September 28, 2014
Is the Lord Among us or Not?
- Exodus 17:1-7
- Rev Ruth Chadwick Moore
It was time for bed and the little boy’s dad was helping him settle in for the night. Outside the sky was dark with clouds rolling in and then there were lightning flashes and a series of explosive thunder booms. The father tucked his son under the covers and said: “You’ll be alright, just go to sleep now.” The dad’s encouraging words lasted until the next boom of thunder…then the patter of feet on the floor and a call from the top of the stairs. “Daddy I’m scared.” The father came upstairs again and this time he thought it might be the occasion to talk about God, and so the father said: “Now when you’re scared, just remember God is with you too. There is nothing to be scared of.” The encouragement worked until the very next boom of thunder and again the father heard the sound of feet scampering across the floor. “Daddy I’m scared!” said the little boy. “Do you remember what I told you?” asked the father. “Yes,” said the little boy, “I know God is with me; but I’d like to heave someone here with me who has skin on.”
The little boy is asking to be held, embraced and comforted. He is looking for a person, someone to care for him, to protect him, to make him feel safe. And when we are frightened we don’t want to go through the experience alone. And it’s when we’re frightened that we often call out to God and then may wonder where God is during this difficult time in our lives.
In our scripture from Exodus we find the people of Israel still wondering the desert on their journey to the promised land. The scene is familiar. Last week we heard their request to God for food. This week they are in need of water. The people of Israel begin to grumble and murmur and question the faithfulness of God and the leadership of Moses. “Is the Lord among us or not?” they ask. Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to kill us, our children and our cattle with thirst?” Moses then turned to the Lord and said: “What shall I do with these people?”
The need for water was a real need for the Israelites – after all they are in a desert wilderness with no water. The fear of thirst in a dry land is real, it’s not imaginary, and so of course it caused the Israelites anxiety in their journey. And we have our own desert wilderness experiences don’t we? We have places in which our needs are just as great – though not for water – and we have places and events in our lives where our anxiety is just as intense and when we ask the question, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Whatever the wilderness – whether is it a literal jungle or desert, or an emotional, religious, or relational wilderness – in the midst of those experiences one of the things we learn is that life can sometimes be a precarious and frightful journey. It doesn’t stay the same and there are crises in it. And so we find ourselves in the midst of the wilderness asking in bewilderment, “Is the Lord among us or not?” I think we ask that question because the crises, trials, tests and wildernesses in our lives force us to deal with the fact that ultimately we are not in control and so we come up against circumstances in which we don’t know what to do or how to act.
Matthew Myer Boulton, who is the President of Christian Theological Seminary and has preached here at Northminster, believes that the wilderness stories of the Israelite people are about training and spiritual formation. Immediately following the trial of hunger which we heard about last week comes its companion – a trial of thirst, and the people wonder why Moses is trying to kill them and their children and livestock. That lament of complaint by the people may seem childish but it is also understandable – after all they really are thirsty! And that’s just it says Dr. Boulton. The difficult work of spiritual maturation cannot be carried out through talk, study or even preaching and worship alone. Christian discipleship ultimately comes down to life experience and actual practice – that is, to various forms of hunger and thirst lived out as opportunities to trust God, to follow God and to call on God to provide the nourishment we need.
Maybe most of the time our lives go relatively smoothly – everything is beautiful, the path is clear, we are moving on, and it looks like nothing could go wrong for us. With such experiences many people question whether they have a need for God at all. But ultimately life answers that question doesn’t it? Whatever the experience, when it comes, we have choices. We can be stubborn and resistant. We can insist that we can handle it ourselves, and then we remain in our frustration, our confusion, our wilderness, our desert, claiming that there is no exit and no way out. Or, in faith, we can acknowledge our need and believe there is someone greater than we who is able to help. “Behold I will stand before you,” God said to Moses. “Water will come…” Moses believed that, went where the Lord told him to go, and did what the Lord told him to do – and the water was there. The people were refreshed and they continued their journey toward the promised land. They found their answer to the question of whether the Lord was among them or not.
And as Christians we get our answer to that question, we get that nourishment, through Jesus Christ. In our times of wilderness, like the little boy in the thunderstorm, we have someone with skin on. We have God among us in Jesus Christ – who was born in human likeness and found in human form. In Christ we have God who has come to live and dwell among us – the Lord is among us in Jesus Christ.
I am what most theologians would call an incarnational Christian. Probably the main reason I am a Christian is because it means so much to me that God came to live and experience what my human life is like. I am a Christian because I believe that God is with us, that the Lord is among us, in Jesus Christ. The stories of Jesus’ birth, ministry, death and resurrection tell us that it is into the real world of flesh and blood human beings that God comes. It is the story of a radical invasion of God into the real world where we live all year long – a world where there is wilderness, a world where there is thirst and hunger and a world where there is injustice, poverty, hatred, jealousy and both the fear and the longing that things could be different. Jesus experienced life just like we do. To me that means that God understands my challenges and God was willing in Jesus to share my very human life. In Jesus, God was humbled to stand with the suffering, the sinners, the successful and the unsuccessful. In Jesus I see God among ordinary people, participating and being a part of the journey of our lives, as well as a God who is also present in human failure and suffering. The self-emptying of Jesus that is described in the Philippians passage tells me that God in Jesus Christ has an absolute sensitivity to the vulnerability, needs and suffering of others – to the vulnerability, needs and suffering of all us. Christ is my God with skin on, who understands me and still loves me and is with me always – even in the wilderness.
Life is a precarious journey. It never stays the same and we find ourselves sometimes in a wilderness of critical experiences. But this is not an absence of God – it is instead a reminder that there is one to whom we can turn who will lead us to the promised land – who will lead us to a promised life. The good news of Exodus 17 is that despite appearances, water does flow in the desert and the water from a rock can bring life in the wilderness. And the experience of the Israelites can also help us learn that sometimes even our thirst itself may help us grow into the people we were meant to be.
This is good news for every migrant, and for every man or woman who ventures across deserts in search of a better life. But it is also good news for everyone else, and perhaps especially for those of us who don’t typically think of ourselves as migrants or refugees. Because we are all migrants, refugees, or wilderness wanderers – call us what you want. We are all children in formation, pilgrims on the way. More than anything else we need to tell our stories to each other and learn together the slow, difficult, and daily work of living out our struggles as occasions for trust in God – the one who has led us this far and will lead us home. The Lord is among us. The Lord has come to us with skin on in Jesus Christ. And the Lord will provide. May we believe and trust in that provision. Amen.
Resources:
Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 4, Proper 21.
Sermons.com, “The Cry for God, by James G. Cobb.
The Christian Century, “Living by the Word,” Sunday, March 27, 2011 by Matthew Myer Boulton.