible translations term it) really comes to the fore. 

         First, they complained about the bitter water they found at the oasis at Marah.  “Moses, what are we going to drink? The water here tastes funny.” So Moses, under the direction of the Holy One, threw a large branch into the stream, and the water tasted not bad really.

         Then the Israelites wanted food – and complained some more, this time a bit more vociferously.  They dreamed of a chicken in every pot – and a good loaf of bread to go along with it. “Moses, we were better off in Egypt.  At least we had food to eat and maybe the work was not so bad after all.  Why did you make us leave?” 

         So God/Yahweh/The Great I Am arranged for flocks of quail to fly down at night – theirs for the taking – and for that flakey substance called manna to appear like water – or dew – on the grass in the early morning, and their hunger is, for the moment at least, sated. 

         Today, when we meet this band of Israelites and Moses, their leader, they had been walking in the hot, arid, merciless desert for months now and were not feeling as if they were making a whole lot of progress toward this so-called Promised Land, the land of their dreams, the acres overflowing with milk and honey. 

         Did Moses even know where he was going?  Their feet were tired.  The kids were cranky.  The manna was boring because you could only cook that stuff so many ways. 

And most of them thought that if they even saw another quail, let alone noshed on one, they would probably scream – or do something worse.

         And besides that, they were thirsty – not just a little bit thirsty, but seriously dehydrated.  They feared for their children’s lives.  They feared for their own lives.  They could live on quail and that manna stuff, but they could not live without water – and there was not a drop of water in sight here at Rephidim, the god-awful place where Moses had made them stop for the night. 

         How serious was their problem?  Very serious!  It was like the two characters in Eugene O-Neill’s one act play entitled “Thirst.”  The play is about a couple of victims from a cruise ship disaster afloat on a life raft.

         One says, “This necklace...  is worth a thousand pounds. An English duke gave it to me. I will not part with it. Do you think I am a fool?”

         The other replies, “Think of a drink of water! (They both lick their dry lips feverishly.) If we do not drink soon we will die. You will take your necklace to the sharks with you...  For my part, I would sell my soul for a drop of water. “

         Values change as dehydration takes over.  So it was for the Israelites as well.  Once again, there at Rephidim, they grumbled and murmured and complained among themselves, and then a group of them approached Moses, all cranked up and madder than a flock of wet hens. 

         The appointed ones took Moses to task, and their demand was simple: “Give us water to drink.”

         But Moses said, “Why pester me? Why are you testing God?”

         Maybe that was not the most empathic way for Moses to respond. Maybe that was why a couple of them picked up rocks and tossed them threateningly back and forth in their hands – and continued to complain to Moses, “Why did you take us from Egypt and drag us out here with our children and animals to die of thirst?”

         Moses eyed the stones nervously, mumbled something incoherent but enough to put them off for a bit, and retreated for some personal prayer time and conversation with the Holy One.  “God/Yahweh/The Great I Am, I really need your help here.  What can I do with these people? They don’t trust me.  They don’t seem to trust you.  Did you see those rocks they had?  Any minute now they are likely to stone me!”

         In the midst of Moses’ fear for his life and generalized despair for his situation, God/Yahweh/The Great I Am unveiled a plan.  “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.”

         And so Moses did, and so it happened.  And the Israelites were once again satisfied.  Their thirst was quenched.  End of story? 

         One might reasonably think so – the point being that God will provide if you whine long enough and hard enough – and carry a few threatening stones to boot.  However, the story really does not end there.  There is a far deeper truth to be teased out of it, and we need to look to the last verse of the passage to find it.  In a way, the final verse is the most important one in the entire narrative.

         You see, for all Moses’ shortcomings and steep learning curve as a leader, when push came to shove, in this instance at least, he was a great theologian.  We know that because before he and the Israelites left the next morning, he took it upon himself to rename this place that since ancient times had been called Rephidim. 

         Moses gave it a new title - Massah (which means “Testing-Place”) and Meribah (which means “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?”

         Moses knew that the issue with which this band of former slaves had confronted him was not really about water.  Ok – it was true:  They were thirsty.  However, Moses knew that the real issue was about God/Yahweh/The Great I Am. 

         The conundrum was not, at its core, about having enough to drink.  It was about whether or not God/Yahweh/The Great I Am had left them in the lurch to face the terrors and difficulties of the wilderness on their own. 

         The question that is the essence of this story about water gushing from a rock is this:  As Methodist Pastor, Alex Joyner wrote, “In the midst of harshness and emptiness, is God really present at all? In the middle of muddles and messes and major disappointments, is God there or not?”

        And in this little vignette about water, the Israelites got what they had asked for – in abundance.  They got water.  It flowed from a cliff side.  And they got their deeper question – their real question – answered as well.  God/Yahweh/The Great I Am provided them with water but also provided with them with a profound reminder of that sacred presence in their lives even in times of trouble.

         As Baptist pastor Thomas McKibbens writes, “Their deep question is answered: yes, the Lord is among us after all. God really is reliable; God is faithful; God will not leave us without the resources we need to thrive.

         The story does not try to explain the water coming out of a rock, any more than the Bible tries to explain Easter after Good Friday. It just declares that God’s presence is sufficient for us to meet whatever a day may bring. God is a water-giving, rock-splitting, life-sustaining Creator who loves humans even when we complain and blame and gripe and grumble and fume.”

         Is the Lord with us or not?  That is the existential question. Is God here in this crazy mixed up world we live in? Surely, at one time or another, we all have asked – or will ask – that question – even if it is some 4000 years after the Israelites first raised the issue with Moses. 

         Isn’t that the underlying thing we all want to know when we have our backs to the wall and no place to go, when we are deep in the wilderness thirsting for something we can not seem to find?  Is God here or not?

         Isn’t that the question we ask when we seem so alone and life seems to be one meaningless chore after another?  Is God with us or not? 

         Isn’t that what we want to know when we are at the end of our rope and all we can do is cry out,  “Where are you, God?  Help me.”  Is God with us or not?

         And, you know, when we finally get to the point in our own personal deserts and wildernesses where we can honestly ask that question, when we can look to the Provider instead of only to the problem, the answer will come, the water will gush forth – from a rock no less.

        Oh, we all want definitive evidence that God is here – an amazing healing or an image on a piece of toast.  As Methodist pastor, John Holbert wrote, “Or how about fantastic church growth? ‘We began with a few families, and now we worship with 9000 people each Sunday; we know that God has been with us!’ You can imagine your own…equivalent of water rushing out of dry stones after the sharp whack of a magic wand….(But) what about those not healed,…those who worship with the same 25 souls each Sunday? (Because, you know,(and this is important)) even after the magic rock trick, (the Israelites) still ask, 'Is YHWH with us, or not?’ Well?”

         Maybe we will always question (Is God with us or not?) – and maybe that is OK – because maybe such questioning is part and parcel of being human.  Maybe we will never quite believe – but only can aspire to believe - that it works this way over and over and over again. 

         God finds a way to bring transformation, healing, life itself – no matter what we do, no matter how much we grumble and complain and approach the Holy One with rocks ready in our hands. In the end, when all the questions have been asked, all the grumbling and complaining has been made, when there is only silence, then, if we listen carefully, we will hear the Spirit whispering the words of the deep and profound truth that this little story about water from a rock illustrates:  In the end, “healing wins. Life wins. God wins. Love wins.
Again….And God brings refreshment to the thirsty.” (Kirk Moore)

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church (U.C.C.), Raymond, Maine