For Many

Broken for you and for many. The varied, mighty many. Many sleepy moms. Many shiny drag queens. Many loud toddlers. Many shower singers. Many map-refusers. Many dress code breakers. Many dehydrated disasters. Many girl in red listeners. Many perpetual tweet drafters. Many shoeless wonders. Many unrequited crush-havers. Many failures to pray away the truth. Many shaky hands. Many tongues without taste. Many texters and drivers. Many amateur bakers. Many people who are tired of being called brave and strong. Many invisible pains. Many frocket wearers. Many bottle cap collectors. Many scared. Many fed up. Many forgotten. Many extinguished. For you, beautiful you. And for many, the beautiful many. Thanks be to God.

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Promises too Big to Carry Alone

I had the opportunity to visit a church on Kindergarten Bible Sunday. It’s a precious gift to bear witness to a church acknowledging the growth of their children and planting in them a love for reading the stories and teachings of God. I smiled as this little girl wrapped her arms whole heartedly around her new Bible which nearly outsized her torso entirely. As she trotted back to her family, you could see the weight of those stories actually changing her gait as she tried to balance. 

In the Book of Joshua, God instructs the elders carrying the Ark of the Covenant the take the first brave steps across the Jordan, and to stand in the riverbank, holding back the water until all have crossed. 

The promises of God are heavy. The water those promises hold back are heavy, too. Sometimes they feel heavier than others. 

When children are small, it is easy to remember that the promises of God are too big for them to carry on their own. We remind our children not to fear the dark, teach them songs of God’s great love for them, walk through their first Big Grief imagining together to joyous relief of eternal life for those we love. 

As we grow, especially in those first vital years of emerging adulthood, we often believe we are meant to carry these promises on our own now. That we are finally strong enough and smart enough and mature enough to bear the full weight of reality—that we have to. 

The water that threatens us, though, is too heavy to be held back by good attitudes and reasonable choices and strong moral character. It can only be held back by those Big Promises of God, the ones we need help holding. 

When you support the Denton Wesley Foundation, it’s not just paying the maintain a building with a cross and flame out front, it’s taking the first brave steps into the river, holding the very promises of God. 

We grow big enough to carry our own Bible, but none of us are capable of holding the promises of God on our own. The campuses we serve are filled with people God dearly loves in need of a community that will hold the water back for them. We are grateful for the ways you hold the water back, because it gives us a safe and dry place to cross. 

If you’re thirsty, maybe you should say something

Written for Foundations of Preaching, Brite Divinity School, Spring 2019

Exodus 17:1-17

Water from the Rock

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 with 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[a] and Meribah,[b] because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

When was the last time you were really thirsty? 

What’s the thirstiest you’ve ever been?

I remember being so thirsty that I had no idea I needed water. I was at Glen Lake Camp. I was in sixth grade, staying away at camp for the first time. I had spent the entire week going on hikes through the river and cruising down water slides. There was water everywhere. But like many under-supervised sixth graders, I didn’t drink any. 

Thursday morning I walked into the dining hall, and I couldn’t breathe. The room started spinning. I tried to calm down. I got my food. Sat down at my table. Tried to eat. I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to harsh the mood of everyone’s fun plans for the day. I didn’t want to interrupt the inside jokes and songs bubbling up from the table with joy. 

But I felt worse and worse as breakfast dragged on. Everyone around me was talking but I could only hear my own panicked short breathing. 

Finally the counselor noticed that I was hyperventilating with my eyes glazed over and took me to the nurse. 

When I admitted to only drinking fruit punch all week. The nurse said 

“your body is so thirsty. Why didn’t you say anything?”

This morning our text is about people who were very thirsty.

And they said something, and it might have saved their lives. 

Israelites have been liberated from Egypt where they were kept in slavery for generations. Moses led them across dry land through the parted seas. 

When they were hungry, God rained down flaky manna from heaven. But even though a lot of things have gone their way, the wilderness is vast and empty and hot and scary. 

The Israelites remember fondly the security of bondage in Egypt. At least in Egypt they had food and water. 

In this story, their complaining that we’ve seen throughout the book of Exodus becomes quarreling. Which is apparently much more serious. 

Can we really blame them?

Just like the Snickers commercials say… You’re not you when you’re hungry. 

So here we are, walking through the dry dirty desert. Eating flaky confusing heaven food for breakfast lunch and dinner. 

But you know what would really help this stuff go down? Some water. 

Remember getting done with work and taking a big gulg of water in the shade? Remember the feeling of the liquid cascading down your throat, healing up the itchy scratchy thirst, all the way down to your stomach? 

The hair on your arms standing up as your body cools down? Yeah. We could really go for some of that right about now. 

Hey, Moses, what’s the water plan out here? We’re getting thirsty. Give us some water. 

Moses condemns their complaining, asking them why they would dare test God. God who has provided so much. God who gives freedom and safety and food from the sky. 

Why don’t they just trust God?

But Moses theologizing doesn’t soothe their aching throats. 

The people press Moses, test him, and Moses is afraid of what the ornery crowd, maddened by thirst, is going to do to him. 

Moses cries out to God, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

God provides clear instructions for Moses to be able to provide water for the Israelites, and in fact, promises to stand right there before the people. 

“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.”

And the narrator trusts that we will read the Lord’s words as the effective water rushing down the throats of the Israelites. 

Because they never write that their thirst was quenched, but God’s promise is taken as good, and the people live another day, even Moses, who feared he wouldn’t live to see the day the Israelites died of thirst in the desert. 

Moses was afraid of the Israelites stoning him, and God answers this fear by drawing water out of—a stone. A tool that instills fear of violence, in this story, becomes a wellspring of life. 

Later in this same chapter, Moses’ arms get tired as he is holding them up in prayer, and the people place stones underneath his arms to support him. 

If we follow the rocks in this story, we see that the relationship between leaders and the people that follow them is complicated. 

Is it a failure of the Israelite’s faith to question Moses? 

Or is it a betrayal of their God-given survival instincts to wilt in thirst, letting the room spin around them, without saying anything?

 It seems, God can come into this complicated relationship, and not just mediate it into something tolerable, but transform it—turning the rocks that would be tools of death, into fountains, into support. 

Often this story is used to condemn the Israelites for not having enough faith, and always complaining to a God who gives them so much, 

but if we look closely, the people’s thirst and testing is what prompts Moses to go to God, and God’s response is not anger or condemnation, 

but when the Israelites are caught between a rock and thirsty place,

 God makes water bubble up from the rock. Bringing life into a place where it could not be seen before. And perhaps this is the holy response not just to Moses, but even to the tired grumbling of the Israelites. 

It seems clear that Moses can’t be trusted to do the work of discernment for this community on his own. Moses continually glosses over the basic needs of his people, and only takes them to God begrudgingly when they cry out. 

If you’re thirsty, maybe you should say something. 

We can’t always trust our leaders to provide for us. Perhaps supporting our leaders needs to involve questioning them. Perhaps God will show up when we raise our voices and declare our need. 

Making due in situations that God doesn’t want for us is not holy. It’s not hope. 

Augustine writes: “Hope has two beautiful daughters: Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see to it that they do not stay that way.”

For years, the country of Liberia was caught in the throws of Civil war. The casualties rose daily, as people were gunned down in public spaces, because they were caught between an authoritarian dictator and violent rebel groups. 

While men were the primary participants in the fighting, women were the ones to bear the burden of the war: seeking to find food for their families, to keep them safe, many of them were raped and killed for no reason at all. The Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace had had enough. 

The women sat outside, chanting in the fish market. Held organizing meetings in churches and mosques. 

Finally, the wives all across the country went on strike, calling their husbands to end the civil war. The movement forced the seated dictator and the rebel groups to attend peace talks in Ghana, where the women followed. 

They sat outside in the hallway during the talks and refused to let anyone leave until a resolution had been agreed on. 

The women of Liberia did not act in a way their leaders approved of. 

They were not meek. They were not content. 

They toppled a dictator, put war criminals behind bars and rehabilitated child soldiers from rebel groups, through years of work. 

One of the founders, Leymah Gbowee, said that it was time the women of this country ”take the destiny of Liberia into their own hands”…”in the past they were silent, but after being killed, raped, dehumanized, and infected with diseases, war has taught them that the future lies in saying no to violence and yes to peace.”

And so, They said something, and it might have saved their lives. 

It would foolish to claim that their grumbling, complaining, quarreling, testing came from a lack of faith in a God that provides…it seems this testing came from an incredible faith 

Faith—that believes God is capable of more than all of this. 

God can transform the relationship of leaders and those that follow them, and many of us would love for it to be the leaders responsibility to invite God into that place. But it takes all of us. 

The place where God gave the Israelites water from a rock is named in honor of the miracle that happens there. 

But they don’t name it: “God provides.” Or “Thirst quenched” or “Moses was right as always.”

Instead, they name it Massah— test, and Merribah— quarrel. 

Perhaps we are to remember the people who trusted God more than they trusted God’s messenger. The people who molded Moses into a better leader because they questioned him. 

The people who might of stoned him, but instead held him accountable and held him up. 

The people who said something…and it might have saved their lives. 

Where are the places you’ve been told to trust God? Could it be that you’re actually being asked to ignore the needs of your community? 

Could it be that “trust God” is easier to deal out than to address the problem? 

Could it be that God is working—-not in your passive waiting,

 but in the grumbles of your hungry belly, 

in the disgusted fear when you look out on a landscape of violence and injustice, 

in the itchy dry picking at the back of your throat? 

What would it mean to ‘trust God’ if God was calling us to not just endure this life, but to transform it? 

If you’re thirsty, maybe you should say something. 

I spent this week trying to do the things that Jesus did by asking more questions.

I noticed that intentionally asking questions allows me to grow in curiosity and humility.

I chatted with a new friend at a coffee shop. Last week the conversation would have lasted ten seconds before I shut it down, but instead I leaned in and asked more questions. I learned that my new friend was 32 days sober, and she was working on her anxiety so that she could go back to school and get her GED. We talked about what helps her the most, what the people in her life do that aren’t useful. We talked about the things I do to try and be a better youth minister. She told me how amazing it is that it’s my real job to hang out with teenagers and teach them—she is right. She told me which crayons are the best. I was deeply enriched by this conversation where I learned more about someone I would usually not engage. She inspired gratitude and humility in me that no amount of daily scripture emails could ever do.

I asked my friends with anxiety what they wish their friends and families would do or not do when they are having a particularly difficult day. They were gracious to offer a glimpse into what their life with anxiety is like and how others can be more supportive and helpful. Yesterday I got to use those helpful thoughts to be present with someone I care about and help them cope with their anxiety. If I hadn’t asked that question, I wouldn’t be able to love them as well in that moment.

One of the things I have noticed this week is that questions grind into the things we think are settled. When we dig up our thoughts and emotions and circumstances with questions, we air them out. We make room for other people to join us in them. We open ourselves to change. We realize we don’t have everything figured out, and neither do our friends and adversaries. Asking questions makes room for us to grow.

The image I keep coming back to is the hard, rocky ground in my front yard. Grass or flowers or even weeds had no chance of growing there when we first moved in. We had to dig around and till up the ground to make it soft and open before any good thing could grow. Maybe asking questions is disturbing or hard word because we need to unsettle the ground inside our hearts to let something new grow. This week what God grew in me was love and admiration for someone I didn’t know who was overcoming shockingly difficult circumstances.

Jesus asks questions that spin us out of our own perspective so we can see through the eyes of our neighbor. He asks questions that challenge the things we have already decided. He asks questions that bring our true motives up to the top, so we can see what rocks are blocking our growth.

As we approach Holy Week and we relive the stories of Jesus having his last meal with his friends, being arrested, questioned, and crucified…it’s good for us to make room in our hearts and lives for ambiguity. If we’re curious about what mysterious things God is up to, and we approach these stories with the humility of sinners with hard, rocky, dirty hearts full of complicated motives, we might find ourselves being stirred up. I bet we’d be surprised by the things God can resurrect when the dirt goes flying off our own tombs.

What is God growing in your question-tilled heart this lenten season?