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?”
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I wish this story was as easy as it is often interpreted, that the people forgot about God, Moses remembered, and God saved the day. I wish the scripture’s interpretation was as black and white as, ‘be like Moses, and don’t be like the people.’ But when I read this passage, the people’s complaints are legit, Moses comes off as a jerk, and God becomes the only redeeming character.
For me, this text is neither simple, nor removed. For me, this is a real life story, about the dire situations which drive us to a stuck place, and the creative love of God, which changes the plot. For me this is a story to remember when we are in the worst of times, but the problem is, for both us, and for the Israelites, when we are in the worst of times, these stories are hard to remember. When it is bad, it is hard to remember when it was good. When it is dire, it is hard to remember God is good.
It’s hard to remember anything good, when we are stuck, and the Israelites are stuck. They are stuck without water, and their leader doesn’t seem to care. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” and as if avoiding the question, and his responsibility, Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” And as if their thirst had to be explained, 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?” And as if Moses only cared for himself, he cried out to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” It is as if Moses and his people have all forgotten the history of the Lord. They have forgotten their liberation from Egypt, they have forgotten quail and manna, they have forgotten the ordination of Moses and Aaron, and Moses has even forgotten himself. They are stuck.
Though you and I may not know what it is to be without water, I am sure we know what it is to be stuck. The times when you are in an argument, and everything is escalating, and you’ve forgotten that you can take a break, that you can ask questions, that perhaps, the other person just wants to be heard and feel loved. It is easy to get stuck quarreling. The times when a friendship, or a marriage, or a roommate seems so bad, and it is hard to remember the times when it was good, and the only things you can remember are the bad. The times when you feel so alone that you cannot remember how to make a friend. The times when you are so sad, you cannot remember what it is like to feel happy. The times when everything is different, even the church, and you cannot remember that God’s story is longer and more diverse than our memory. I can only imagine these feeling became worse in Exodus, when every place the Israelites were was only where they were not. I can only imagine these feelings become worse, when survival is at rink. It makes sense to me that wars begin over resources. When there is a lack, you begin to quarrel, and if left up to us, quarreling only escalates. Thankfully for us, and for the Israelites, God remembers and reminds.
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.”
I love that each piece of these instructions is a reminder to a memory. “Go ahead of the people,” God said, reminding Moses that Moses is their leader. His role was not in quarreling with the people, his role was out ahead of them. Then God said, “and take some of the elders of Israel with you.” God reminded Moses and the elders, that there was a structure for support, that Moses was not to be singled out and stoned, but to be the leader of leaders, who are to follow God together. Then God said, “Take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile.” I love this line. God reminded Moses, that Moses already had the tools to alter the situation, and it was a tool he had used before. The tool which once turned the Nile to undrinkable blood will also turn an undrinkable rock into a spring. If they were not in this stuck place, someone, probably Moses, would have been able to think this creatively, to remember the time when it is was good before, and attempt to repeat the same miracle in its opposite form. But when it is bad it is hard to remember when it was good, and when it is dire, it is hard to remember that God is good. And so God continues to remind Moses. God speaks, “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.”
God is reminding them, in their stuck-ness, that God is never stuck, that God is always moving, always alive like living water, and always seeking the good. I have a friend who suffers from panic attacks. She describes getting stuck in a fearful pattern of thinking. Someone once asked her, if whether in the middle of them, she could remember that she’d gotten out of them before, and will get of them again. She had been so stuck in the pattern of fear that she had forgotten she could get unstuck, that God was working toward her freedom, just like the freedom of the Israelites. My friend, who still experiences panic attacks, now remembers the freedom, and finds the way out.
Likewise, I remember as a youth director, having a couple moments when I was frustrated with something the youth were doing, and Gunnar Burts, one of those kids, who gets out of anything, with charm and humor, knew that the Jeff Buckley version of Hallelujah was one favorite songs. It begins with simple and easily recognizable guitar cords. In the middle of my frustration, Gunnar would begin to play that song. My whole demeanor would relax, and I would smile, and begin to laugh. Gunnar brought the staff with which I struck that Nile. He helped me remember the times when it is was good, when all I could see was the stuck because it was bad.
In relationships, the ability to make someone laugh, and the willingness to laugh, is often a marker of health and longevity for that relationship. It’s the ability to get unstuck. In this church I see us unstuck in the energy of our youth program, in the service of our Backpack and Open Door Ministries, in the spirituality of our missional group, in the collective wisdom offered in Lectionary Bible Study, in the sheer joy of kids during Vacation Bible School. All of these have taken our fears and our quarreling and questioning, and approached them with creativity, Godly creativity, that remembers God is bigger than stuck.
In that moment when we become unstuck, our memory becomes longer than the moment we are in, and takes us back to a place where other answers lie, where creativity enters in, where God enters in. This is the beauty of the text. The reminder that God enters in. It is the part of the story I pray we carry with us. It is the part that I pray comes to us in those stuck moments. It is the water when we are thirsty. Let us remember.
