The Third Sunday in Lent
What To Do When Faith
In God Is Challenged
~Exodus 17:1-7~
William S. Epps, Senior Pastor
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1Next, they journeyed forth, the whole company of the sons of Israel, from the wilderness of Sin, setting out as Yahweh directed, they pitched camp at Rephidim (“places of spreading out”?), where there was no water for the people to drink.
2So it was that the people became dissatisfied with Moses, and said “Give us water, so that we may drink!” But Moses answered them, “Why are you so dissatisfied with me? Why are you putting Yahweh on trial?” 3Still the people were parched for water there, so the people grumbled against Moses, and said, “What is this? You have brought us up from Egypt to kill us, along with our sons and our stock, of thirst?” 4Moses then called out to Yahweh for help, saying, “What am I to do with these people? A little more, and they will be stoning me to death!” 5So Yahweh said to Moses, “Move along in front of the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel: take in your hand the staff with which you struck the river Nile, and go along, 6When you see me standing in front of you, there on a rock in Horeb, then strike the rock, and water will flow forth from it, so that the people can drink.” So Moses did exactly that, as the elders of Israel looked on.b 7For that reason, he called the name of the place “Massah (Testing) and Meribah (Dissatisfaction),” on account of the dissatisfaction of the sons of Israel and on account of their putting Yahweh to the test, asking, “Is Yahweh present with us, or not?" Exodus 17:1-7
Introduction
On this third Sunday in Lent, a passage in Exodus 17:1-7 shares what to do when faith in God is challenged. Here is an instance about people asking, “is God among us or not?” In their frustration they passionately vented their doubt, disappointment and distress. Has your faith in God ever been challenged?
Imagine a situation in which you may have asked, like the children of Israel did,
"Is the Lord among us or not?" Here is a story about a people's faith in God being challenged.
The unfolding drama of this dilemma is quite interesting, insightful and inspirational.
A contingent of persons set out as directed by God into the wilderness. They came to a place called Rephidim (a place of spreading out) but there was no water to drink. The people became dissatisfied with Moses and expressed it. “Give us water, so that we may drink?” But Moses answered them, “Why are you so dissatisfied with me? Why are you putting Yahweh on trial?” 3Still the people were parched for water there, so the people grumbled against Moses, and said, “What is this? You have brought us up from Egypt to kill us, along with our sons and our stock, of thirst?”
The Lord instructs Moses, “Move along in front of the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel: take in your hand the staff with which you struck the river Nile, and go along, 6When you see me standing in front of you, there on a rock in Horeb, then strike the rock, and water will flow forth from it, so that the people can drink.” When Moses did this, water came forth in abundance, providing for the needs of the Israelites. He named the place Massah (test) and Meribah (quarrel), an epitaph which the Israelites would gladly have stricken from their history. Let me make a distinction between grumbling and quarreling. When your grumble, you complain because you want a need addressed. When you quarrel, you demand that you receive what you need.
Consider what it means to have your faith in God challenged.
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The point of this narrative is understood by the conclusion: Moses names the place, “Testing and Dissatisfaction,” a name that reverses the sequence of previous events. Since the dissatisfied people put Yahweh (and Moses) to the test by their quarrelling, which posed the unbelievable question, “Is Yahweh present with us, or not?” The scandal of this question is their neglecting to consider and realize all that God had done for them: The Lord released and freed them from bondage; the Lord rescued them by the sea; the Lord guided them through the wilderness and provided their sustenance; and their very presence at Rephidim -- all have answered their inquiry of, "Is Yahweh present with us?"
The only unbelievable aspect of the narrative is that the Israelites could possibly ask such a question at such a time, and on the basis of so flimsy a provocation. The question anticipates the terrible doubt that is to come (Exodus 32), even as it poses the real basis of the grumbling and neglect of the many proofs of the Lord’s presence with them. When you consider where you have come from, all you have survived, and that you are where you are due to the Lord being with you, how can you quarrel about a current situation of dissatisfaction?
Consider what it means to permit your dissatisfaction about a situation to cause you to quarrel demanding that God prove God’s self to you.
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The Israelites should have learned to trust God to supply their needs, based upon God’s previous provision of water at Marah (Exodus 15:22-26) and quail and manna in the wilderness of Sin in Chapter 16. Furthermore, the Israelites did far more than just grumble, as they had previously done. Before this, the Israelites had grumbled against Moses and Aaron (15:24; 16:2, 7-8), but now they are quarreling with Moses and about to stone him (17:4). Before, the Israelites asked Moses what they were to drink (15:24), but now they are demanding that Moses give them water to drink. Since Moses had been able to miraculously sweeten the waters at Marah and to produce quail and manna, the people appear to be demanding that he perform another miracle for them. There is a difference between asking and demanding.
The difference with this situation and the response of the people and other instances is apparent. When the waters at Marah were bitter the people complained what shall we drink? Moses cries out to the Lord and the Lord showed him a piece of wood that made the bitter water sweet. It is as though he must prove he has God’s authority to lead them by producing water miraculously. The people were challenging God here as well. The challenge of the Israelites was, "Is the Lord among us or not?" Imagine this question being asked as the pillar of cloud, in which God was present and by which God revealed God’s glory and led them to this place, hovering in their sight. Moses' rebuke (that the people were putting God to the test) fell on deaf ears. They began to rehearse their memories of the "good old days" in Egypt, contrasted with their miseries and lack of resources in the desert (17:3). Unable to dissuade the people, Moses could only cry out to the Lord for help (17:4).
This incident at Massah and Meribah becomes a description for the hardness of the hearts of the people. Also, Massah and Meribah are evidence of the grace of God and of God’s presence and provision for the people.
Consider what it means to permit a moment of dissatisfaction to cause you
to think that you were better off in captivity than you are being liberated.
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Wednesday, March 15, 2023 |
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Firstly, when your faith in God is challenged remember what has been done by God to get you where you are.
“The Lord says, I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt, I’ve heard their cries by reason of their taskmasters, I know your sorrows and I have come down to deliver you”. (Exodus 3:7-8). The Lord provided a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night as their wilderness positioning system (WPS) like our global positioning system (GPS). That is how they had been journeying with the direction of the One who liberated them from captivity.
After all that has been done "it was now that the people became dissatisfied."
Dissatisfaction leads to doubt. Doubt leads to demanding proof, which makes one forget all that has been done. Listen to the admonition, "do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did" (Psalm 95:8-9). Do not be disloyal and faithless and unreliable due to dissatisfaction.
In the temptation of Jesus, He was challenged by the tempter to prove that He was the Son of God by jumping off the pinnacle of the temple, but our Lord rebuked him with a reference to this incident at Massah and Meribah (Matthew 4:5-7). Satan had no right to challenge Jesus for this would suggest that God is so unreliable that God must prove God’s self. You believe in God because of the experiences that have fostered your faith and convinced you of the reality of the presence of the Lord in your life. A set back here and there does not eradicate the history of confirmation about the Lord’s presence in the experiences of your life.
Dissatisfaction leads you to go from asking to demanding. It is alright to ask; when you are in a relationship you can make requests. It is disrespectable to demand because it presupposes that you have a privilege to do so. Dissatisfaction can lead to making awful choices; choices with consequences that can be devastating.
Compare the things that cause you to be dissatisfied with the opportunities for satisfaction about what has been done to confirm the presence of the Lord with you.
There is a composition with the following lyrics:
When waves of affliction sweep over the soul
And sunlight is hidden from view, / If ever you’re tempted to fret or complain,
Just think of His goodness to you. Just think of His goodness to you;
Yes, think of His goodness to you; Though storms over you sweep,
He is able to keep; / Just think of His goodness to you.
Consider what it means that dissatisfaction leads to demanding what
you want and forgetting what the Lord has done to get you to where you are.
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Secondly, when your faith in God is challenged trust the presence of the Lord when it seems that the lord is absent from your situation.
“Is Yahweh present with us, or not?" is the question their quarreling raised despite previously experiencing the presence of the Lord.
Wrestling with the God question, "Is God with us or not?" ignores God's previous sustaining grace. It suggests that God is not dependable, reliable or trustworthy.
There was a lot of complaining and grumbling in the wilderness. Delivering one kind of "ultimatum" after another, they set themselves up as the ones who could judge whether or not God was with them, and whether God was doing what God was supposed to be doing for them. Maybe given all that had already been done they began to feel entitled, taking for granted their privilege. How presumptuous that we want to be the ones to decide what shall count as evidence of God's good presence and activity among us, or that we determine the kind of God we want as opposed to being chosen by a God that initiates a relationship with us.
We have seen the outcome when we make gods in our image with all our anxieties, fickle mindedness and vulnerabilities. The Lord is not a cosmic bell-hop to do what you want. The Lord is not your errand person for you to command in order for you to believe. Imagine how disrespectful it is to demand that God prove God’s self to you on your terms without consideration about what the Lord expects of you who are made in His image and fashion in His likeness to live up to what the Lord expects of you.
Notice that the people are all about God's need to act when there's no water, but seem to take the water for granted when it was provided plentifully in the past. Which experiences shall we take as the most reliable evidence concerning God presence in the world and in our lives? In fact, in Exodus 15:27, just before the manna story, the Israelites spent time in "Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees; and they camped there by the water." That narrative about that comfortable part of the journey doesn't mention any conversation about God's care or Moses' leadership when things were going well. Imagine the parts of the journey when you were convinced by the Lord’s presence getting eclipsed and forgotten when you are dissatisfied?
The Bible makes it clear that the Lord is always faithful.
There is a parallel between the doubts of the people at Rephidim, and our own doubts at different points in our lives when things get tough. In response, think
about, the memory of oasis points in our past, where provision of our needs has carried with it a strong sense of God's presence," but also on the future hope that draws us forward, "something that reaches back to us from the future, to give us a foretaste of what lies ahead. It's hard to imagine that the people had any idea of what lay just ahead, up on that mountain, and how it would shape their lives. When water gushes from that rock at the base of Horeb (another name for Sinai, where they would receive the Torah), "sustaining water" comes not from where they are but from where they are heading."
What would it look like to be sustained by the future more than by what is right before us in the present. What’s ahead will continue to provide the impetus for you to discern the constant and abiding presence of the Lord in your life. What you received in the past prepares you for receiving more of the same in the future.
Consider what it means that the Lord is present even if we do not
sense the Lord’s presence providing provisions to sustain us through
our complaining and grumbling in our present and tomorrow.
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Thirdly, when faith in God is challenged, remember what the Lord has done in your previous wilderness experiences.
There's more than one way to see and remember the wilderness experiences of life.
We might explore how we assess our wilderness experiences. There's the wilderness, a powerful symbol, like Moses' staff, capable of being experienced in more than one way. Throughout the story of the people of faith (and even today), "wilderness" can be lovely in a rugged and stark way - a pristine holy place where you can draw closer to God. Or it can be a lonely, threatening place, symbolizing despair and abandonment.
This is the Lenten season where we realign allegiances, reconsider our commitments and reorder our priorities. We mimic what Jesus did as he was driven into the wilderness to be tempted to sort out his identity as the Son of God. We do the same during this season of the Christian calendar year to sort out our identity as children of God called Christians.
If the wilderness itself embodies two very different meanings, the memory of Israel is also starkly divided about its time there. On the one hand, there's the memory of grumbling, complaining, and unfaithfulness, but it's also true that the people looked back on their time there under "God's gracious and miraculous care." And so, while manna is remembered to this day as God's gracious response to human need, what's remembered about the water incident is the grumbling rather than the gift, as verse 7 tells us, in the names Moses gives the place, Massah and Meribah (the place where you test the Lord quarreling as you demand what you want to be done).
Remember the wildernesses the Lord has brought you through. Remember how the Lord had made a way out of no way. Remember the Lord never leads you into a situation in which advancement is impossible or retreat is necessary. When you get to the end of the road, the Lord extends a new path, when you get to the end of your rope the Lord gives you a new line. When you lose your determination, strength and will, the Lord intervenes and injects the hope you require to keep on believing.
“May the God of hope full you with all joy and peace as your trust in God, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13
Consider what it means to reflect on what the Lord has done
throughout the wildernesses of your life to get you to where you are
providing the hope you require to keep on believing.
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Conclusion
I will trust in the Lord / I will trust in the Lord,
I will trust in the Lord till I die.
I will trust in the Lord, / I will trust in the Lord,
I will trust in the Lord till I die.
I’m going to watch, fight, and pray,
I’m going to watch, fight, and pray,
I’m going to watch, fight, and pray till I die.
I’m going to watch, fight, and pray,
I’m going to watch, fight, and pray,
I’m going to watch, fight, and pray till I die.
Consider what it means to trust in the Lord in all of life’s changing scenes of life - whether good or bad, happy or sad, sick or healthy, impoverished or abundant, through dissatisfaction, discontent, distress and disappointment.
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