This is offered as a change of pace from the Gospel discussion. 

                  Text Exodus 17:1-7

Water, Water, Water

February 24, 2008

First Presbyterian Church of Henderson, NC

Rick Brand, Pastor

Friday it rained. We don't really care how it comes down, as long as it comes. We rejoice and give thanks to God for anything that falls from the sky. Raleigh is at Phase II water restrictions and getting ready to put in place Phase III. Almost all the state is at extreme drought and we join most of the southeast in our water crisis. Her story may be our story soon.

Barbara Brown Taylor, who was one of the Episcopal Churches most gifted preachers until she left the pastorate, wrote last week in the Christian Century about her thanksgiving dinner. It was the day her well ran dry with 15 people at her table. She says they had all agreed to things like the Navy shower, the no water brush of the teeth, the non-flushing of urine. But they ran out. They managed to find stores open and bought bottled water. They had their thanksgiving meal.

The next week they got into the problem of a new well. They would have to drill more than 700 feet to hit water, or they could continue to use their well which had only about 60 inches of water in it at the time. They decided to live on what their well could provide. Of course, it meant major changes in their lives. One of them was that Barbara now has to take their laundry to a laundromat. It had been a long time since she had used one in college. She took a few dollars in quarters and discover that the machine asked for 18 quarters.

She says that when she first started showing up regularly the people there looked at her funny. Some of the women in curiosity asked her why she was there. They started see others like Barbara. One woman still will not let her little girl touch anything as if the little girl would be contaimated by being with people of that class and immediately takes her wet clothes into the SUV and goes home to dry in her own dryer.

Barbara now says that some of her friends feel sorry for her. She tells them no. "Not having enough water at home has brought me into contact with people who do not have enough of other things at home, and I am enjoying their company. I never thought of it before, but scarcity evokes community. Every week I leave my place of private plenty to go to a common watering hole in town where I get to watch my clothes go round and round while I think about things I might never have thought about otherwise."

Barbara suggests that scarcity evokes community. That is a great hope. There was a letter in the Daily Dispatch that suggests that Vance County and Henderson ought to use its connection to Kerr Lake and entice all the businesses we can to come to Henderson because we got water. Stealing business from Raleigh does not sound like community to me. Especially when the writer reports that he had lived in California, and I know how vicious the water issue can become between municipalities."

"Scarcity evoking community?" The only community it sounds like that has been evoked in Exodus story is the community of a mob protest. One of the features that I always miss in the Biblical stories is the dimension of time. There is no concern in the Bible about how long it has been between stories. Did they happen one right after the other? Did they happen months apart. "All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord." Remember in the wilderness of Sin the people of Israel had complained that there was no food and God had begun his meals on dew program and delivered manna every night, and the quails flew in and provided meat. Manna came now every day for their survival. Manna had answered their complaint about no food, and it was still coming. Now all of them begin to move out in stages. This is an orderly relocation by the command of God. They come to this new place God has given them.

There is no water for them to drink. Scarcity evokes a community of protest. This is an angry mob at the Tent of Moses demanding that Moses do something about it. We do not know how long they were there before they started this protest. Did they wait a week or two thinking that somebody would find a stream or a pool? Somebody told me that it does not take long, less than 24 hours for a person to become desperate about water in the desert. We want Water. We want Water. They come to Moses. Moses goes and consults with God and God tells him to go to a rock and hit the rock with the staff that was used to open the Nile, and water would come. Moses goes and strikes the rock and water comes.

But that is not the end of the story. And the rest of the story is not a happily ever after story. Over in the 95th Psalm there is a kind a gracious invitation to the people to come and worship God, for God is the rock of our salvation. The Lord is Great, God is good, For he is our God and we are his people, the sheep of his hand." That is the carrot, but then comes the stick, do not be like the children of Israel who hardened their hearts at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tested me, and put me to the proof though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, "They are a people who err in heart and they do not regard my ways. Therefore I swore in my anger that they should not enter my rest."

The complaints of the children of Israel at Meribah keep them out of the promised land. The action of Moses in the hitting of the rock kept Moses from being allowed to go into the Holy Land. God did not take kindly to what happen in that place.

Maybe we do not like the picture this story gives us of God. We like God to be our Teddy Bear God. A good God who indulges us in our every want. This jealous God who does not like to be tested. This Jealous God who has a long memory and does not forget this offense. What kind of forgiveness is that? This jealous God who becomes angry at his people when they do not trust him after all he has done for them. This picture of a Holy God who does not want to be forgotten nor neglected.

For did you notice in that story of Moses and his people and the scarcity of water, who was not mentioned in the conversations between Moses and the people. This is a story of a people who have been rescued from the army of the Egyptians; given manna and quail in the wilderness; lead to this new place by the commandments of God, and yet when the mob comes to Moses, they demand that Moses do something. The mob doesn't demand that God do something. They do not lift their voices against God. They do not expect God to do anything for them. They want Moses to do something about the shortage.

Walter Brueggemann has pointed out that in the beginning of the book of Exodus after the oppression of the new King of Egypt, "the people of Israel groaned under their bondage and cried out for help, and their cry under bondage came up to God." God heard that cry and called Moses. The moans, the groans, the cries went up to God. It is right and just for people in trouble to stand together and cry out, this is not good. This is not just. This is not right, but that cry, that shout, needs to be addressed to the right place.

The children of Israel at Meribah come and complain to Moses.

Somehow they had forgotten from whence cometh their help. Remember that Psalm, "I lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help?" It is a question not a statement. As the pilgrim considers the journey though the mountains with all the thieves and dangers of the journey, the questions is where shall the pilgrimage get help. Help comes from the Lord."

Here the scarcity-evoked mob comes to Moses and complains, that he has led them out here to die, that he is the one who has tricked them and let them down. He is the one who is supposed to fix it. Where is the name of God in this discussion and this protest? When Moses strikes the rock, he does not say, In the name of God, by the power of God, in the providence of God here is water. He just strikes the rock we are told.

Maybe you think it is a bit harsh and cruel of God to be so picky. Maybe you think God is being a little too narrow minded and taking things too personal. Maybe you would suggest God cool it a bit, lighten up a little, they didn't meant it that way. But God has told us over and over in the Scriptures that he is a Jealous God. Thou shall have no other God before me. Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you." God does not expect to be forgotten or ignored in our lives. God does not enjoy being lost behind the gifts, nor confused with his messengers.

I have mentioned that while we were in Texas we often saw the bumper sticker that said, "God, Guns and Guts made America great, Let's Keep all Three." So our gratitude and praise for the blessings and joy of life that have been given by God are to be shared with guns and guts. I don't think so. Not this God in Exodus. When you think about your good health and your strength and abilities, who do you give credit and thanks to: Blue Cross and Blue Shield and the medical community, to your doctor and your faithfulness to the routine she has given you, or to the grace and mercy of God. When you turn the spigot and the water flows do you rejoice and give thanks that you live in the city which has the best water in the state of North Carolina or do you give thanks to God. To whom do you give thanks for your financial situation? The N.C. Teachers Credit Union, State Employees Retirement system, Exxon stocks, Wall Street, the Republican Party? Who gets the praise and worship for the family and friends you have? There is something that troubles me about sport jock religion but there is something very right when those athletes in the midst of their greatest accomplishment rejoice and first give credit to God for their gifts of body and ability.

When they needed water at Meribah, the scarcity-evoked mob forgot who had given them their gifts, forgot who was the source of their freedom, who was the source of their nourishment even now, and ultimately had the questions of water, living water, life and death in His power.

Over in the New Testament story Jesus and the Samaritan woman have a discussion also about water and living water, about worship and where and how that worship is done. Jesus and woman too know that worship of the giver of our gifts is the expected response of the human heart. Where we are when we receive the gifts we worship God in spirit and in truth. Lent is a good time to examine our lives and see to whom do we give the glory and praise for the incredible number of good gifts we have each been given.