The Holy Struggle - Exodus 17:1-7
Although today is chilly and overcast, spring is very clearly poking her head out these days. My Japanese magnolia has bloomed pink and white, dropped all its petals, and is now budding with that light, bright, green that we only see in the first few weeks of the season. The jonquils came out in full force this year. From my kitchen window, I can see my irises just starting to pop up. I love these signs of spring, because winter is absolutely not my season.
If you remember a couple of years ago we had a massive, late-February winter storm. All of central Arkansas was completely blanketed in over 10 inches of snow. In my conversations with friends and also on social media, I heard folks use language like, “it’s a winter wonderland!” Or, “it looks so magical outside!” But when I looked out at the solid white landscape from my kitchen window, all I saw were frozen pipes, icy roads, power outages, and bone-chilling cold.
Recently, we had another couple of “snow days,” and although the weather was not nearly as extreme, most of us stayed home for a day or two just to be safe. It was a strange experience. Lately, snow days remind of the early days of Covid when we didn’t leave our houses for days at a time. It can be difficult to slow down to that degree, because without sufficient distraction, there are fewer places to hide from the state of the world, and our anxiety can get out of hand.
I imagine this was the case for the Israelites in the wilderness. With nothing but dirt and rocks to distract them from their sorry state, their anxiety must have been quite high. Today, when folks travel to the Holy Land, they often report back about stunning desert landscapes, beautiful blue skies, and a sense of the presence of God. But after their escape from Egypt, the Israelites wandered through that same desert and saw only death and destruction.
When we meet the Israelites in today’s reading from Exodus, they have only been out of Egypt for two chapters. In chapter 15, they sing to the Lord the song of Miriam, in thanksgiving for their deliverance. Then they rest at a place called Elim, which we’re told has 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees. Then in chapter 16, they start to feel the weight of their journey. They’ve been in the desert for over a month and are worried they don’t have enough to eat. This is when God gives them manna from heaven.
Today, in the opening of chapter 17, the people really start to suffer. They’ve been walking for months and they are running out of water. In their anguish, exhaustion, and thirst, they ask a question that we have all asked and will likely ask again. Is God with us in this agony or not? They beg Moses for an answer. Moses, in somewhat of a panic, relays their question to God. I have great sympathy for Moses here. I can tell you from experience, when your flock cries out to you, in anguish, where is God in our agony, it can rattle your core.
As always, God responds with divine calm. God tells Moses to take his staff, the very staff has taken water away, both by parting it and turning it to blood, and use that staff to strike the rock at Horeb. Moses does as he’s told, and although the text doesn’t say it explicitly, we assume that the peoples’ thirst is quenched.
What happens next is fascinating to me. Moses names the place where this monumental event has occurred. This was the people’s custom, handed down all the way from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But Moses doesn’t name this place something obvious like “God provides” or “place of living water,” which would have been delightful for preachers everywhere today.
No, Moses names the place Meribah and Massah, words that mean quarrel and test in Hebrew. Instead of marking the miracle that occurred, Moses seems to mark the conflict that preceded it. I am struck by the idea that what is holy in this story is not just what God provides, but the way in which the people struggled with God.
The people had lost faith that God was present with them in the arid, empty desert. But that same arid emptiness was all God needed to bring forth life. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating, a basic fact about our God is that where we see only death, God always offers life. There are times in our lives when this is easier to trust than others. It is good and holy when our faith does not waver. But Meribah and Massah teach us that it is also good and holy when our faith is born out of struggle and doubt.
Houses of government, whether state or federal, are often places where folks can see only death and sadness. For others, the fight against climate change feels like a hopeless struggle. The hungry or unhoused people we encounter here in our downtown house of worship remind us of our brokenness in ways that can be overwhelming.
What would it mean if we thought of these struggles as holy? What would it take for us to cling to the faith that God can and will bring water from these rocks? Can we hold on to the hope that on the other side of this struggle we will find new life?
Bringing us back down to earth, I know that God was busy nurturing all kinds of new life under the blanket of snow which I was convinced could only cause pain and devastation. Perhaps winter time in Arkansas is a Meribah and Massah for me, a place where I can only see death but where God always brings new life.
This makes the recent signs of spring that much more important. They’re reminders for me that wintertime is almost over, and that my struggle to hold on to faith in wintertime is a holy struggle. And perhaps most importantly, signs of spring remind me to be on the lookout for the rocks that hold living water. When we put our trust in God, we’ll find that they’re all around us, bringing new life into the world. Amen.