Water Please? —Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 18A/Proper 21A (Exodus 17)
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| Marc Chagall, Moses Striking the Rock |
Exodus 17:1-7 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
17 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. 2 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?” 3 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?” 4 So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do for this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5 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. 6 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. 7 He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
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Due to
our rapidly changing climate, weather patterns are becoming more unpredictable.
I grew up in the western parts of the United States. In recent years these
regions have faced long-term drought, with occasional strong bursts of rain, much
of which simply washes off the hard-packed soil. One of the challenges of the
modern era is the expansion of desertification, especially in regions dependent
on snow melt, snow that hasn’t been coming as it once did. However, there are
those in our midst who, for a variety of reasons, some political, have chosen
to ignore science. That is a problem.
What
we’ve been learning in recent decades is that water is a precious resource. Some
creatures have adapted to the desert and desert-like situations, and thus
require little water to survive, but for human beings and likely most of the
natural world, water is a necessity. One of the reasons why humans can’t live
for long without water is that our bodies are composed largely of water. You
take away the water and we shrivel up and die. Because water is so essential to
life, many of our local and global conflicts center on access to water. It is a
major cause of problems in the Middle East, but also in the western parts of
the United States. Several states are largely dependent on water from the
Colorado River. Due to increasing temperatures and increasing population growth
in the American Southwest, which has upped water usage, the water that makes up
the Colorado River has been overtapped. Two large reservoirs (Lake Powell and
Lake Mead) have fallen to dangerously low levels. What is true there is true
across the globe.
Our
contemporary concerns for water, whether because of drought or as was true in
Flint, Michigan, old pipes with high lead content, we’ve become more aware of
the realities surrounding water usage. There’s only so much water, and once
it’s been used, it’s difficult to replace, as folks in the Central Valley of
California or Southern Oregon have discovered as their wells tapped out or
their water sources dried up.
When we
turn to the Scripture reading from Exodus 17 for Proper 21, we once again
encounter the people of Israel as they make their way across the Sinai toward
the Promised Land. In the prior week’s reading from Exodus 16:2-15, we saw that
the people of Israel were concerned that they didn’t have sufficient food for
their journey across the desert. After all, there were no supermarkets out
there in the Sinai for the people to make use of. Thankfully, God stepped in and
provided them with sufficient food in the form of manna (a substance useful to
make bread, though it only lasted a day before going bad) as well as a daily
ration of quail. It wasn’t gourmet but it sustained the people, and everyone
had what they needed—no more or no less. Food is one thing, but people get
thirsty as well. As noted above, deserts are not known for their abundant water
sources. So, once again the people began to grumble and complain to Moses when
they reached Rephidim, where no water could be located. They demanded that
Moses give them water.
We
learned earlier that their journey in the wilderness was designed to help them
build trust in Yahweh, the God whom they didn’t know very well, if at all,
before Yahweh sent Moses to deliver them from Pharaoh’s grip. We’re still in
the early stages of the journey. They’ve seen Yahweh open the sea and take care
of their enemy. They were eating meals due to the generosity of Yahweh.
However, they’re still learning to trust. Yes, God provided food, but without
water, they would still die in the desert. They needed both to live. So, as you
might expect, they made their complaints loud and clear to Moses, who appeared
to be the one with the connection to Yahweh. They might not be slaves anymore
but death in the desert from thirst isn’t the best tradeoff. After all, at
least back in Egypt, they had access to both food and drink. They’re wondering
whether God was truly with them.
When
the people challenge Moses, he responds by asking them why they’re testing God.
Their response here is much like the earlier challenges: “Why did you bring us
out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” (Ex. 17:3).
Moses then turned to God and asked: “What shall I do for this people? They are
almost ready to stone me” (Ex. 17:4). It does seem as if things are getting
tense. Moses had led the people out of slavery, through the sea. When the
people were hungry and complained he turned to God, and God came through with
food. Now, the people are ready to revolt against his leadership. While Moses
claimed to speak for God, the people weren’t so sure. Even if he was speaking
for God, he seemed to be a rather incompetent leader. I expect that many a
President or Governor can identify with Moses at this point. No matter what you
did for the people yesterday, it’s a new day and a new problem, and you haven’t
solved the problem, so you’re incompetent and must go. Moses had promised
freedom. They were free, but freedom wasn’t everything they had expected. Dying
of thirst didn’t seem a benefit of freedom. Since the promise was a land of
plenty they wanted to know when they would get there!
With
the people grumbling and complaining and perhaps threatening to kill him, Moses
turns to God seeking help. Moses wants to know what to do with the people. Once
again God provides a solution to the problem, not Moses’ leadership but the
people’s thirst. This solution involves Moses taking his staff, the one he
raised over the sea when it divided, and striking the rock at Horeb in the same
way he struck the Nile and brought on it the plagues. God instructed to take the Elders of Israel as
witnesses to the rock of Horeb, where God will be standing, and Moses is told
to strike the rock. It is appropriate to note here that Horeb is also the site
of Yahweh’s appearance to Moses in the form of the Burning Bush (Exod. 3:1-6). As
Horeb is revealed to be the Mountain of God in Exodus 3, it is likely that Horeb
is also the place where Moes encounters Yahweh and receives the covenant (Exodus 24:9-24). Thus, this is a place where one has divine encounters as we see in Deuteronomy and elsewhere.
When it comes to the solution to
the problem at hand—the people’s thirst—God tells Moses that when he strikes
the rock, water will come forth from the rock, providing water for the people
to drink. Moses did as God instructed. While the author of the passage doesn’t
tell us what happened to the rock, we are meant to assume that it produced
water. The message here, as Walter Brueggemann notes, is that “only Yahweh can
give the resources for life, but Yahweh will do so through the work of Moses” [“Exodus,” New Interpreter's Bible, 1:817]. Pamela Scalise offers this reflection as
well: “As water gushes from the rock at Horeb, so the presence of the Lord is
associated with abundant water in Psalm 46: 4; Isaiah 33: 21; Ezekiel 47; and
John 4: 1– 15” [Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship (p. 757). Kindle Edition].
While God provides the necessary
water, saving Moses’ job and perhaps his life, the name Moses gives to the
place serves as a reminder that the people are still testing God. Thus, the
narrator writes that Moses named the place Massah (Heb. Test) and Meribah
(Heb. Quarrel) because the people quarreled (with Moses) and tested Yahweh, for
the people asked: “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exod. 17:7). The phrasing of
the question reveals that the people still aren’t sure that God was present
with them. They’re still trying to figure out if this God Moses spoke of was
reliable. Is this not a question we often ask as well?
While a solution to a problem is
found, allowing the people to continue their journey, the passage raises a
question, as Walter Brueggemann notes, of whether we tend to view religion in a
utilitarian fashion. Thus: “God is judged by the desired outcomes for the
asking community. Thus, the community in this story would conclude that if the
Israelites lack well-being, then God is not present for them.” The question
then is whether we also view God in the same way. Do we make demands on God
that reduce faith to utilitarianism? With this question in mind, Brueggemann
suggests that the “temptation to reduce religion to utilitarian effect is the
problem with which the book of Job struggles. In the end, the whirlwind
speeches of Job 38-41 assert (and Job accepts in 42:1-6) that the reality of
God is not commensurate with human prosperity. This text provides the ground
for criticism of communities of faith that seek to ‘program’ the capacity of
God to do the wonders required by the community” [NIB, 1:819].
So, what is it that we desire from
God? What benefits do we expect to accrue from being in a relationship with this
God whom Moses encountered in the Burning Bush and who provided bread from
heaven (manna) and water from a rock? As I ponder this question, my thoughts go
to the aftermath of the feeding of the 5000 in John 6. Remember that the next
day the people, having gone looking for Jesus at Capernaum. When they found
him, Jesus told them that they went looking for him because they had their fill
of bread and wanted more. Jesus responded to their desires by pointing them to
bread that does not perish, the food of eternal life. In fact, Jesus reveals
himself to be the bread of life, such that whoever comes to him will never be
hungry or thirsty (Jn. 6:22-40). The
question raised in this story invites us to consider our expectations of God.
As with the prior stories of the
crossing of the sea and the provision of food in the desert, this story reveals
something about the role the time wandering in the wilderness plays in establishing
the relationship between God and God’s people. A look at the map suggests that
the journey should have taken a few weeks to get from Egypt to the Jordan, not
forty years. But it takes time to establish relationships. So, the journey will
continue so that the people can be tested even as they test God’s patience. The
time of wilderness wandering helped to build a relationship between the people
and God, but the trust building is not yet complete. The journey must continue,
but a sign of presence has been established. In this place, God provides water
to quench their thirst. Spiritually, this reading invites us to reflect on our
own dependence on the provision of God for our spiritual sustenance. As the
Psalmist reflects:
As a deer longs for flowing
streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
the face of God?
(Ps. 42:1-2)
While we need physical food and drink to thrive, we need
spiritual food and drink to thrive as well. We are, as the Psalmist reminds us,
like deer who long for flowing streams.
Getting
back to my opening reflection, it is good to remember that water is truly
precious. It may flow from a rock as in this story, but as we are discovering,
water is a precious commodity that requires our protection. The threat of
drought, pollution, and overuse are ever with us. Perhaps this story can serve
as a reminder that the water present in this world is a gift of God that has
been entrusted to us for our use, not abuse.
So, we
turn to the one who is the “Fount of every blessing” tuning our hearts to “sing
thy grace; streams of mercy never ceasing,” calling “for songs of loudest
praise.” [Robert Robinson, “Come, Though Fount of Every Blessing," Glory to
God, #475].
Note: I wrote a reflection for Lent 3A from the same passage in March 2023. See it for a slightly different reflection.
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