Exodus 17:1-7; Romans 5:1-5; March 12, 2023; Third Sunday in Lent
In a way, you all have passed a test.
For here you are, gathered together.
Even though our Happenings email told you that this week’s sermon title was going to be A Timeline of Suffering here you are, gathered together!
Well done, my friends. Either you are masochists, or perhaps just maybe you trust me already (or better yet, and more appropriately, that you trust God), that no matter the title, that no matter this Lenten season, that no matter even our sufferings, in the end there may yet be hope.
So, let us try to find hope. Together. Amidst our wrestling with these texts. Okay? Okay.
The people of the wilderness in our Exodus account ask Moses, “Is the Lord with us or not?”
Is the Lord with us or not? And if you were paying close attention, this is in fact the most obvious question to be asked. Is the Lord with us or not?
For look at how low their lives had sunk to. Wandering in the wilderness after Moses had brought them out of Egypt, they are now seen thirsty, hungry, tired, and afraid. Some livestock and perhaps even some children may have died too. Can you imagine then the anger that they must have felt? And perhaps only made worse when the solution they are presented with to alleviate their pain is to strike a rock with a stick and bring about some water.
Like, are you kidding me? Strike a rock with a stick? This is your proposal, Moses, to quench our thirst? I think then “Is the Lord with us or not?” is a probably the tamest yet most authentic way to capture the people’s frustration in these times.
And really who could blame them for being frustrated? Squarely now in the grieving stage of depression, remembering when they were cared for but now feeling abandoned, it is said that they “quarreled” with the Lord. That they quarreled. Dare I say, just like you and I would have too.
Let me repeat that, just like you and I would have too if we were left directionless in a wilderness, hungry and thirsty and tired and unsatisfied. Is the Lord with us or not?
Now, I imagine that in other lectionary pulpits today, ministers are likely using this text as evidence against the people criticizing their lack of faith. Warning their congregations not to do the same. Saying, if you but only trust, then you wouldn’t have a need to question and no reason to quarrel.
But you see I’m not like other ministers in other pulpits, and in Seminary I was trained to wrestle with scripture like Jacob wrestled with God, and so question and quarrel I shall.
We often get this wrong as people of faith. Believing that having faith ought to somehow stop us from debating with God. That praying if not begging for answers when thrust into the wilderness and suffering from trials is somehow wrong. But it is not… it is not.
For really, what other response is more authentic when life comes and smacks us upside the head? Is the Lord with us or not when we are told that we are going to be terminated and lose our job because of rising interest rates. When we are told that our spouse no longer loves us. When we are told that a leader is suddenly leaving us without having a substitute in sight.
When reports come out like this past week that 345 children on record, of likely thousands more who are unrecorded, have gone missing since Russia began their unjust invasion of Ukraine. At minimum three hundred and forty-five Ukrainian children (and I’m sure countless livestock) are suffering somewhere if not dead. This is their timeline.
So is the Lord with them or not? Can you imagine for a second their people’s anger; their frustration when global leaders meet and shake hands on stages with cameras flashing, and yet nothing gets resolved? It all must seem like an outlandish show of drawing water from a rock; leaving them to ask, is the world with us or not?
And if in fact that is their question, then know that would also be scriptural and faithful.
For remember, over 40 chapters Job questions God and asks for answers. We often remember only the first and the last chapters, but for that whole chunk in the middle, Job quarrels. Remember too that nearly 70% of the Psalms are laments. Songs with sadness, and despair, and questioning why. Also remember that under an oak tree the prophet Elijah asks to die; that from a prison cell John the Baptist asks if Jesus is really the One or “if they should expect another?” and, that from a tree crucified, Jesus himself cries out “My God, my God, why… why have you forsaken me?”
So, far from criticizing the people of scripture today, I would much rather offer my sympathy.
Just as I would like to offer it to you, who in your own lives have or are presently walking through a timeline of suffering, a timeline of feeling thirsty and hungry, tired and abandoned, a timeline of feeling lost and asking, are you with us or not?
And so please hear me when I say that you do have my sympathy, and not my critique, but my care. And also, this good news to share with you:
That in life and in death, in life beyond death, God is with us.
God is with us, and we are not alone.
For somehow, by someway, and at some point in time, God will improbably draw water from a rock and our lives will be changed. For with God not only are all things possible, but in faith, God has already done this in Jesus Christ, the living water, who even from a tomb hewn out of rock yet proved we all have ascension to life.
Paul writes in his letter to the Romans: “We boast in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.”
Now… I don’t know about boasting, as quite frankly that seems rather obscene, but I do believe that in our trials, and in our quarrels, and in our time in the valleys and in the shadows, it is possible to come out stronger and more refined and with more character than we ever had before. It is possible. I believe it. Because I have seen it.
But only if we can also endure it. Only if we can endure the suffering. That’s the trick and also the hardest part. We have to endure it. And the only way we can endure it, I think, is with each other’s and the Spirit’s help. We can’t do it alone, so let’s not pretend to.
On Monday night of this last week, I met with the Compassionate Friends group that meets here at our church in the Palmer Room. This is a group mostly of parents who have buried their own children. This is a support group, mostly of people who have no affiliation with our congregation, and yet here at this church, they gather monthly, to be in community with each other, to cry and to question, but also to lift up and to endure.
And you want to know one of the most amazing things? Besides their endurance? They welcomed me with smiles and open arms. With smiles and open arms. In their togetherness, they have formed a bond that somehow transcends their deep, deep grief, that somehow builds their character, that somehow even elicits hope such that they can greet others like me with warmth. With warmth. It is truly an amazing thing, I dare say like water being drawn from a rock; and a testimony to what the Church could be.
That is if we too were to be real and authentic. That is if we too were to be humble and vulnerable. That is if we too were willing to quarrel, and cry, and question, and endure.
So let us. Let us. Let us share our real lives with each other, our joys and our accomplishments, but also our failures and our disappointments; all while acting as pillars of support, so that in and at Grace we can get through this wilderness test and all of these times together, saying yes, the Lord is indeed with us.
For here we are.
Gathered together.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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First Lesson (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. 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?’
Second Lesson (Romans 5:1-5)
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
